In Kenya, I prayed that I would have hospital ministry sometime before I came home. In praying that I was envisioning my time Month 1 in Guatemala: where I got to help deliver babies, scrub into a C-section, help a doctor at a rural clinic, and do hands on work in the field I have the most passion.
Well I have spent more time in the hospital the last two months that I would have ever imagined, and not at all in the way I intended. In Uganda one of my sweet teammates was in the hospital for almost the entire month and she ended up having to go home to get the medical care that she needed. This month, our team found ourselves back in the hospital for a week with not one but TWO of our teammates.
I have decided that I am over healthcare in 3rd world countries. Its one thing to see it with an outside perspective. To go into hospitals and pray for sick people being unattended to, to see the lack of cleanliness, half a century old equipment, and severely undertrained staff. In Guatemala, I saw the need and I felt for the people, but I also benefitted from it because I got to attend medical procedures that I never would have been able to with no training in the States.
My perspective is entirely different when these same hospitals are supposed to treat people I dearly love. It's funny how hard it is to truly understand something, unless you have experienced it first hand. I knew that there was such a great need for improvement in patient care and training, but that need became so much more real when my sisters that I love were not getting the treatment they needed. I know that every single person in the hospitals I have been in is as dearly loved as my teammates, if not by earthly family certainly by their Heavenly Father.
Jesus reminded me that He calls me to love all of these people the way that I do my teammates. That I am supposed to hurt with, fight for, and love on those who are not healthy- whether that be physical or spiritual- with the same fervor of those I dearly love, because He dearly loves every single person on this earth, and it is not my purpose but His that I am living for.
So careful what you wish for, careful what prayers you lift up: because you will get an answer, just not necessarily in the way you were hoping… but I bet it will be exactly what you need. And join me in prayer for those who are being neglected around the world in hospitals, whose doctors won't ever be able to give them life anyways- because that comes from their Savior alone. Pray that the medical staff's would have great compassion and urgency to treat those in need. Pray that doctors and nurses would have wisdom and mercy on their patients.
