Pray With Us This Friday

Hello to All!

 

 

 

We are excited to announce an upcoming ministry starting this Friday, May 31st.
Bongolo will be hosting a series of small group spiritual retreats for our Gabonese nursing staff. 

Over the past few months, God has been laying the details in place for these 5 Friday evenings, continuing through the end of June. His answer comes after much prayer for the spiritual renewal and vitality of our nursing staff, who after many years of working short staffed, carrying heavy patient loads with limited resources, and pouring themselves into the spiritual care of their patients, have become weary and burnt-out.

Pray for God's annointing on the teachers of His word during these retreats and that the Holy Spirit would speak to His children and break the strong holds of long-hardened hearts.

We are excited about what God is going to do in our midst.
Please consider partnering with us in prayer in the coming weeks. 
Consider praying for one, two or all of the Friday evenings as a small group, as a church Body, as a family, as a group of friends or in your personal prayer time.
The evenings go from 5:30-9:00 pm jungle time (12:30-4:00pm EST).
May 31st, June 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th.

Thank you for praying for this critical piece of the ministry here.

 

It is a joy to serve Him together with you.

 

 

 

Love from Jungle,

         ~Amanda 



"So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image."
~ 2 Corinthians 3:18

 

 

 

 

Hostility --> to Love

Dear Friends,

HOSTILITY --> to Love.

I'm sure in reading this title, you expect some great story of God's redeeming love and transforming power in the life of a student, a nurse or a Gabonese woman I'm discipling in a Bible study.

You're right, the first part is true -- except this is in the life of someone else - the life of me.

 Not what you expected from your faithful missionary nurse serving in the African jungle?

I have heard many paradigms to describe the process of cultural adaptation. They all seem to revolve around  words like CHAOS, bridges, Settling, UNSETTLED, Squaresville to Roundsville, NEW home. However there is one paradigm that has stuck with me as I've moved overseas.
It comes from a dear couple with whom by some "chance" meeting I met on a train coming back from the Paris airport, at a point when I was missing home, tired and discouraged. They had served many years in embassies and in missions during their career, and amidst lifting my spirits with their joy and compassion, the advice they gave me was this: 

Honeymoon -- Hostility -- Humor --Home 

They said, "you will probably transition through every stage when you move to Gabon. One might be longer than the other, but the important thing to remember, it that HOME is coming."

HOSTILITY

I don't like that word. 

I don't think there is any positive connotation one can retrieve from it in our language.

I shuddered at the thought that this would one day describe me. 

Then, 6 months after moving to Gabon, I found myself smack in the middle of it.

It came on suddenly like a savage fever and left a bad taste in my mouth. 

I was frustrated by everything around me it seemed.

There were little things like not ever being able to finish baking before the swarm of ants plague the kitchen, the lizards who claim our entire home as their outhouse, the drop-dead-ly snakes who play tag outside our front door, the oh-so-lovely mold that covers everything from socks and jewelry to sweatshirts and passports. (I'm surprised my hair wasn't molding!)

And yet those are things we can deal with, or adjust to. But there were things I could not fix, things that ran deeper. These were my perceptions at that point in time:

Unteachable spirits among the hospital staff. 

Lack of spiritual growth and depth in the National church.

Mentalities of entitlement.

Hoarding of knowledge. 

Laziness.
Persistent blindness to plank in their own eye amidst teaching in the National church.
Patient care centered on needs of nurses instead of needs of patients.

Acting out the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man with some of the ladies for their Women's Spiritual Retreat

For a couple months I was able to shadow one of the discipleship courses held at a local church. Along with being trained to teach the course later at the nursing school, I enjoyed the opportunity to get connected with believers in a small group setting. The study was deep and thorough and highly applicable. I was impressed by the material and the amount of personal study each lesson involved. It was exciting meeting the group and they seemed to have some really good discussions. The weeks passed, and every Friday evening the leader and I would watch as the attendance waxed and waned dramatically. 16 to 3, 8 to 5. Save 2 faithful men in the group, the rest were like playing Russian Roulette.
It was hard not to feel discouraged, but as the study drew to an end, the numbers started remounting up to 16 and it became time to review what God had been speaking to us and sharing it with the church. 

The leader, David -a deacon of our local church- asked one of the men, a long standing Christian who had faithfully been there every week, to share what he had learned that would help him to continue growing in his walk with the Lord.

I sat there in eager anticipation to hear how God had been working in this man who had been so faithful in the study each week. 

