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"How long are you going to be in Ireland?" the immigration agent asked me. "Twenty-four hours," I exclaimed, "and I'm going to make the most of it!"  I finished my tropical medicine course on Saturday and flew to Dublin Sunday, where I had a twenty-four hour layover before my Monday morning flight to the United States. With the help of an amazing missionary family, the day-long whirlwind was just what I was hoping for. They picked me up from the airport, took me to church, gave me a picnic lunch in a beautiful park, let me join their house church in the evening, and then took me on a hike on Howth peninsula through a rhododendron forest to a high point where we watched the sun set over the Irish Sea. It was just as magical as it sounds, except even more. As I watched the sky change colors and the city lights begin to sparkle in the dusk, I couldn't help but think about how I would have never ended up here if I didn't have some locals to ta...

My eyes locked on the rocky path before me, I carefully put one foot in front of the other. I searched for steady footholds because the wind blew so strongly across the mountain ridgeline that I seriously feared being blown over, and the narrow path with steep valleys on either side below did not allow much room for error. I leaned my body against the wind just to stay upright, and I focused my concentration on the path ahead. An occasional glance at the peak up ahead getting closer and closer motivated me to keep going.  For the most part, I kept my head down and my eyes fixed on the uneven ground, but every once in a while, I would come to a flat spot to catch my breath, and I would look up.  The view would take my breath away, because only when you look up every now and then can you see just how far you've come. It's easy to trudge along with your eyes to the ground and forget just how much progress you have made. When you stop and lift your eyes, you see the he...

Thinking it a long shot, I wrote to the missionary family anyway. "I know you live in England, and well, I'm going to be in Liverpool. Any chance we might meet up?" I didn't know if this family lived on the clear other side of the country, but I figured it was worth a shot.  He wrote me back to tell me that he doesn't live in Liverpool, but he knows someone who does. He arranged for that person, who is a pastor of a church in Liverpool, to contact me about the possibility of living with his family during my study at the School of Tropical Medicine. So then the pastor contacted me with an explanation that he would be out of town for my arrival, but he set up for me to stay with a family in their church.  So when people asked me where I was staying in Liverpool and how I knew this host family, my answer was simple: I don't!  But that quickly changed as soon as I met them and as soon as they introduced me to the church. We instantly connected because o...

There are an estimated 2 billion cases of tuberculosis in the world today. That's close to one-third of the population of the entire globe. There are 300-400 million cases of malaria every year and 1 million deaths, all from a disease totally preventable and curable. 99% of all maternal deaths occur in developing countries. These are only three of the thousands of facts and stats that have been thrown at me during my three week course in tropical nursing here at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. I duck from these flying stats like they are rotten fruit, trying to not get hit by the impact of what they mean, yet not being able to deny the reality of the stench. To most, they are just stats. But when I hear that the global maternal mortality rate is 229 for every 100,000 (meaning that out of every population of 100,000, an average of 229 people will die in childbirth), I realize that the rate in Burkina is actually higher at 341. We have many orphans in our infants i...

I arrived to Liverpool airport to find a sweet couple holding a sign with my name on it. I've always seen that on the movies, so it made me feel like a star. As they drove me to their home, I must have seemed like a deer in the headlights...or like an American tourist. I certainly wasn't in Africa anymore. I was fascinated by the heavy accents, double decker buses, old buildings, quaint houses, and driving on the left side of the road. As soon as we arrived to their house, I took my shoes off in the back yard and wiggled my toes in the green grass. It's been four months since I've seen teen grass...or taken a hot shower...or worn a jacket and slept under a comforter! Their first gesture of true English hospitality was to offer me a warm cup of British tea with biscuits. As I sipped on the cup, Jane asked me, "What time do you take your tea?" (It was around 5:00 in the afternoon.) My puzzled expression must have told her that I didn't understand.  Isn...

When I knelt down in front of the young lady and opened my medical bag, it was just Valerie and me beside her. It didn't take long, however; for an audience to gather. I began gently dressing the burn wound on her foot, and the next time I looked up, all the other members of her family, who were suddenly very intrigued by my visit, were peering over one another to watch what as I was doing. Night time quickly fell, and when the dressing was finished, Valerie and I continued talking to this young girl by the light of the moon. One reason for our visit was to tend to her medical needs, but the other reason was to address the spiritual warfare that we believed was happening because of the sicknesses she has experienced relentlessly one after another that are in no way connected. When Valerie brought up this subject, the girl nodded in agreement and huffed in frustration as if she was aware of the reality of the battle. So Valerie began to tell her a story, and as she told it, the ...