There Was Jesus

    These past couple of weeks, Erin, Becky and I  have been running a Vacation Bible School for the kids in the community. We meet every day at the church from 3:30pm to 5pm, to sing and talk about the Bible. Our theme has been the 28 Fundamental Beliefs of the Adventist Church. We teach them a song that ties to each belief, so that it's easier to remember what each belief means. We also bought them coloring pencils and made handouts that they can fill out and color, which they love!

    It’s been an amazing experience! Since most of the children in Tanzania don’t begin to learn English until secondary school, we’ve needed a translator for our VBS. One of the children (who is 14, and pretty good at English) volunteered to be our translator during this time! He has been a huge help. We actually finish the program today, which is really exciting. I’ve found that even though I had learned about the fundamental beliefs before, teaching them has helped me to understand them even better.  

    I’ve gotten to know all the kids by name, and can speak enough Swahili that they love hanging out with me. They like to wait for me and walk me home after the program, often asking for more stories and games. They love to call me "Madam Michaela." I often invite some of the kids into our home, and give them paper and color pencils so they can do some coloring. Yesterday, one of the girls drew this and gave it to me as a gift! It was the cutest thing.

    Spending time with these kids has probably been the biggest highlight of these past few weeks, but I’ve also had very significant moments in the hospital.

One was when I helped in the OR during a C-section! 

And of course, holding the babies in the maternity ward! 

    And there have been so many great memories of successful surgeries, patient experiences, and more. This past Monday we had a girl come in for a sequestrectomy, which basically means that they remove the dead pieces from the bone — just by hammering it out with a metal mallet. The patient was only 17, and since they didn’t use general anesthesia, she was awake all throughout the procedure. I let her hold my hand as she cried and cried. I can't imagine what she must’ve been feeling as her whole body shook with the force of the hammering. It was so hard for me to see her suffering through that. I got to see her afterwards though, and she gave me a big hug and had the biggest smile on her face. She was so happy that the surgery team had done their best to make her well. 

    On Friday, after finishing for the half day, the nurse working with me let me know he was going to dress a wound in the female ward. I offered to accompany him, and he accepted and started telling me about the patient. He told me that the patient had diabetes mellitus, which makes healing so much more difficult. Her wound had unfortunately gotten infected, and the infection had spread to her body, putting her into septic shock. The nurse explained things in detail to me before we got to the patient, but nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when we walked into that room. 

    There was a gashing wound in her leg, from the top of the inner thigh all the way down to her foot. It was so deep that I could clearly see the bone and muscle. The nurses had dipped her leg into a bucket of hot salt water, which by this time had already turned brown. 

    The nurse and I began to clean the wound. I helped him by pouring three bottles of saline while he scrubbed deep into her leg. I then helped by holding her leg while the nurse packed gauze into the wound. The wound was so extensive, it was hard to even get a good grip on it because there wasn’t enough skin attached to the inner leg to go around. And even though she had been given a dose of lignocaine, the woman screamed and screamed in pain. I wanted to cry, I wanted to help her, but all I could do was continue. We finally managed to wrap her leg up with gauze, and she finally stopped screaming and crying as we cleaned up. 

    Honestly, these two experiences completely changed my perception of why I want to be a physician. Though I’ve seen many interesting clinic visits, amazing births, and successful surgeries, the pain that these two patients were in this week was incredibly eye opening. I realized that sometimes people come into the hospital on the verge of death—and death is even a tangible possibility. But being a physician isn’t about just healing people, because there is only so much physicians can do. It’s about finding Jesus in these moments, and sharing His hope with others, especially those that are suffering. 

    Let us look to Jesus, not only when we see healing, but when we see hurting, too. Let us look to Him in the joy and in the pain. Let us find Him in every minute and every moment. 

    Here is a song I’ve been listening to this week: 

There Was Jesus by CAIN 

In the waiting, in the searching 

In the healing and the hurting 

Like a blessing buried in the broken pieces 

Every minute, every moment 

Where I’ve been and where I’m going 

Even when I didn’t know it or couldn’t see it 

There was Jesus