His response: 

"To pray to Jesus and obey the 10 commandments."

My brain did a double take. 

That was it.

A "yes Johnny that's right" Sunday school answer. 

What happened? Did I have unrealistic expectations?
I asked David about it on the way home.
He said, "It's interesting that you should notice. It has been one of the things most frustrating for me in moving to Gabon from my home in Burkina. The Gabonese do not seem to have a desire to go deeper with God. They do not hunger or thirst for something more. They are content with where they are at, as though it fulfills all their needs."

I felt disillusionment.

Then dreadful sorrow. 

What treason to become satiated with spiritual immaturity.
What loss to become inebriated by spiritual milk.

Visiting one of the local pastors and his family while hosting a vaccination clinic in his village

"Go to Réa." I was walking past the doors to Réa, our hospital's ICU/ recovery room on the walk home from church, when I very clearly heard the Holy Spirit say this to me. He had said something when I woke up that morning too, I was getting ready for church and it was as if God was like, "oh by the way, while you're putting on your mascara, don't forget you're going to stop into Réa today." 

I had thought it was a little odd, but one of the patients had coded a couple days before so I thought maybe I needed to check on her. 

So I walked in and she seemed fine, but across the room in the corner I could see everything was not ok. It was Eric (see previous post). He was having trouble breathing, his mom and dad were rocking beside his bed, weeping -as if it was already too late, and standing around his bed were three of my 1st year students who had just stopped in to say hi and were now standing there -having never seen anything like this before-with that stunned deer in the head lights look.

Oh Boy. I dropped my purse and Bible down on a chair at the nurse's desk and ran over to Eric's bed thinking to myself, "great idea to wear this dress to church today Amanda."

I started assessing Eric and what was going on as I called out equipment for the students to grab. 

We couldn't get a blood pressure or an O2 sat, and his heart rate was elevated. He didn't have any IV access, he was drifting in and out of consciousness and was having trouble breathing. Oh crud, we're in trouble-  and I'm all alone. I quickly glanced around the room for what resources I had. 

Oxygen.
His bed is the furthest from it.

I see four portable oxygen concentrators across the room. 

I go to grab one - it's chained and padlocked to the wall. No key. 

Same for all of them. 

"Oh right!" I think to myself. "I forgot we do this because if we don't bolt them to the wall, people will just walk off with them- because in the this culture, everyone shares everything material. Wonderful!"

Ok, Plan B. 

Move Eric to the Oxygen. 

"Well," I think to myself, "he's a quadriplegic, so, he's a big guy anyway and he'll be a complete dead weight. (No pun intended if we can't get something figured out soon!)" 

Plan C -move the bed.

Frantically we all start trying to push and pull his bed. Six of us! Nothing. Doesn't budge one inch.
I look under the bed for what could possibly be blocking us. 

It's the weather of all things. 

The humidity here destroys rubber to sticky, crumbly pieces, and rusts metal together. 

His wheels were completely rusted and the rubber was half crumbled off of each one. That bed was not going anywhere. 

Ok, Plan D.
Send one of the students to go get an unchained O2 concentrator from the nearest place- across the hospital in the medical ward.

Ok, our hands are tied with the O2 until she gets back.

Monitor.
There's one above his bed. --- Of course it is the only one in the entire room that doesn't work. Great.
I sick one of the students on constant manual BP duty and start looking for IV access on this guy, send a student to try and see if any of the Doc's are lingering around outside talking after church and start yelling and tapping Eric trying to keep him engaged with us. 

I need help.

Is there a nurse?

 

No nurse. 

Then I remember- we are so short staffed, that on nights and weekends we don't have enough nurses to cover everybody, so there is no nurse in Réa, someone just comes in to check in from time to time. 

By this time Eric starts vomiting. 

I am just praying for extra help and that God would spare Eric. 

In walks the student with the O2 concentrator that she had to roll from across the hospital on the gravel to get it to him. We hook him up and he finally has O2- we start getting an O2 sat.

I'm not finding any veins.

In walk Zach and Jen, 2 of our surgeons who, praise the Lord,  were still out talking after church. They come in and start getting set up to put in a central line. The reinforcements are here.  

We give him O2, fluids, some other treatments, his vital signs stabilize and later we find out he needs surgery, but he's going to be ok. 

I was so relieved and so thankful to the Lord for helping us and saving Eric. 

And I was so incredibly frustrated how everything had transpired. 

