Rapunzel

I have a hard time knowing how honest to be in my blogs. Honestly, the last week and a half has been great. I've been having a lot of fun with the patients. It seemed like my nurses were starting to get it. It has taken a long time, almost five months in, but I'm finally feeling like I can see a purpose and although it's not what I thought it was going to be, I'm here and I'm growing and learning and serving and it's not for myself. It's me, growing closer to God and learning to trust and rely and although I'm just starting to learn this, I'm learning to persevere...so I can be mature and complete... True, my time here is about the women as well. That is why I am here, and they are wonderful. It's about training up nurses as well, but there is so much more.

I am in a wonderful Bible study with amazing women. We met tonight. It's funny because one thing we talked about was how we once desired something and how we saw it come to pass. That's me here. I remember being young and desiring to "come to Africa". It's great to look back and see how it came to be... first turning my life over to Christ. Dropping out of college. Doing YWAM. Living and working at camp. Becoming a nurse. Doing Mercy Ships. Two trips to Niger... and here I am. Living with two feet on solid ground on a continent I once only dreamed of. Your desires can take a long time to be brought to fruition. When David was anointed to be king, it took him 22 years between the time he was called and actually being crowned. It all takes time. I'm digressing a bit.

So here I am in Sierra Leone. Not living on a ship. Living on land. Loving life on land, but struggling so much with my nurses and even more so today as I learned there is more dishonesty and lack of caring and concern and passion for the patients. How do you teach compassion? You can't. I've learned that. Most people here don't become nurses because they want to. They don't usually grow up thinking, I want to be a nurse. No. They have three options: lawyer, nurse or one other thing I can't remember right now. In Sierra Leone there are not many options. You go to nursing school because that's actually one of the three options. You either have compassion and a drive to work and do a good job, or you come to work and sit and talk on your phone and watch as your patient's surgery fails. The second someone isn't behind you telling you to get off your phone, fix the tape on the catheter, is the urine draining, maybe you should give your patient pain medication since they are obviously in pain, yes, constipation can ruin a surgery and maybe you should do something about it, and on and on and on.

Today I told myself over and over to persevere. Persevere not just for my sake, but for the sake of the VVF women. Persevere.

At Bible study tonight it was good to share and see how it's not just me not being able to handle it. Tonight there were five of us from four different organizations. We all deal with the same sort of issues. It's hard to see any sort of change even from those who have lived here for years. How do you change generations of corruption and bitterness? You don't. You can't. I can say with full confidence that only God can do that and I pray that a miracle will be done.