Birthday, Background, Beginnings

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy path." - Proverbs 3:5-6

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BEAUTIFUL AND WONDERFUL MOTHER!!! I wish I could be with you to celebrate today. I am so grateful for your love, support, teaching, and encouragement. You are such a gift to me! Thank you for always pushing me to trust Christ and know Him more. You are an incredible blessing and I love you so much!!

  Thank you all for your prayers so far. God is hearing and answering them as we are recovering quickly from jet-lag and have had renewed energy today. I was thinking this morning that I should give more background to what we are doing for those of you who either don't know or are still confused. :)

  Jason is currently in general surgery residency at Vanderbilt. It normally takes five years to complete general surgery residency, but Vanderbilt "highly recommends" doing two years of research between your third and fourth years of residency. This extends the total time to seven years. Jason has completed three years of residency and started his first year of research this July. During these two years of research Jason is getting his Masters in Public Health (MPH) at Vanderbilt. This program includes mostly classroom work for the first year and then leaves the second year open for doing a research project as a final part of the degree. We are currently in Kenya to pursue approval for an international research project.

  The research project we are pursuing is studying Wilms' tumor, which is a cancerous, pediatric, kidney tumor. These tumors seem to be most common in African children and they often seem to have poorer outcomes than in Caucasian children with the same treatment. These differences could be for many reasons, but one of the pediatric surgeons at Vanderbilt needs someone to come to Kenya to collect tissues from these tumors for further study and evaluation.

   Long story made a little shorter, Jason is hoping to be the one to do the groundwork for this project. If the project is approved and funded (long, complicated process), then we will come back to Kenya for approximately six months starting next July to actually set things up. We are planning to include three different hospitals in the study, two of which are mission hospitals that train national surgeons (Our long-term passion and plan!).

   So... this three week trip we are on now involves visiting each of the three hospitals, meeting with key people, asking lots of questions, learning all we can about the people and culture of Kenya, and (for me) teaching nurses while at one of the mission hospitals.

  We had a couple of meetings this morning at Kenyatta University Hospital here in Nairobi. They went well but set my mind spinning with a lot of questions about this next year.... will we get funding and approval? where will we be either way? what will my role be in all of this? how can I best help Jason? what is God's purpose and plan in all of this?

   All of these questions leave me with mixed emotions of excitement, fear, wonder, concern, and anticipation. I'm excited to learn and grow, fearful of being stretched, in wonder of where we are, concerned about my own inadequacies, and in anticipation of how God will work in the midst of it all.

   I began this post with Proverbs 3:5-6 - my Mother's life verse. I am resting on this promise today. As I learn to trust the Lord with all I am, and give Him all of my life, He will direct my path.