I don't know if I will ever forget the powerlessness I felt as a nurse,

standing there with a deteriorating patient, 

with 4! oxygen sources in the room

and all of them just out of reach and bolted to the wall.

Réa

What was wrong with me? Didn't I love the Gabonese people? Isn't that why I came to serve the Lord here in the first place? Now here I was, feeling hostile and bitter towards them. It wasn't just feeling bitter that I was in Gabon, it was feeling that way towards them, as a people. 

Why am I here? What am I even doing here? If they don't want to grow spiritually, don't want to receive teaching professionally, if they don't want to see their work at the hospital as a ministry to their own people, then what in the world am I doing here? If no one wants to take a leadership position because culturally the rest of the group will just see them as a target because they tried to be better then the rest and they'll just shoot him down, then how are we ever to hand over this ministry to the Gabonese people? How is this ministry ever to be independent? How are we to work ourselves out of a job? How are we to pass the baton for the Gabonese to reach their own people for Christ? 

My heart and mind and soul wove themselves into these elaborate knots. 

I remembered the counsel of that sweet couple on the train from Paris. 

HOSTILITY

~

HOME is coming.

I went to one of the more experienced missionaries on the team and sought counsel. 

What do I know? 

I know that this phase is a normal and expected part of the cultural adaptation process. 

What do I not know? 

How do I navigate through this period in a productive and God-honoring way?

After she listened to me vent for a LONG time, we prayed together.
Then we came up with a game plan.
Then we prayed again. 

I had been spending a lot of time in prayer just communing with God and refilling, but hadn't spent a lot of time praying specifically for the ministries I was involved with, the people who I was touching. 

So I committed to pray for this group of people that I was specifically involved with- everyday.
So everyday I brought them before the Lord.

...........................................


By a couple months later, the hostility had been erased. It wasn't instantaneous and it wasn't conscious. 

I didn't wake up one morning and suddenly say, "hey, I'm not hostile any more!"

But gradually I began to feel a foreign presence in the depths of my heart and soul - a Love that did not find it's source in me.

Did I not really love the Gabonese when I committed to come here 2 years ago? 

Of course I did. 

But I believe God is teaching me that love in ministry is kind of like romantic love.

There is an initial love, we could label it an infatuation, that develops.
This infatuation is not worthless, it has a purpose- it is motivating and inspiring, it commands our attention and moves us to respond. It's the love we feel when we see an orphaned child, the desperate need of an impoverished people or an urgent need for a position that we have the skills to fill.
We learn about the people and see them from afar, and we don't understand them, but we have a love for them. 

But God has taught me that there is a Love that replaces that initial infatuation, a Love that goes deeper, a Love that says, "I Love them despite knowing their culture. I Love them BECAUSE I - (in part)- understand them," a Love that is not simply emotive, but an essence of being that spurns us to an action, a Love whose only source is in God Himself.

I do not claim to have "arrived" in understanding the Gabonese culture. 

I do not claim that I am no longer frustrated by anything in the culture or that I will never again feel hostile towards the Gabonese. 

What I do claim, is a new Love for the Gabonese, because of how I know them, a Love that does not originate, or end, with me.

 Sometimes I wonder in the U.S., if we ever make it past the infatuation love in ministry. Do we push through the frustration phase in ministry, do we ever get to the other side? Or when things get tough do we simply say, "God is redirecting me in ministry," or "this ministry doesn't really fit my spiritual gifting now," when really God longs for us to push through, to give us a Love for those in our ministry which runs deeper, which Loves them because we've taken the time to know them, a Love which does not begin and end with US. 

.....

On April 9th, I was walking from my house to one of the missionary's. The late afternoon was beginning to relax for the evening as if it's day's work was done. The sun was starting to set- early here on the equator as it always does- the light mist of evening was starting to settle in, and it was as if the trees with their larger-than-life, green leaves were sighing with contentment, basking in the cooler evening air.
I started stepping down the the cement stairs outside on the hill towards her house and I took a moment to soak in all that was around me, as I had done many times before. This time something was different- as I looked around a sense of peace and of being settled overwhelmed me.
In that moment I knew - for the first time in 18 months ~ I was HOME.

At Home in the Jungle, 

         ~Amanda

  

With all my students

Faces of Bongolo

Hello Everyone!

Thank you to all of you for your continued love, prayers and support. 

Thought you might enjoy seeing some of the "Faces of Bongolo" - lives you have touched in these past 8 months as a ministry partner with us here at Bongolo Hospital.

