Jabulani (JOY)

It is not necessarily easy for me to recap my week in a simple blog, but I do the best I can, especially with the internet constantly cutting in and out. I will start once again by describing my clinical experiences for the week. Rather than going to the clinic on Thursday, the six of us went to a middle school to teach on different health related topics. In groups of two we spoke about nutrition, dental care, and Lyndsey and I taught about the female reproductive system to the girls (I guess I really am my mother’s daughter). The school system is not like what is in the States, so the ages of the girls were between 13-16 years old in the class, and most of them have a limited amount of education up until this point. Due to the age range, we could assume that most of the girls had already started menstruation, but what was so interesting was how limited their knowledge was about their own body and its functioning. Many of the girls had no idea why they had their period or if it was even normal to have one monthly period for 4 days straight. The most difficult part was speaking to the girls about the use of tampons. Many of them are subjected by their parents, and possible future husbands, to virginity tests, which are tests that check to see if the hymen is intact. The girls were wondering if the use of tampons would take away their virginity. From my American worldview it was hard for me to understand the virginity tests, as well as the fact that the use of a tampon could jeopardize the females’ viewed virginity status. It was hard leaving these girls because they had an endless amount of questions and we could have spent literally hours discussing their bodies with them.

On Tuesday, I had my most challenging day of clinical yet, as well as the most exciting. At the Eastboom clinic I found my way into the casualty unit where a younger doctor took me in under his wing and allowed me to work directly with him. Our first patient was a younger woman who earlier that morning was stabbed in her arm and wrist with a broken beer bottle by her boyfriend. I sat with her on the exam table holding her hands and speaking words of encouragement to her while the doctor stitched her wounds layers by layers. The wounds went straight down to her bone and were over 4 inches long. I looked into this woman’s eyes and I could see the pain and terror that was inside of her; she kept telling me that she was going to die. When she left I asked her where she would go and she said she was going back home where her boyfriend currently was taking care of her two children. It seems like an endless trap that some of these women live in. Immediately after this patient, another lady came in with a wound on her head caused by assault from her boyfriend as well. Additionally, we dressed the wounds of an elderly lady who had a 4x4 inch ulcer on her leg. A woman came in with a beautiful, healthy, 8-day-old baby, however when the mother pulled up her shirt she revealed her opened c-section incision. Apparently the doctor she went to took out the stitches prematurely and left her wound gapingly open and exposed. I walked into one room and a man sat in a corner having a completely normal conversation and laughing with another person, but when I looked at his leg I saw a baseball size/deep wound cut into his leg with adipose tissue and skin flaps hanging over the leg. Everyone acted like this was a normal occurrence. Once again people filled the waiting areas, patients waited hours and hours to be seen by a doctor or nurse. The things that I saw would never come into clinics in the US, but rather the patients would be seen in a trauma unit at a hospital; I think that’s what blew me away the most, no one seemed surprised by any of the wounds or assault.

On Saturday we got to hike through the Drakensburg Mountains/Hills to historical paintings done in caves by the San Bushmen tribe. The paintings were quite faded, however they also depicted much of the tribal culture and history. I don’t know if I have ever been in middle of such beautiful scenery. The vast green hills seemed to continue on forever and they lay so perfectly against the vivid blue sky’s. It seemed like each color was displayed on a vibrant high. I will never forget these images.

This week feels like it is has been the “revenge of wild animals.” I went walking through the game reserve next to campus with three other girls and we came upon the Zebras. The Zebras have always been quite peaceful and have never seemed to be bothered by people walking by, however it was dusk and I don’t know what got into these wild beasts, but in all honestly, they started running at us. We turned and ran; I could hear all six of them behind us sounding like a stampede, they were chasing us. To get away from them we dove into some bushes and turned onto another trail. The herd of Zebras has a brand new baby with them, so we assume that they must have been protecting their young from us until it is able to defend itself. The next day I was on a walk with another girl and two of the male monkeys literally started chasing us up the path back to campus. The boys got a little trigger happy with the paintball gun so we don’t have anymore paintballs and we might not be getting any more for a while, so to keep the monkeys away we now have pepper spray.

Although I am filled with joy and excitement each day I am here, this past week has been quite heavy. The girls that are in my D-Group have been carrying a lot on their hearts and as they become more vulnerable they are beginning each of their own healing processes. It has taken much prayer for me not to take on their burdens as my own, but I remember that through the death of Christ, I am able to lay each one of these beautiful women at the feet of the cross and know that Jesus has died for burdens such as these. God has been quite powerful here, I don’t think a moment goes by that I am not reminded by his goodness and the continued steadfast love he has for his me and His children.

