I had my first shift yesterday. It was very good. I work again this evening. I really think I am going to enjoy this type of nursing. The patients are so different though. There will surely be many challenges. One primary challenge is communicating with the patients. Most of them do speak English but it is such a different English. They have such strong accents or dialects and just used different terms and words as well. We do have translators available all the time so that is helpful.
The Liberian people are very different from what I imagined. I look forward to understanding the culture more than I do and thus understand the people and the patients more than I currently do. The are very withdrawn, quiet and appear to be unhappy. I don't know that that is actually how they are feeling but compared to our interpretation of character that is how they appear. I don't think it is feasible for my mind to understand what these people have been through. Yesterday I watch a movie called Liberia: the uncivil war. It explained the history of Liberia over the last few years. It was awful. The war and terror that this country has undergone in the last 20 years is unimaginable. After seeing this video it explained more to me why this country is in the state it is. I just can't fathom that in the early 80s Liberia was one of the leading most promising countries of West Africa. Now...it appears hopeless. These poor people! They have haunting pasts and are trying to find hope and rebuild after this outrageous deception and destruction. Currently the average age of Liberians is 18 years old. That tells you how many people survived the civil war in the 80-90s! Devastating!
I am also currently reading A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (currently being sold at Starbucks:). It is about a boy in Sierra Leone (neighbor to Liberia) and his life as a boy soldier during their war. Unbelievable! We are so blinded by the reality of what so much of our world has been through.
Please be praying for these people. Also pray that I can connect with the people I will be working with on the ward. As I have said before the need is SO great. The most powerful thing we can all be doing is praying for revival in Liberia. Praying that these people can see beyond the mistakes of humans and see that there is a God who has created them with a purpose. I can't imagine being able to find that here if I were a Liberian but we KNOW that that is TRUTH!
"Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord; no deeds can compare with yours. All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, O Lord; they will bring glory to your name. For you are great and do marvelous deeds; you alone are God. Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever. For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths of the grave." Psalm 86:8-13
1 comment:
That is a very moving and yet interesting blog. It made me think.
Particularily, the despair you see around, and yet your conviction of the hope that God has. I wonder about this. Is it fair for us to speak of God's hope when we lived in a society where we have so many privileges, one of them being ignorance of other people's situation? It's a relevant question. It has been said that God is met in suffering. If we live in a society where the "the repressive instinct has gone awry", and we believe human sufffering can be overcome - then this leads me to ask, Do we really know hope in God? We certainly have the privilege to think so. I might be soudning like a jerk or revealing my ignorance, but its an honest response: Who are WE to give a message of HOPE to THEM?
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