Learning to walk again with the help of the Nursing students.

Seeing this elderly man's face makes me smile every time. He was brought in after a car accident with a femur fracture. He had a couple operations, after which he was stuck in a bed in traction- with a metal rod sticking out of his leg-for 6 weeks! 

Once out of traction, it was time to push him to get moving! Every morning the students and I would head in to get him up and walking in the corridors and every morning he would protest and protest, smiling and laughing all the while, "Madame! Madame! You're not going to make me walk with this metal rod thing in my leg are you?!?"- then he'd give in and let us walk the corridors with him. It was also an opportunity to teach the students how to correctly measure crutches for a patient and how to safely get patients out of bed. 

The students and I also discovered an abnormal heart rhythm on this gentleman while taking routine vital signs. The doctors were able to do further testing and discovered he had a severe heart condition. We were able to send him home with prevention strategies related to the health of his heart. 

It was a great example to the students to demonstrate the importance of taking accurate vital signs on patients- every single time.

These ladies always had a huge smile on their face every morning =)

Broken legs and Barbies

Broken legs and Barbies, waiting on a leg to heal....play time on the pediatrics ward, enjoying toys sent from churches in the U.S.

A patient from NYC!?!

 A patient from NYC!?! Yup, that's right! The lady on the left has been living in Brooklyn for the past twenty years with her husband, she was on vacation visiting her children and extended family in Gabon with her sister (pictured right) when they were caught in an automobile accident. The two ladies are both believers and we got to pray together every morning. They were a real encouragement and light in my day. Praise the Lord their injuries weren't too devastating and they were able to carry on with their visit after a week or so.

Eric

This is Eric. He has a remarkable story that I'll be continuing in the posts that follow, but for now a little back ground story. Eric is 26, he was working on a construction site up in one of the big cities, Port Gentil, when he fell off a scaffold and landed on his head. His injuries left him paralyzed from the neck down, and he consequently went to several medical facilities in the surrounding areas. He had four friends who stayed with him, and after months of him being neglected in hospital beds and left for dead, his four friends decided to act. They had heard about Bongolo, and in a sort of modern day replication of the four friends lifting their paralytic friend down to Jesus through a hole in the roof, Eric's four friends brought him from the big city to the stick's, to Bongolo, desperate for help for their friend.

I was teaching the students about bed sores and the importance of preventing them the day Eric showed up in the ER. Eric had massive stage 4 pressure ulcers on his coccyx and hips, going all the way to the bone. I asked him if he wouldn't mind the students seeing his wounds to show them just how important it is to turn your patients in bed. He said yes, seeming like he understood the importance and wanted to prevent this happening to someone else. The students entered, quietly and a few at a time, seeing first hand all that we had talked about in class. Some had to leave the room for a few mins, others were almost doubled over with the weight of the suffering of this young man. As they all came in and saw, it was as if their eyes had been opened. I could see that Eric was starting to feel vulnerable, so I hurried the students up and we recovered him and got him comfortable. A golden light, with a tint of green started shining into the ER through the curtain around his bed, I asked if someone would pray for him and one by one each student started quietly lifting their voices up in worship and crying out to God for Him to ease the suffering of this man around his bed. They started praying, all 16 of them out loud at once, and I watched Eric's face- tearful and and glowing with a sense of hunger for this demonstrated Love that overwhelmed him. We were all bonded from that moment on. A few weeks later, Eric decided to follow Christ. 

Stay tuned for more of Eric's journey...

This guy was a trooper from the very beginning and his wife so supportive. He was involved in an accident and came to us with a femur fracture ("8! Say 8!" - Brian Regan anyone?) Anyway, he wasn't walking as much as the surgeons needed him to be, so I started showing the students how to get him up and moving and how to dig for more information as to why he was so reluctant to move. After talking with him and his wife about what he was experiencing and looking through his chart, we discovered that his pain wasn't being very well controlled. So Monday on rounds the students and I brought it up to the surgeons and they added a different pain medication at night. By Tuesday he was walking the halls and Wednesday he had walked all the way across the hospital campus to the lab to get his blood work done! He was doing so much better that we sent him home that week. It was a good opportunity to teach the students the importance of really talking with your patients when they are not progressing to see what is really going on and to make sure their pain post-operatively is well controlled.

