Pages from the Philips Seeking God's leading in medical missions

Finally an Update

No we have not disappeared to the ends of the earth or gone missing.  It has been many months since we updated the blog mainly because of the demands of residency and taking care of three very active children but don’t worry we’re doing well…maybe I should rephrase that…surviving my second month of all night shifts in the ED.

A quick overview of the last few months:

• Vivek is now 9 months old, we cannot believe how interactive he has become
• Karuna and Luke started their second year of homeschooling and are loving every minute of it
• I finished one month of night shifts in the ER, a month of day shifts in the ER, a month in the ER at Baylor Dallas and am now on a second month of nights at Parkland/Childrens
• Melissa helped to start up a Side by Side chapter in Dallas three weeks ago and they are going through the book Sacred Marriage
• We harvested our crops from the past year incluiding 4 honey dew melons, lots of raspberries (they are still bearing for us) and strawberries, and ate our first pomegranate from our tree
• I traveled to Boston for a week to attend the annual American College of Emergency Medicine conference
• We traveled to Nebraska for a week to visit Melissa’s family

We have been blessed with a beautiful fall so far in Texas.  The leaves have not quite fallen yet but days with temperatures in the 60s and 70s have been a nice refreshing change compared to the hundred degree days of Texas summer.  Perhaps the most important “big thing” from the last few months has been our decision to forgo doing a fellowship here in the U.S. and instead work on returning to India as quickly as possible after my residency training.  We had been praying for over a year with regard to whether I should spend another two years after residency at UTSW doing a fellowship in practice management and administration but the answer right now appears to be no.  We went to a wonderful dinner sponsored by Project MedSend about a month ago and afterwards both Melissa and I were quite convicted about minimizing the time we have in the U.S.  MedSend is an organization that helps to pay student loans as long as you are on the mission field so that student loan payments do not become a hindrance in considering missions as a career.  After meeting with their leadership and praying we felt that spending more time in the US would just end up causing us to put down more roots and thus make it harder for us to leave to where God has called us long term.  This has been a big step in faith for us as it moves forward our time frame to go abroad by almost two years but also exciting to see how God will provide to make the resources possible to go back to India.

Our tentative plan now, God willing, is that after I finish residency I’ll spend about a year working in the U.S. while I take my written and oral boards, followed by about 6 months for support raising and building a group of people that will regularly commit to pray for our work in India.  We are then hoping to travel to Bangkok to spend six months there at the tropical medicine school followed by six months of intensive language study in India to learn to speak Hindi before we finally end up at a mission hospital.  Please be in prayer for us over the next year as we choose a mission sending agency and as we try to narrow down potential hospitals for us to serve at in India.

Residency has been going well these past 4 months of my second year although it has been more challenging than the first year.  As a second year resident at Parkland, I’m now responsible for running my section of the ER (called a pod) which can have anywhere from 12 – 30 patients at a time.  It has been a steep learning curve with regard to managing multiple critically ill patients while still trying to keep the department moving so that patients do not have to wait an incredible amount of time to be seen.  Perhaps what has made this second year more challenging has been my schedule where I’ve spent two months just doing overnight shifts.  The work itself is not bad on the overnight shifts because it will finally slow down around 3 in the morning but the effects on the rest of family life and social life have been hard because I’m working when everyone else is sleeping and sleeping when everyone else is awake.  So for those that have tried to get in touch with us…I’ll apologize again for the slow response times and blame the schedule .

Melissa and the kids have been very gracious with me during these months of night work.  Vivek is now over nine months old and we’ve enjoyed getting to see his personality develop.  He is able to sit up on his own and now is trying to crawl.  He is still pretty tiny…I think still less than the 5th percentile but makes up for it with his sweet personality.  Vivek is happy most of the time and content with watching his siblings try to entertain him.  Luke is obsessed with firefighters, firemen and astronauts.  He can be frequently found around the home taking apart the hose to our vacuum cleaner and pretending it is a water hose to put out fires.  I think our house has burned down at least a couple of hundred times based on the number of times he has had to put out “fires.”  Karuna is still a very spirited 5 year old.  She just started her second year of homeschooling with Melissa and cannot put down her books…even on her days off she would like to homeschool.  She even went into tears recently because she was so sad that we cannot do homeschooling for college!

Melissa has been involved with starting up a new Side By Side chapter in Dallas and they met for the first time three weeks ago.  Side By Side is a ministry of CMDA designed to reach out to the spouses of medical students, residents and faculty to encourage them to grow spiritually as they husbands navigate the difficulties of a medical career.  Melissa had been considering starting this up with a friend from Rochester since we moved back to Dallas but the addition of Vivek put a temporary hold on the plans.  If you are a spouse of someone in the medical field in Dallas and would like to be involved in this group just send Melissa an e-mail.  They meet on Thursday mornings from 10-12 and are going through the book Sacred Marriage.

I think that is about all the big highlights.  We will try to be more faithful in updating the blog in the future.  I’ve also included some pictures from this past May (I’m really behind on putting up pictures).

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