I have been here for 31 days now and there is still a part of me that is waiting for a deep dread and homesickness to set in. I almost feel like I have adjusted abnormally well, but now I am frightened that this month will stir some of these dreaded emotions. Lets pray that I continue to flourish where I am right now! I am counting down the days until I get to see Mom and Chad when they come visit! I can’t wait! Thank you for taking the time to read this and thank you even more for your prayers, thoughts, emails, and messages… it is honestly a source of such strength. I love you all!

(Chad: You are my beloved and I am yours; our love will only grow founder as we spend this time following God’s will for our lives.)

Discovering Agapé

I would say that the main focus for me this week has been understanding love. In my life now I am being challenged to understand what love looks like for me as a women of God, a friend, a wife, and a nurse.

Beginning on Tuesday I was at a clinic/hospital called Eastboom in Pietermitzburg. My experience at Eastboom will forever be engraved into my heart. It is not easy to walk into Eastboom and not be overwhelmed with the many bodies, smells, sounds, and sights that enter into all of my senses. There must be over 100 people in a small room waiting to be seen, children laying on the floor with hardly enough room to make a walk way without stepping over a child. I must remember that I am only a student nurse and it will not be by my own power or strength that I can fix every person at the clinic; it is important that I accept this in order to not take away from the patients that I am able to see and help. I spend most of my days in the pediatric unit. The main caseloads of patients that I see are children with pneumonia.

I started out one day in the family planning section giving Depo shots to many women as a form of contraceptive. Once I got somewhat tired of giving injections I went outside. Outside, I saw this small girl standing with her mother; I could see from a distance that the child was breathing fast, was weak, and her eyes were rolling back in her head. I approached her and her mother and counted her respirations, they were 72 breaths per minutes and her pulse was 150bpm. The right lung sounds were absent. I asked her mother how old she was and if she had any prior conditions. The mother informed me this small child was 5 years old and has HIV. I knew in my head and in my heart that this child was literally dying and each of her breaths was using the entirety of her energy. Patients usually have to wait at least 3 hours to be seen by a nurse, but in all honesty I didn’t know if this child had 3 hours to live. I brought her into the pediatric unit and took her to the front of the line to see a nurse. We immediately got her on oxygen and called an ambulance to come pick her and her mother up. It took the ambulance two and a half hours to come and get her. This child only weighed 11kg (22lbs) at 5 years old! It was an extremely hot day, the room she was in had no windows and no air flow so I stayed with her for 2 hours simply using a newspaper to fan the child in hopes of giving her some sort of comfort. She couldn’t even lay down because it was too difficult for her to breath. I believe she must have TB or sever pneumonia with her HIV. With the condition of TB or pneumonia in combination with HIV, this little girl is at stage four AIDS and is dying right before my eyes

The next patient that I found was a small boy with his grandmother. He looked no more than 3 mo old, however his road to health card stated he was 1 year and 1 month. He only weighed 4.4kg, which is 9.68lbs (that is less than one pound more than I weighted when I was born!). This child was also using all of his energy to breath with sever chest retractions. His mother passed away from suicide on January 01, 2010 and now the grandmother is caring for him and his three others siblings. She says that the child has TB and HIV, which again puts him at stage four AIDS. He was severely malnourished, however the grandmother stated that she has no money to buy the child food. She also states that every time she feeds him he throws up. I started to pour water and then formula into his mouth every few minutes while burping him in between. He got a total of 1ml water and 1ml formula over 1.5 hours and didn’t vomit. I see that it takes much time and effort to feed this child and making sure that he is getting burped properly, and I just don’t know that the grandmother has the time or the energy to do this for him. She started to cry because of how overwhelmed she is and how little money she has to care for the children.

It is easy to be at Eastboom and get extremely overwhelmed by the vast amount of people and the extremely limited conditions, but I found hope in being able to be with these two children that day. The time that I was able to spend with them was not the time that the nurses had available, for they are much overworked. It is at a clinic like this where there are over 1,000 patients coming through each day that it is easy to get consumed and frustrated with the quantity of care that is needed, but I find my hope and my joy through the small amount of quality of care that I am able to give to these families. It is not by my own love that I am able to love on these innocent children, but rather it is the love of the Holy Spirit pouring out through me onto His children. It is like my heart is overflowing with a deep deep love that I never knew I could feel. The last time I felt this supernatural love was when I was in Ghana at the orphanages; I know this is not my love, but Christ living through me.

Once this exhausting week was over we got to spend Saturday at the beach in Durban, what a treat that was! It has been ridiculously hot here so it is nice to get into the ocean to cool down. When we are at the beach we are only able to swim in a small confined area where there are shark nets. Apparently the sharks are quite active and hungry.