Herbert

Herbert is an energetic, out-going young man in his 20's with a good sense of humor. He came to us because of his leg- a classic Tropical Medicine case of Elephantiasis. It is caused by a parasite which blocks the flow of the lymphatic system, fluid starts to pool, causing an irreversible malformation of the extremity. He has been with us for several months undergoing several operations for a type of grafting to give him better use of his leg. He is a believer and we are very excited for him that will soon get to leave the hospital! Stay tuned for updated photos!

This young woman and her son, "Chance", were with us for several months on the surgical ward. She's 21, she had an epileptic seizure and fell into a fire, badly burning her feet and legs, even losing some of her toes. She was with us for months while we grafted her burns, and thus so was her little baby Chance. Grandma stayed with her to help care for him, but he learned to toddle here at Bongolo and was quite busy for his injured mama and tired grandma. So I'd bring him with me, putting him on my back or just carrying him, on rounds or working with the students to give his mama and grandma a break. He was my little helper throughout the mornings and helped keep the students in line =) The surgical ward and all the students were sad to see his joyful, little, toddling self leave when his mom got better and went home.

So there you have it- just a taste of some of the lives you have touched through your prayer and support out here in the jungle at Bongolo Hospital. It's really fun to share with you all some of the faces that have encouraged me to keep on keepin' on as I strive to remain faithful to His calling. I think I can speak for the entire team when I say we are very thankful for your partnership in this ministry with us. 

Thank you!

Love from the Jungle,

  ~Amanda 

Growing Through Grief from Afar

 

Hello To All,

As some of you may have heard, my dear Grandma recently left this earth to be with her Savior.

Her last days came suddenly upon us and I was unable to return to the U.S. to be with her in her last moments, or to be with my family for the funeral.


In moving overseas I had put the possibility of such a scenario in my mind, but I think little can really prepare you to grieve alone, away from family, away from familiar cultural grieving experiences and without accepted time away to process- in essence- grief from afar.

Working in an ICU, I have spent so many late nights holding the hands of family members and singing patients into the presence of Jesus while attending to their final medical needs, as the incessant "Beep. Beep. Beep." of the heart monitor slows to a silence. 

But this time I wasn't there. 

I can only hope a nurse was there for my grandma.

The morning after her death I was scheduled to do some anesthesia in the OR.

I tried to push past the numb reality that she was gone and the vat of loneliness which tried to swallow me, in longing to grieve in the arms of my family.  
But one by one the surgical cases rolled in and with it, the responsibility before me. I welcomed the busy distraction, but with every "Beep." of the monitor came the pungent reminder that I hadn't been there for her.

As each patient lay before me, fearful and anxious in remaining awake during the operation under spinal anesthesia, I found God giving repeated opportunities to bring comfort and peace.
In fact that day, I was able to connect with patients more closely than I ever had in the OR, and God brought an opportunity to pray with every single patient after their operation to rejoice with them that God had brought them through-each with a smile spread wide across their face.
God has brought me here.
My Grandma wouldn't have wanted me anywhere else.

I have discovered that cultural adjustment does not stop for anyone- not even for grief, in fact I have found that it is perpetuated by it.

In coming overseas I expected I'd be giving condolences differently, I never expected I'd have to receive them. 

I was somewhat caught off guard by the way people greeted me. They would very sincerely come and shake my hand and say how sorry they were for my loss, all the while smiling and giggling! At first I felt taken aback and then I tried to remember not to feel hurt, since it was something I definitely did not understand. I sat down with Mama Jackie, my Gabonese mama a little while later and asked questions about death and dying here, she said when a grandparent dies, the grandchildren are expected to make elaborate skits about the grandparent, humorous skits that "mock" the quirks of their grandparent, they move around the coffin during the performance, using humor to try and lighten the mood. Maybe the giggling while giving condolences was a heart felt effort to make me feel better.  

Mama Jackie also shared with me the deep sense of blame woven deep in the culture here. When someone passes away, whether by an accident, illness, old age, anything, someone is always to blame. It is always someone's fault, whether directly or through a curse- it was someone's fault. She said to me, "No one will ever erase from the mind of the Gabonese that when a husband or wife dies, their spouse is always to blame for taking their life. No exceptions." 

I confess that in my grief, in my sadness, I didn't want to be learning more. I didn't want to adapt to culture, I didn't want to keep finding myself outside of my comfort zone. I was so exhausted, I just wanted it all to stop for a little while so I could wrestle through my grief.
Yet there I was, in the thick of it all, learning a part of the Gabonese culture that is probably their biggest bridge to the Gospel- that Jesus Christ stepped in to claim the blame that was theirs.  

