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Archive for March, 2008

First Leg of the Journey is Done

31 Mar

Just a quick post as we have just arrived in Frankfurt, Germany. We have about a four hour layover here before our flight to New Delhi, India. One of our friends, Paige, was gracious enough to provide us with a ride to the airport in Minneapolis and we managed to get all of us and our luggage on to the plane successfully. Luke and Karuna both slept for about five hours on our flight over the Atlantic which was a huge blessing. We hope that they will get any energy they have remaining out of their system during our layover in Frankfurt and then sleep for another eight hours on our flight into India.
Some specific things you can pray for in the next 24-48 hours:

That Luke and Karuna would do okay on their next flight.
Melissa and Christo would stay awake and alert as they get to Delhi because of the constant concern of thieves at the airport.
That all of our luggage would arrive safely in India.
That customs in India would go smoothly and that we’d be able to get all the donated medical equipment we are bringing to Makunda into India without major obstacles.
That we would quickly readjust to the new time zone in India and get over jet-lag quickly.

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Posted in Missions, Travel

God’s Provision

29 Mar

We wanted to rejoice with all of you and praise God as we celebrate God’s many provisions leading up to our trip to India and our upcoming move to Dallas. We have been so amazed to see what God has been able to do as we’ve placed our faith in Him as we get ready to make some big moves. It is also such a blessing to have such ripe opportunities to teach Karuna and Luke of God’s abundant provision. Just a few of the many ways God has answered our prayers in the last couple of weeks:

Raising all the support we needed to make it possible for us to go to India for the next six weeks to explore our options regarding long term medical mission work with the Emmanuel Hospital Association. Thank you to all who have so generously given of your resources and thank you to the many who have committed to praying for us as we make this trip. This has been such a great faith building exercise for us as we’ve learned to trust God for his provision.
Medical supplies made available to us from Mayo to be able to take to Makunda. The members of the anesthesia department here were so willing to help us find supplies that they could donate to take to the hospital. What is even more amazing is that the supplies that they had available were exactly the ones that Makunda had asked us to bring!
Finding out that we had matched in Dallas. As we prayed about where to rank for residency, it became increasingly clear that UT Southwestern in Dallas for Emergency Medicine would be the best place for us to get the training we’d need to prepare us for medical missions work in India. More than that it will be wonderful to have Christo’s family nearby to provide support and companionship for Melissa and the kids as we go through residency there.
Provision of a house in Dallas! We had found a foreclosed house that we fell in love with in West Dallas when we interviewed at UT Southwestern in January. This house is located in a very underserved neighborhood in Dallas (last census showed it to be the 11th poorest neighborhood in the US, median income of about $9000/person, and more than half of the residents have not finished their high school education). We felt that God was leading us to live in this neighborhood because of the potential for a great impact on that community by living in a Christ-like manner and it would allow us to live with the same people that Christo would be serving at the hospital. We had placed an offer on the house in January with the faith that we would match at Southwestern. However, God said no and the bank accepted someone else’s offer on the house. We accepted that as providential but continued to pray for another house to become available in that same neighborhood. Then about three weeks ago, our realtor in Dallas called us to inform us that the house that we liked so much was back on the market because the financing for the other buyer had fallen through. What an answered prayer! We put in another offer on the house and it was accepted. Christo’s sister, Christine, offered to buy the house under her name to make it easier for us to get all the paperwork done quickly and so we’ll be closing on our new house in Dallas on Monday!
Provision for the sale of our condo. We had prayed that God would give us an answer regarding whether we could sell our condo before we left for India. We had a couple of people come and look at the condo but no one had put in an offer. Then out of the blue, one of our neighbors who lives in Indiana gave us a call about two weeks ago and asked if our condo was for sale and if so, whether he could buy it! What was amazing to us was that we had put in so much work to get together flyers and put our home up on real estate listing websites and yet the person that God had brought to us to buy the condo didn’t see any of that. All the more glory to God because if it wasn’t for His hand working in this, all of this would not have happened. We are planning on closing on the condo in May and we’ll get just enough out of the sale of our condo in Rochester to make it possible to put a down payment on the house in Dallas. How amazingly God has provided for us and we hope you will be encouraged by this as well.

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Posted in Missions, Residency

Final Week, Admissions Committee & Lois

28 Mar

The last of our preparations for our trip to India were finished this week. We finished packing six suitcases that we will be checking and six suitcases/backpacks that we will be carrying on. By the time we’re done we’ll have almost 400 pounds of luggage to take to India. Almost half that weight is items that we’ll be taking to the hospital in terms of medical supplies, food items that were requested and other items that are hard to find easily in the area we’ll be working in.

This week was also busy as Christo finished his last week of classes at Mayo and Melissa, Karuna, and Luke tied up loose ends before we leave for India. Karuna had her final dance lessons this week and so we have some pictures from her last class in the pictures gallery. We were also glad that we got to spend more time with our neighbor Lois who lives down the hall so that the kids could say goodbye to her before our trip. It has been wonderful to have Lois as a neighbor for the last four years because she has functioned in many ways as a surrogate grandparent to Karuna and Luke. Karuna has regular times when she gets to go over to Lois’ condo to watch Sesame Street and Luke loves to play with Lois’ cat Cleo. We wanted to make sure to take some pictures of the kids with Lois and so we have a couple of those pictures in the gallery as well.

