Saturday, April 15-Monday, April 17: Travel to New Day Orphanage and arrival

*The first of day-by-day recap blog posts about PPIHN's Spring 2017 trip to Zambia. Each trip I do these day-by-day posts to give everyone who supports us an in depth look at the trip--to see what amazing things God is doing through PPIHN, to describe what we as team members cannot in just a conversation with you and to be accountable to those who donate to make these trips happen. 

This year's trip was amazing! Including new patients and follow ups, we had 38 prosthetic patients, 22 eye patients, gave out over 200 pairs of eyeglasses and countless toothbrushes and shared the Good News with so many people---all in just 12 working days. 

Our flight left DFW on Saturday, April 15th at 9:55pm. Those traveling on team PPIHN this year were John Brinkley (ocularist), Chris Reiff (prosthetist), Traci Phelps (prosthetist), myself (prosthetist) and Rick Cayton (friend of John's who came to assist the team). Check-in is always a bit of a fiasco with so many bags....17 checked bags this year. And thankfully all the luggage made it through to Zambia. 

These ladies at check-in were so helpful.

All checked in and ready for the long travel ahead. L to R: Rick, Traci, Chris, Katie and John

Blu and Teacher Carolyn picked us up at the airport in Livingstone on Monday, and then almost a 4 hour ride back to New Day Orphanage. We were fortunate to arrive before dark, so we could unload all our bags and take supplies to the clinic. 

The van and trailer with all our luggage.

Arriving at the clinic and an informal look around (while everyone was talking).

We were excited to be back at New Day for another trip. We had planned to use Tuesday morning for set up of the clinic and then have some patients that we had seen in past years to come in the afternoon. 

*Next post: Tuesday, April 18: First day of patients