This Time, I Get to Stay

Hello, Lumos community! My name is Ella Quincy, and very soon, I will be leaving for Antigua, Guatemala. After graduating from Belmont in May, I finished two additional prerequisite classes for medical school, packed up my apartment in Nashville, and drove home to New Jersey, where I get to spend some time with my family before the big journey.

As my departure gets closer, one question seems to come up more than any other. People keep asking me, “Are you nervous?” And the strange thing is, I’m honestly not. At least… not yet.

I’m sure the nerves will come. Maybe it’ll hit me at the airport, when I’m standing there with four months of my life packed into a couple of suitcases. Or maybe it’ll be once I’m actually in Guatemala and struggling to find the right words in Spanish. I know there will be moments when I feel overwhelmed and probably unsure of myself. But right now, more than anything, I just feel ready! When I look back, I know everything in my life has led me to this moment.

I was lucky enough to grow up traveling with my family to Spanish-speaking countries, often as part of short-term service trips. I remember wanting so badly to be able to communicate with the people we met. When I finally got to start learning Spanish in middle school, I went all in. I bought dictionaries, workbooks, and even Spanish for Dummies, and would stay up under the covers with a flashlight practicing phrases so I could try them out on my teacher the next day.

Around sixth grade, my family traveled to Honduras to visit my cousin, who was teaching English at a school outside of Tegucigalpa. We brought books and school supplies and spent time at the school with her. I didn’t know it at the time, but that trip would be the beginning of a connection to Central America that has followed me ever since.

Years later, during my freshman year at Belmont, I stumbled across the Belmont Global Medical Brigades table at the BruinLink fair. They were preparing for a medical brigade to Honduras, and between my history with the country and my training as an EMT, I knew I had to sign up. That March, I traveled to Danlí, where we worked alongside local healthcare professionals to support a week-long medical clinic. I came home knowing I wanted experiences like that to remain part of my life.

The following year, I became the leader of Belmont’s Global Medical Brigades chapter, which brought me back to Honduras in 2025 and, this past March, to Guatemala. Now, just a few months later, I’m preparing to return to Guatemala. Only this time, instead of staying for a week, I’ll be staying for four months.

A week is enough time to meet people and ask questions, but it isn’t enough time to really understand a community. I would come home from these trips wishing I had more time to listen, learn, build relationships, and understand the place beyond what I could experience in a week. That is what makes this Lumos experience feel so different!

That being said, I will not arrive in Guatemala assuming I have answers simply because I have medical training, have led brigades, or have traveled before. I also don’t want to show up with a list of things I hope to implement without first understanding whether they are actually wanted or needed. If anything, my previous experiences have taught me how much I still have to learn.

One of the things I am most excited about is how much I don’t know yet. As a Type A person, I sometimes struggle when I don’t have control over everything in my life. For the next four months, there will be a lot I can’t control. And maybe that’s a good thing! I want to make mistakes in Spanish, hear perspectives different from my own, and let the people around me challenge the way I think. I get to learn from my host family, my Spanish teachers, local healthcare professionals, community members, and so many people I haven’t even met yet. That is probably what excites me most.

I also just feel incredibly lucky to have this opportunity. Four months is a long time to step away from everything familiar and immerse myself in a different place, language, and way of life. I know there will be days when I feel confused, uncomfortable, or completely out of my element. I don’t expect every day to be easy, and I want these blogs to be a place where I can share those days too. But I also know there is so much to learn in those moments. I want to get comfortable being uncomfortable. I want to be okay with not knowing the right word, not knowing exactly what I’m doing, and having to ask for help.

So, that’s where I am right now. I’m excited, grateful, curious, and somehow still not nervous! Ask me again when I’m standing in the airport with those suitcases.

Thank you all for following along. I’m excited to share not only what I do over the next four months, but what I learn, what challenges me, and all the unexpected things in between.

Here are a few personal goals I have, so you all can keep me accountable:

• Become fluent in Spanish (I think I’m about 60% of the way there!)
• Get comfortable doing things alone
• Keep a journal (I guess this kinda counts!)
• Take a cooking class
• Explore Guatemala beyond Antigua
• Learn something from someone every day