This week was also the last time that we’ll get to meet with our Bible study group. Our Bible study group, led by Steve and Ingrid Ansell (one of the hematologists at Mayo along with his wife), has been such a blessing to us. We have enjoyed being able to go through several books with this group, the most recent of which was Philippians. What we appreciated most about this Bible study was their willingness to understand our weird schedule due to Christo’s rotation schedule. The Bible study is composed of several other consultants, fellows, residents, and we’ve been the token medical school students but they have made us feel so welcome in the group and we’ll miss not being able to meet with our group once we move to Dallas for residency.

On Thursday night of this week we got to celebrate the end of the Mayo Admissions Committee season with another dinner at the Foundation House. Christo has served as one of the Mayo Medical School Admissions Committee members this past year and has worked for the last two years on designing and implementing the computer application that helps to rank medical school candidates. He has thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to interview and select some outstanding candidates for next year’s Mayo Medical School class. (It is a perfect fit for his personality!) Each year Mayo Medical school receives about 4000-4500 applications out of which approximately 250 are selected for on-campus interviews to fill a class of 42 students. This year five of the candidates Christo interviewed have been selected to be part of the incoming class. The committee is composed of 21 members with six of them being fourth year medical students. The dinner was a fun time to celebrate the incoming class, recognize contributions of individual committee members, and to enjoy some great food and conversation at the Foundation House.

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Posted in Daily Living, Family, Pictures

Grandpa Jake & Grandma Elaine

23 Mar

We had a special treat this week when Melissa’s grandparents, Jake & Elaine, visited us from Cozad, NE. We had been asking them to come and see Rochester since we moved here for medical school and so it was great that they were able to finally see Rochester and Mayo before we moved away from here for residency. Grandpa Jake and Grandma Elaine have always been so willing to drive far distances to come see us…they even came all the way down to College Station for Christo’s graduation from Texas A&M.

Karuna and Luke especially enjoyed getting to play with their great grandparents and we enjoyed hearing their many stories including the one about their car breaking down in the panhandle of Texas during their honeymoon. They are such a testament to the work of Christ and we praise God for the example they have been to us with over 55+ years of marriage. We hope we have such a good relationship with one another after 50 more years of marriage.

While Grandpa Jake and Elaine were here they helped Christo celebrate his match results, Karuna and Melissa got to go swimming at the pool in their hotel, and they treated us to a great meal at Pannekoeken – the restaurant we most often visit with our out of town guests so that they can experience something that is unique about Rochester.

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Posted in Family, Pictures

Match Day 2008

22 Mar

Match results came back on Thursday and we found out that we’ll be spending the next three years in Dallas doing my residency in emergency medicine at UT Southwestern. We were so excited to learn that we’ll be doing residency there because they have a wonderful EM program and a great mission of public service. What really drew us to Dallas was the exceptional clinical training available there with almost 220, 000 patients seen annually in the ER there. They also have a level 1 pediatric and adult trauma center which was important to us because of the experience that would give us to work with people of all ages. We are also excited because being in Dallas will allow us a couple more years to be near family so that our kids will get to know their grandparents a little bit better before we leave for India to do long term medical mission work. Melissa’s family is often in Dallas as well and so we figure it will allow us to see both sides of the family more often than when we have been in Rochester, MN.

Here was our list of residency choices for emergency medicine:

UT Southwestern
University of New Mexico
Cincinnati
Vanderbilt
Emory
Carolinas Medical Center
Denver

Match day at Mayo Medical School is a pretty big event and it is held at the Foundation House, the former home of Dr. Will Mayo which was given to the Mayo Foundation in 1938. The Foundation House is a pretty amazing place with 47 rooms arranged on 2.5 levels with a five-story tower. It is designed in the style of an English manor house. Many of the big functions we have at Mayo are at the Foundation House and many of the dignitaries that have come to Mayo have been entertained here.

Match day began around 12 noon on Thursday when Dr. Barrier passed out our envelopes with match results. Match day is always a day of mixed emotions because many of us get to go where we wanted and others don’t get their first choice for residency. This year about 90% of Mayo Medical students got one of their top three choices for residency. What is difficult is to rejoice with those that are celebrating while consoling those that are weeping. We were all the more excited for match day this year because Melissa’s grandparents, Jake & Elaine, got to help us celebrate our match results by driving 10 hours from Nebraska to be with us for this special day!

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Posted in Medicine, Pictures, Residency

Black Monday

18 Mar

Just wanted to let you know that we have found out that we have matched at a residency in emergency medicine! On the Monday of match week all medical students that have applied for residency get a one line e-mail at noon with the subject line that says, “Did I match?” telling them if they have matched or not. My e-mail said, “Congratulations! You have matched.” We are eagerly anticipating Thursday when we get to find out where exactly we matched for residency in emergency medicine. We are hoping that when we open the envelope on Thursday it will say University of Texas – Southwestern but we will trust in God’s providence as He leads us to the right residency even if it is not Dallas. We’ll let you know in a couple of days.

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Posted in Medicine

Some Pictures From Around the House

16 Mar

If you would like to see some pictures of us in our Rochester home, click on the gallery below to see pictures from the last couple of days. On other news – please be in prayer for us as we try to finalize the possibility of selling our condo in Rochester. We have an interested buyer but we need all the details to work out for this sale to happen so pray for God to do the miraculous!