Even Cups of Cold Water

(This is an entry from my first day in Tanzania. Sorry for the break in chronology, but I forgot to post this earlier! It is dated May 21, 2012)

When I am asked what kind of nursing I want to do, I often respond by telling people that I don’t really know. “That’s okay,” they will respond, “because you won’t really know until you get into the clinical setting. When you find your niche, you will just know it.” For  some people, that happens during the pediatric rotation. “I never thought I would work with kids until I took pediatrics!” they say. For others, it happens when they help deliver their first baby in the obstetrics unit. For me, it happens when I step foot in a third-world country. It happened today when I worked in the Chimala mission hospital for the first time as a medical missionary nurse. This is my field. This is my specialty. This is where I belong. They were right; it is something you just feel and know when you are actually there, living it and experiencing it.

I was assigned to the obstetrics ward where one woman was laboring. Oh boy! I thought to myself. It’s the first day and I am gonna deliver a baby! As the day continued; however, she did not progress quickly and I spent most of the day waiting...and waiting. When I heard that one of my peers was giving blood and hanging it for her patient, I thought, I wish I could do that. I thought the same thing when I heard that my friends were starting IVs and inserting catheters. I wanted to do something big, but instead I was trying to find ways to fill my time. I wandered to the men’s ward, where Alaina introduced me to two young boys who were immobilized by fractures. They were looking quite bored, so we took them some colorings sheets and crayons and showed them how to color. I took a mental snapshot of their faces as we broke the ice and brought smiles across their cheeks. I have a feeling that they probably hadn’t smiled in a while.

After observing a paracentesis procedure, a group of us girls prayed and sang for the lady and all the other women in the ward. 

During rounds after supper, I met some young mothers and their babies. We smiled and laughed  at each other as we tried to communicate in broken Swahili and English, but we also brought light and joy into a dark room full of sick children. 

And today I learned how to say “God be with you” in Swahili, which became the phrase of the day that I shared with all my patients.

At the end of the day, the only nursing skill I performed was bedmaking. No IVs, catheters, injections, blood draws, or delivered. Not really very exciting when you think of it that way. But then I remembered my prayer this morning.

Lord, show me where you are working today. Open my eyes to see you. I want to do what you call me to do.

So today, He didn’t ask me to give blood or deliver a baby. He asked me to color, sing, and pray. I may not have done anything impressive as a nurse, but I did love the patients and people that I encountered, and I did so with all my heart.

Jesus said that the cups of cold water given in His name make a difference, and that is what the Lord reminded me today. May we never ever forget.