There have been many unexpected blessings from the Lord during this time of grief from afar.
Getting to say a last farewell to my Grandma through a very broken and choppy vonage connection of one of the missionaries. Both my brothers were granted leave from the Army and Navy to attend the funeral and support my Mom and Dad. A couple of the ladies here very kindly mourned with me in "attending" Grandma's funeral with me on audio skype, living out Galatians 6:2, "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." Finally, the presence of a peace and a joy that transcend all understanding. Despite being beyond my grasp, in the midst of the sorrow and the turmoil of grieving so far away and alone, peace and joy did come, and I knew that it was many of you who were lifting me up in prayer. Thank you.

So here I am, working to make sense of this grief from afar, and yet growing, which I suppose means it must be cultivating something good. There is still a final closure which has not yet come, though I sense that perhaps it will on a day when I can return to the States, rush into the open arms of my family and see with my own eyes my dear, sweet Grandma's grave.
For it really is just a vessel, Grandma is laughing and dancing before the Lord right now, and as my brother put it, "talking the ear off of Jesus in Heaven."

Goodbye for now Grandma, I'll see you on that joyous day when my time comes....


Love from the Jungle,
 ~Amanda

With both of my spit-fire Grandmas before I left

Merry Christmas from Bongolo!

Merry Christmas from the Jungle! 

Celebrating with new "family"

99.6 degrees and a Tropical Rainstorm Christmas...not the typical setting that comes to mind for your merry, jingle-all-the-way celebrations, but we had a marvelous time doing it! 
Christmas Eve we had a really fun progressive dinner throughout the mission station caroling all the way.

Bongolo's Christmas Eve "candle light"service =)

Later that night we went to Bongolo Alliance Church for their Christmas Eve service- talk about a cultural experience! Forget the candle lights! Bright lights, palm branches and loud songs of joy welcomed us into the packed out building. Christmas Eve here is sort of an opportunity for everyone to express their joy in Christ's coming to the world- whether that's in a reading or a song or a dance.
So there were small groups of older women reciting scripture, all the hospital staff singing a worship song, high school kids doing a dance number (think- scene from High School Musical, Africa style) and then there were the Americans who got up and sang O Come All Ye Faithful. Yup! That's right! Even we weren't exempt =)

There was actually a strand of lights up at Bongolo! We
were so excited!

Despite all the holly, jolly, merry celebration of it all, this first Christmas overseas has not been easy. It is difficult to be away from friends, family and a fiancé, feelings of home, snow, family traditions and everything that tells you deep inside that "Christmas time is here," but I think it has only magnified the reason we celebrate Christmas- Emmanuel- God with us. I am so thankful that He has been walking through this season with me.
Emmanuel- God with us. 
Below is a tangible account of that reality, what Christmas means for the world.

"Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people."

Thank you to all of you who have so faithfully been praying for the young woman from the previous post, "A Will to Live." I wanted to give you a quick update as to how God has been working. 

We had described the story of a young woman, newly diagnosed with AIDS, who had left the hospital to go back home intending to kill herself, but God had intervened! She had changed her mind and returned to Bongolo Hospital for medical help. Our prayer was that while with us, God would speak to her heart and bring spiritual healing as well. We asked you to pray with us that God would open her mind and heart to the Gospel. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About a week had passed after the young woman's return to us. I was checking up on the students in the medical ward and checking to see how the young woman was faring. I was surprised to discover that she had fallen into a coma a couple days prior, and had remained comatose since- it wasn't looking good. I could see the discouragement on the students' faces as they told me, and my heart fell as well....in that week before she became comatose, had she had enough time to hear and respond to the Gospel?

The next day she was gone.

A group of us were gathered near her room, discussing whether or not anyone had had the chance to talk through the Gospel with her. No one seemed to really know. She spoke a village language, Pounou, that was not widely spoken in the immediate area. Had anyone had the opportunity to share with her?


Just then one of my students, Zita, came up to us hearing our conversation. "Madame" she said, "I speak a little Pounou. The day before the young woman went into a coma, I talked with her. She told me a woman who happened to be taking care of another patient here at Bongolo, came into her room and started sharing with her about Jesus- in her mother tongue- Pounou! She told her about Jesus- and the young woman decided to follow Christ."   

"For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." 

