Your great Name

What an amazing week it has been here in Zambia.  We just arrived here in Choma after a 4.5 hour bus ride from Chikankata.  I would love to sit here and write for hours about the experiences I had while in Chikankata but I sure don’t want to annoy anyone but I am going to share a few highlights from the trip.  We arrived at the Salvation Army post on Tuesday evening around 6pm after quite a ride from Lusaka.  During this ride I was completely overwhelmed by the beauty of God’s creation.  All I could think of while sitting next to the window taking in the fresh dusty red air was how BIG the God I serve is.  I am on the other side of the world and yet His creation still screams His name.  I listened to the song, Your Great Name by The People’s Church for probably over 10 times during the ride. We stayed in dorm like rooms with two people to a room…and we had our first experience sleeping under mosquito nets.  I thought it was pretty nice to sleep under them because it feels like you’re in a little cocoon.  On Wednesday, we went for a tour of the Chikankata Mission Hospital which was way more than I expected!  They have an outpatient clinic, mother/baby clinic (for weighing babies and to check to see if both mother and child are receiving adequate nutrition), pediatric ward, intensive care ward, tuberculosis ward, women’s and men’s separated medical-surgical wards as well as a neonatal section and labor and delivery section.  They also have two surgery suites, HIV/AIDS clinic in which ARV (anti-retro virus drugs) are given out – these drugs are to help improve quality of life in HIV/AIDS patients allowing them to maintain muscle mass, have their normal amount of energy and be able to continue to function normally so they can continue to conduct all the same matters of their lives before HIV/AIDS.  And lastly they have their own laboratory, pharmacy, and x-ray room on the compound.  If you know anything about overseas health care, you realize that this many wards and other amenities is amazing to have in this type of an environment.  Although to myself, I was pretty shocked to see how little resources they have, but encouraged because they are so great at using every single part of the resources they do have to impact the health of those that are cared for. 

For the first day, I chose to go to the pediatric ward because I am very interested in possibly working on a peds unit when I graduate.  While there I spent a lot of time visiting with the nursing students from the Chikankata School of Nursing that is connected with the hospital.  It was amazing to me that there wasn’t a registered nurse anywhere on the ward, there were just 6 nursing students who were more than capable of taking care of all the procedures and treatments that needed to be completed on the floor.  Over half of the unit was malnourished children who needed treatment.  There was one other case that I was involved in and that was a little 2 year old boy who had fallen on what the Zambians use to cook on and had burns over most of his abdomen.  I was able to sit in while the dressed his wound and it was so interesting the salve they used to help the healing process.  It truly gives a different perspective to see what health care looks like in another country…I can already see how it will continue to affect the care I give both presently and in the future.

Another highlight from the week was going to the rural mother/baby clinic in a small village called Dundu.  Once we arrived, we prepared to hold a clinic in which babies can receive their newborn vaccinations, every baby and small child is weighed and recorded on their growth chart.  This process is such a joy to be involved with…I was given the job of getting the BEAUTIFUL children from their mothers and placing them in the sling that was hanging on a tree to get weighed.  I cannot even put words to describe how absolutely gorgeous the children are here…the closest I can come is by showing pictures.  If you go to the blog I wrote yesterday and see the photo with the sign “Mother/Baby Clinic” in the wall that is the sling and scale we used but we hung it on a tree limb.  I also was given the opportunity to learn how to assess a pregnant woman to see how many weeks she is just by measuring her stomach.  Along with this, I had the immense joy to learn how to listen to a baby’s heartbeat inside of the womb using an old style fetal monitor.  Not many people know what this is these days but let me tell you, I was once again struck by the immensity of the power of God.  There is nothing like listening to the heartbeat of a baby in the womb knowing that even then the Lord already has every moment planned for that child’s life. 

Lastly, I would like to share the story of Jacqueline.  She is a 40 year old woman who is living with HIV/AIDS in the village of Malala.  She has been taking antri-retro virals for a few years now and her quality of life has been improved so much that she is strong and healthy and you would never ever guess she is living with HIV/AIDS.  A group of us had the amazing opportunity of sitting down and talking with her for about an hour about her struggle with HIV/AIDS.  This opportunity really opened my eyes to better understand the struggle of HIV/AIDS.  In the photo below stands Jacqueline and her brother along with her young baby who also has been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS and is currently on the ARVs.  This family was such an amazing testament to looking to God for their hope and strength.

As you can probably tell, Chikankata made quite an impact on my life as well as the way I look at nursing care.  After watching two of my teams scrub in on surgery, holding beautiful African children, and asking to Lord to show me new things from His viewpoint each and every day, I know that Chikankata will always be a very special place to me that want to never forget.