Yesterday was Valentines Day. I have never been a big Valentine’s Day celebrator, but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t constantly reminded that the love of my life was half way across the world form me on this day that we are to celebrate love. I felt a heaviness in my heart and a longing to be with him. I trust however, that God has me here to grow as a wife to better love my husband, thus I rejoice in knowing that when we get to be together again we will have an even better understanding of what our love represents. God has answered our prayers and Chad has been able to book a flight to come out here to visit from March 16-26^th! Right after that Mom gets to come! I can’t wait! As a group we all got dressed up and had a nice Valentines dinner with candles, music, and roses. Although I didn’t get to celebrate the day of love with Chad, I felt blessed to be surrounded by many people I am growing to love deeply.

I am falling in love with this country more each day that I am here, but I am also being struck in the face with the injustices and inequalities that surround the people of this beautiful nation. Thank you for allowing me to share this all with you and I hope to hear from you soon. Be blessed and filled with His love.

Living in Love

It’s only been a week since I have last updated, however so much has happened and I hardly know where to begin. I guess I should start with the fun stuff first; last week we went to a wild lion park. These lions are completely wild however there is one fence that contains them to a very large area. Our purpose of going there was to drive through the park to see the lions, but things got a little messed up when we got there. Last time our leaders were there the lions trampled their car and they strongly did not want to go in because of the damage the lions did to their cars. We ended up just walking up to the fence and suddenly the lions all started coming up to the fence and rubbing themselves across it and sometimes growling. As the lions walked by we were even able to touch them as long as they didn’t see our fingers; which was quite thrilling.

On the same day of visiting the lions, we also visited a Birds of Prey reserve where we saw many large birds including owls, vultures, and eagles. Following the bird experience we took a tour of the town we are living in (PMB) and stopped at the train station where Gandhi was thrown off of the train for sitting in a Whites only section. It was this experience that marked the beginning of his great movement of peaceful resistance against social injustice and oppression.

This week I spent my clinical days at the Masons Clinic and each day that I was there I fell more in love with the people. Mainly the patients were HIV positive, but they came to the clinic for various reasons like TB, prenatal care, and medication management. My favorite day was assessing the pregnant women and their fetus. It was so interesting how the clinic functions with very little supplies and no ultrasound machine. I had to determine how far along the women were with their pregnancy. One girl came in who thought she was 22 weeks pregnant, however after I assessed her fundus I could determine that she was 39 weeks and the baby had already engaged itself for delivery, in other words she was ready to go into labor. The women were all quite young, about 16-21 years old and for many of them this wasn’t their first child. Another interesting thing at the clinic is spending time with the children; many of them have worms and different sorts of skin conditions like scabies, ringworm, and staph. When I am with the children and they are crawling all over me I simply have to put my trust into Christ knowing that He will protect me from illnesses while I am delivering His love to these innocent children. When people come to the clinic it is an all day event for them. They arrive at seven and over 100 patients will be there and it is on a first-come-first-serve basis and they will have to wait all day to be seen. I also got to do my first blood draw, which was very fun for me, but again it is so interesting how different the care is in the States compared to here, especially with cleanliness.

On Friday the first South African man to summit Everest came and visited us. He has summit the highest mountains on each continent. It was so interesting to meet him and chat with him. I bought his book to give to Mom and the DVD of him summiting each peak for Chad, but I am excited to get to look and watch them too.

This past weekend we went to and stayed in Pennington, which is primarily an Indian population. A drive that should have only taken us two hours somehow took us five hours because of cars breaking down, people getting lost, and other things that seem to only happen in Africa. Traveling with 53 people is not easy. Where we stayed was on the Indian Ocean and we got to spend some time on the beach. This morning I watched the sun rise over the ocean; it was breath taking! The Indian population is very different than the Black population, but it was wonderful to spend time with them. It was interesting because throughout the whole time I have been here the moment that I felt most comfortable was walking in the busy streets with venders lining both sides of the road, all sorts of different people, trash everywhere, and smells like I had never smelt. We streets were solid with people, but I felt so comfortable in community and found so many fun things to do and watch. Throughout the time I have been here I have felt somewhat isolated from the rest of South Africa. I spend my two days a week at the clinic and then I come back to a beautiful campus in a primarily White upper-class neighborhood and get served three full meals a day; that has been very hard for me to deal with. I love being submerged into the culture here and I feel like I am sometimes being held back and protected from the full experience, which is so frustrating for me. (Side note: I have been taking a Zulu speaking class and I am loving it!)

God has been doing wonderful things in me. Being the oldest student here has brought me into a place of mentorship and leadership within our group. I am a discipleship leader to 7 amazing girls, who bring me so much joy. Everyday I seem to experience Christ in a new way and I just try to press in deeper to know and experience Him in a new way at each moment. There have been some deep moments of loneliness, but in those moments all of a sudden I find myself surrounded in Hid grace and overcome with joy. I have already developed some amazing friendships that provide me with so much strength. I am continually reminded by how blessed I am to be in a place in life where God has complete and divine control over my life. There is so much to share with all of you but I am limited on time and extremely tired from watching the sunrise and traveling today. Thank you again for all of your encouragement and prayers, I love you dearly.