What a God we serve! In her brokenness, in her illness, God kept this woman from committing suicide, what compassion that He gave her a willingness to come back to the hospital to receive medical help, what provision that He had her come back with enough time for the Gospel to be presented to her before she fell into a coma, what mercy that God provided someone not only to share the Gospel with her- but someone who spoke it in her heart language, what obedience that that person obeyed the prompting from the Holy Spirit to share their faith, what grace that God would orchestrate all these events to draw this woman unto Himself- right before she fell into a coma and died, what Love that God would send His Son into the World "that the world might be saved through him"....


This is the gift of Christmas - Emmanuel, God with us!

Merry Christmas to you all!

Love from the Jungle, 

 ~Amanda

A Will to Live...

Last week I walked into the classroom for our daily debriefing after clinicals at the hospital with the students. It had been a hot morning and promised to be an even hotter afternoon, I stood at the front of the classroom, sweat running underneath my scrubs, looking forward to wrapping up our discussion and heading to a nice cool shower. The students seemed kind of uneasy and disgruntled somehow. I wasn't really sure why, just then one of my students raised his hand to ask a question. What he asked caught me off guard. He said there was a patient on the medical ward, a young woman who was refusing her medication, she would vomit it up every time they gave it to her and refused to let them give it to her IV, in fact, she was trying to leave the hospital. 

"Madame, can we force her to take the medication?"
Swiftly I responded, "no, it's her choice if she wants treatment or not. Did she say why she doesn't want it?" The rest of the students all started talking at once and responded chaotically,
"She wants to kill herself Madame, she wants to leave so she can go home and hang herself. She just found out she has HIV."

My heart sank, my mind flooded with all the care this young woman needed, not just physically, but spiritually and psychologically and I immediately thought back to all the suicide attempts and suicidal patients  I had taken care of in the ICU in the States, and how legally it voids their right to make decisions about their own care, as their goal is self-harm. So of course she had to stay and get treatment until we could get her the proper help she needed to keep her safe. I opened my mouth to say just that -----and I caught myself.

I'm not in the States anymore, I'm in Africa. In fact, I'm in a hospital in the jungle, and I don't have a clue how they handle these things here. Any experience I might have had got tossed out the window, and I went to ask my nursing colleagues who have years of experience out here.  The response; we have to go with what the family wants, we'll ask the chaplain to try to talk to her, but we can't force her to stay.


I went back to the students to give them the response, all the while my stomach churning within me. What do you mean we have to let her go? Don't we know she's at risk? We can't stop any of this? We have protocols, we have medicines for these sorts of things, and we're just going to stand by....? My thoughts rambled on and on.

I gave the students the information, they responded that they needed to pray that she would stay at the hospital, that God would touch her heart. We decided to pray right then, so I asked a couple students to lead us. I watched as student after student prayed for this young woman, then lost it as I watched one of our older students, a spiritual leader in his home village, slip out from behind his desk, get on his knees on that hard concrete floor, and cry out to God that He might intervene in the life of this young woman. 

He prayed with such faith. I felt almost ashamed. Because there I was wrestling and fighting with the situation inside myself because everything didn't fit into my nice scientific boxes, frustrated because I didn't have the medical resources that I have in the States to help this woman, frustrated because we couldn't make her stay. Yes, spiritual care was  an obvious component of nursing as I cared for these patients in the States, but there were other resources too- and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that I was standing in the face of lacking those other resources and feeling like spiritual care just won't be enough. The conflict between my scientific-based culture and this spiritually-based culture was exploding before my eyes. In the end, where did my faith rest? Who really is the Great Physician. Who really is the creator God who formed this woman and knows her by name. Who is the One who brings healing. Is He enough?

I dismissed them for lunch, we left the classroom and instead of the students rushing off happily to their midday meal, they all stood dead in their tracks outside the Nursing School. The young woman was getting her stuff in a taxi to go home. She had refused to stay.

Is He enough? In your life, in my life, are we trusting only in Him even when we have other things to help us along the way? Do we trust Him to take care of all of it? I'm not for one minute suggesting we drop all medical resources, I believe and have seen God use and work through those valuable resources, but when they aren't there, do we believe God is enough? When we're working and money is flowing in and we know God takes care of us, are we trusting in only Him, or God plus the income. If that job is gone, is God still enough?


A few days later, this past Monday, I was busy around the hospital with the students, then suddenly the student who had been praying on his knees came up and found me. "Madame," he said, "that young woman, she has come back. She is alive. She wants help."


Is He enough? 



* This young woman is not yet a believer. I can't help but thinking God spared her life and brought her back here to draw her to Himself. Please pray that her eyes and her heart would be open to Him. 

