Vision

These past couple weeks have been a time of renewed dreaming and vision for me, oddly enough inspired by reading about pneumonia, diarrhea, and severe malnutrition. Umm, let me explain...
You see the last couple weeks here in England I've been able to focus on studying and reviewing my tropical/child health resources before I go to Sudan. I decided to start with the 5 major causes of morbidity and mortality among the under 5 age group in the developing world -- pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, and measles, with malnutrition playing a major role in them all, as well as causing many deaths itself. I started here because this used to be a big part of my job, my children's nursing job in Accident and Emergency -- that is, the under 5 age group and their carers were a major chunk of our patient load and respiratory and diarrheal disease were what we children's nurses call "the bread and butter" of paediatric nursing. In addition, not surprisingly, the above health issues (excluding measles) made up the majority of the illnesses among the children in Sierra Leone that I helped to care for during my times there. During my Diploma in Tropical Nursing course here in London a year and a half ago, these paediatric issues became part of the heartbeat of my "Africa dream" as I realized how preventable and/or treatable they are at the community level as part of a community-based health care program. My excitement grew...

Then for a whole year, last year as I spent time back in Canada and went through my application and training with SIM, I had to leave my nursing and tropical health behind for a while and focus on other things. I missed it terribly but had a great experience doing the Perspectives missions course through distance learning and had the chance to really study and think through many issues regarding cross-cultural mission, evangelism, and development work. I got really excited about living with a people group, learning their language and way of life, and sharing the Living Water with them. I wanted to do this as a children's nurse, to use the skills I'd been working on for the past 5 years, to carry on the mission of Jesus.

However, with time memories fade and excitement wanes, even within a year. Yes, as my year of joining SIM progressed, I was gaining new vision for mission in South Sudan, which was great, but my nursing skills were lying unused and I was beginning to forget my passion for working with children and families. I was steadily moving towards this goal of joining my team in South Sudan to do primary health care work but often wondering "Have I forgotten too much? Can I still do this?"

That's when I picked up some of my notes a couple weeks ago to begin reviewing "Acute Respiratory Infections in Children", which cause ~19% of under-5 deaths in the developing world each year. It didn't take me long to realize once again, "I absolutely love this! This is my passion and this is how I want to serve God in Sudan." I want to work with mothers and children and with village health workers caring for children in order to improve health and quality of life for them in this war-torn area of South Sudan.

I want to do this in order to live out the gospel of Jesus Christ who said...

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." (Luke 4:18-19)

and

"I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." (Matt. 25:40)

and

"Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." (Matt. 19:14)