The Super Bowl is one of the most anticipated events in America each year. With the championship of the NFL on the line, entertaining commercials, and a spectacular halftime show, an estimated 190 million people watched the game in 2006. And one would assume the wife of one of the head coaches in the game would be one of those 190 million.

But Kathy Holmgren, the wife of Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Holmgren, decided to skip Super Bowl XL, and Detroit, for something she considered more important—a faith-based humanitarian trip to Africa.

Kathy Holmgren and her daughter, Calla, left three days before the big game on a 17-day medical training mission with Northwest Medical Teams—a relief group based in Portland, Oregon—to the northwest region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. A nurse and obstetrician, respectively, the two joined six other physicians with experience as missionaries.

During the three days it took to reach the region, the medical team traveled over marginal roads that narrowed to near non-existence, waded through streams, and crossed rough-hewn and often improvised bridges.

While much of the world tuned in to the Super Bowl, the team was working with the staff of a hospital operated by the Evangelical Covenant Church, the denomination the Holmgrens belong to.

The hospital is the only medical facility for 300,000 people in the region, and the staff is often forced to use rudimentary equipment when treating 2,500 patients a month. More than 3.9 million Congolese have died since 1998, most from preventable disease, according to the British medical journal The Lancet.

Kathy Holmgren spent 10 months in the region during 1970, but gave up her dream of being a Covenant medical missionary to marry. Last October, Mike Holmgren's birthday present to his wife was the trip back to the country she loves.

The family did not consider the two women might miss the Super Bowl.

"I don't think we paid much attention to the date," Kathy said. "As the possibility of our being in the game became a reality, we decided to continue with our plans. The actual game makes me so nervous, so I don't watch anyway, and we feel like this trip is important."