School's in Session!!!

Hello Dear Friends and Family!

Monday, September 10th brought the moment for which we've all been praying and preparing- the arrival of the brand new nursing students!!!

Getting to know each other- a few of the 3rd years (in checked scrubs) and a few of the new students.

Monday started their 2 week orientation to "L'École de Santé de Bongolo" (literally "The School of Health at Bongolo" - ie the Nursing School).  The two weeks resemble a "nursing camp" of sorts, giving them an intense crash course in basic patient care that they will need to begin clinicals when the school year officially starts on September 24th.

This marks the answer to much prayer, as we will be teaching two different classes at once- the 3rd years- who are returning for their final trimesters of training, and the brand new class. We hope to be able to better staff Bongolo Hospital, as it is currently in a critical nursing shortage- 1 nurse per ward!

First day teaching

So yet another "Back 2 School" rolls it's way around - but for the first time, it's as the Teacher =) 

I walked into class at 8 AM Tuesday morning, their first official class at the school, I continued across the cement floor, set my satchel down on the teacher's desk and started praying silently to myself as all their eyes stared eagerly and expectantly back into mine. No time for hesitancy now-I thought to myself,  this was it- why God has called me here. And if He has called me- then He will equip me.
So I opened my mouth and started speaking in French and class had begun, don't ask me what I said, all I know is that God was there. 

Playing a game to work on memorizing Vital Sign norms.

As a class we've been playing a game to work on memorizing Vital Sign norms. I put up 3 signs around the room, "low," "normal" and "high." Then I give each student a card with a value on it, and they have to go stand under which category they think it's in. Each student then reads their card aloud and the class decides if they think they chose the right spot or not.

We've also been having a lot of fun getting to know the students' personalities better through ice-breaker games and team building exercises.

Trust Falls

Working on our team work skills =)

We also introduced them to the Nursing Skills Lab. We have two beds with a full mannequin in each. 

I wish you could have seen their faces as they all trickled into class that day! 

Each one would walk in, greet everyone, then stop dead in their tracks as they caught sight of the "bodies" in the beds- then they and everyone else would burst out laughing! 

Well, when you've never seen a life size mannequin before...

Eager to learn.

These students have come from a world so different from my own. The first day of class, not one of them knew what a pulse was.

By the end of the week- they were taking a full set of vital signs. 

They are intelligent and quick to ask questions, but the material and environment in which they are learning it is stretching them in every way.

However, they are not the only ones being stretched! 

Teaching in a language I've learned less than 7 months and in a country where I've lived less than 2, is not exactly in my comfort zone...

The verse God has brought to mind for the Nursing Skills class that I teach is Colossians 3:23-24

 "Whatever you do, work heartily, 

as for the Lord and not for men,  

knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. 

You are serving the Lord Christ."

We're working on memorizing it as a class. I think it's appropriate because this class is where the theory and medical knowledge and being the hands and feet of Christ combine into one. 

It's where the rubber meets the road.

It's where we start doing patient care.

 It's where we can live out our responsibility to love and serve others with the knowledge and skill that we've been given - in order that God might bring people to Himself. 

At least, that's what I'm praying God helps me to show them.

At the end of the week, we divided up the class of 16 into groups of 4, and each teacher took a group onto the wards at the Hospital to practice vital signs.
I took my group of 4 and we headed to the surgical ward- their first time giving patient care. We went into each patient room together as a group, while one student would take a turn to take that patient's vital signs. I was surprised at how gentle, respectful and compassionate the students were. They introduced themselves, explained each step before they did it, and approached the patient humbly. I was impressed that this continued as we went on to the 2nd patient, and the 3rd patient ...and then we got to the 4th.  
It was a young woman who laid on the bed, her family was gone for a bit, and on her chart I noted her nearing surgery that would probably leave her barren. Her face was downcast as though discouraged, fallen with the weight of the unknown. When the student was all done and I had verified the results, I asked the patient if we could pray with her. She looked relieved and replied 'yes.' I offered the opportunity to the students and they jumped to be involved.

As we debriefed this 4th time, taking a moment to learn from each patient, I asked them if they had noticed the light that was gone from her eyes and the discouragement....they finished my sentence. They were emphatic about what they had seen in the young woman and they were energized by the way in which they were able to encourage her and help her. I looked at them and a smile spread across my face and my heart beat hard in my chest, at that very moment a light had turned on on their faces...I think Colossians 3 had hit home...