During my month outside of Mbabane, Swaziland at El Shaddai Chlidren’s home, I probably had the coolest ministry yet. I had the awesome opportunity to be a nurse and work in the clinic. The first two weeks, the clinic was opened on Tuesday and Thursday from 9am -12pm. Starting the third week and continuing on into the fourth week, I was still open at those times, but was ‘on-call’ pretty much 24/7. I was the on-site nurse that the children, the workers and the community would seek out for help. No matter the time or the day, clinic was always an adventure in one way or another. Here are some of my highlights from the clinic this month:
**Okay and I realized there is a lot, but something happened at least every day, and not counting my off days!**
- Helping to drain a boil on an 8 year old girl. The boil was huge and on her stomach. I don’t think I have ever heard a child scream so much in my life. It was terrifying and could have scared me out of pediatric nursing, but now we are like best friends and it has given me a passion for children.
- Giving others on the squad and my team an opportunity to be involved with medical missions in some form or fashion. I know quite a few people really enjoyed it.
- Gave away more children’s Motrin (for colds) than I have probably taken in my entire life.
- Took numerous mataquenhas (worms in the toes from Mozambique) out of my teammates’ feet.
- I enjoyed many field trips from the baby house in order to hand out vitamins to the little ones.
- Having an afternoon where I made 3 different trips to the clinic to either help a teammate or a child (it is not a short walk between my room and the clinic either), but enjoying every minute of it.
- A little girl, maybe less than a year old who had sores all in her diaper area. Not sure what caused them, but cleaned them out and put medicine, all the while she was screaming and crying.
- Being called on a Saturday morning to help a little boy who had this big sore on his cheek.
- Helped many El Shaddai kids with the random problems they had such as cut feet and blisters.
- One of the workers burned herself and she faithfully came to me every day for a week in order to get it cleaned, more medicine put on it and to have it wrapped up.
- One of the workers cut his foot with an ax and got stitches in town at the hospital. I cleaned it every other day for about week and instead of going back to town, I removed the stitches from his foot (which I am not going to lie, was pretty nervous about).
- A worker was bit by a dog and then received in infection. Draining the sore was impossible, so after a lot of research, was able to diagnose it as cellulitis and researched the correct treatment for her.
- Randomly, not opening my clinic one day, but instead going along on a trip into town to the children’s clinic in Mbabane. This was probably one of my favorite days to be able to experience the world of HIV and the hospital setting in a 3rd world country like Swaziland.
(helping a child out in the clinic)
(during a field trip to the clinic)
(Family Force 6 likes to have fun in the clinic as well!!)
My favorite days this month were definitely clinic days. My favorite times were helping the children.
Do you see a calling/leading in my life? I think so! Thank you Lord!
Here is my recap video from this month!
