Christ Centered Nursing

Going back to the visions I have for Caritas, I’ve wrote my second installment on Christ centered nursing.  I’ll include the full list of visions/desires here just for a refresher.

Vision for teams:

• Discipleship
• Christ centered nursing
• Compassion
• Love
• Passion

Vision for Community

• Evangelism
• Partnership
• Empowerment
• Hope
• Love
• Health

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.  Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:1-11

As Christians we are called to be set apart, to be Holy:

I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy

Leviticus 11:45

Literally to be holy is to be “set apart.” Our greatest example of this, of course, is Christ.  I love the way Paul writes it in Philippians – eloquent and beautiful – I wish I could understand the original Greek in it’s fullest to really appreciate it.  Even in English though, it gets me every time.

Who being in very nature God…

When I think of Christ centered nursing there’s a few things that come to mind.

• Embodiment of Christ
• Holiness
• Servanthood
• Humility

Each day that I work I try to pray,

Your will be done, Your Kingdom come. May I bring your Kingdom by embodying you to those I serve.  May my desires and needs come second so that humbly I may meet the needs of the needy.  May you be portrayed in every word, touch, action and thought – may healing come physically, mentally and spiritually. Anoint my hands to bring comfort, my words to bring peace and my mind to bring competent care.

Amen

Caritas will be a place where we will be focused on bringing Christ to those in need in the community where we serve.  This will overlap with evangelism as well as we proclaim his Gospel in deeds and actions.

Caring competently, selflessly, and humbly while being cognizant of the One who is the reason we live, breathe and move.

Being an ambassador of Christ through the medium of nursing – that is Christ centered nursing.

This is a mandate of Caritas.

When Helping Hurts: a Review

I recently finished reading a book called “When Helping Hurts” by Steve Corbett & Brian Fikkert.  Now, I’m a fiction reader, I LOVE fiction, non-fiction ALWAYS takes me 3-4 times as long to read because I just find it so tedious (unless it’s a true story/biography).  I’m not going to lie, this book took me  a very long time to read, being non-fiction I of course found it to be dry.  However there were some good things I gleaned from it. I’m going to talk about the book, but I could very well be taking their ideas and making them broad or general, I’m not going to quote anything from the book so maybe this is a really haphazard “review” but it’s my initial thoughts after reading it with not a lot of reflection.  Once I really start to get into missions and apply some of their principles I’ll probably have a lot more to say about it.

The book is about poverty alleviation, essentially it points out everything we’ve done wrong in missions and poverty alleviation and then outlines how we should be doing it.  I’m not entirely sure how I feel about every little fact and tid bit that they write about but generally I feel like they have hit the mark.  In fact most of what they write about in terms of HOW to do missions is exactly how I envision missions and exactly how I want to carry out my time in the mission field.  My inspiration comes from community nursing model, and is almost the exact same thing (minus the gospel message) as what they write about.  I’ll get more into that in a bit.

The first thing that was eye opening to me was their definition of poverty.  I guess it’s not entirely surprising, and maybe seems like it should be common knowledge, but it really helped to line up things in my own life and thinking.  They outlined two different world views, the idea of poverty in the eyes of the poor, and the idea of poverty in the eyes of the wealthy.  The contrast being that the wealthy usually see poverty as being a lack of material goods, while the poor see poverty in more psychological and social terms (i.e. shame, hopelessness, depression etc.).  Their actual definition of poverty is:

Poverty is the result of relationships that do not work, that are not just, that are not for life, that are not harmonious or enjoyable.  Poverty is the absence of shalom in all its meanings.

I really like this idea.  If you’ve followed my blog for a while you’ve probably read somewhere “We were created IN relationship FOR relationship” because I use that phrase a lot.  It’s the core of who I am, what I want to do with my life, and what I believe about church, world, and God.  So when they define poverty like this it strikes a chord and resonates in my soul.  I really love to build relationships, I love to be with people, to invest in people, to journey with people. The idea that by spending time, investing, and being patient I can have a part in alleviating poverty is really exciting for me.  It also makes us one with the “materially” poor because we ALL need relationship, and we ALL suffer from poverty in one form or another – maybe not materially but maybe emotionally etc. Another quote I liked:

Poverty is rooted in broken relationships, so the solution to poverty is rooted in the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection to put all things into right relationship again.

Praise the Lord that HE is THE redeemer!

So the authors say that instead of giving the materially poor money, food, THINGS, we should be investing in them personally.  Entering into relationship with them in order to see Jesus not only reconcile with them, but also with us.  As we are in relationship with each other we are alleviating each others poverty.

So if you are like me you may be wondering HOW by being in relationship with people we can alleviate their material poverty. Here’s how I see it (not sure if I got this right or not):

If we invest in the lives of people, become the embodiment of Jesus on Earth, then we draw people closer to the relationship with Jesus that they were meant to have.  The closer they come to being in a right relationship with Jesus the more they will desire to be who God has created them to be.  If they are being who God has created them to be then they will begin to become self sufficient.

They do distinguish between being in a crisis to being in a development stage – when in an immediate crisis it is appropriate to give materially help.  But if they are past the crisis then we should be assisting them to develop and empower them to be self sufficient – and that is done through investing in relationship with them not by giving them money or material possessions.

I really really love this way of doing missions.  When I was in nursing school taking community nursing – I didn’t necessarily enjoy the class but I LOVED theory model of community nursing because it was all about partnering with the community and finding their STRENGTHS and EMPOWERING them to use those strengths to better their community.  We didn’t go into a community, look at their weaknesses and then try to fix those because that is showing them that we know best.  In reality, we are coming into a community which is already established and they really do know best.  We were just there to journey with them and give them encouragement along the way, but the project was lead by the community.

I see this as what I want to accomplish in the community that Caritas goes into.  I want to journey with them, encourage them along the way and as I do that I expect that we will all come closer to the relationship with Christ we were meant to have, and that means that we will be empowered to be all God has created us to be.

One last quote from the book that I love:

Part of our striving is also to fall on our knees every day and pray, “Lord, be merciful to me and to my friend here, because we are both sinners.” And part of our striving means praying every day, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven, for without You we cannot fix our communities, our nations, and our world.”

ONE out of 54 – Africa has my heart

Alright,

So I’ve got another full day in the office, and I’m planning on doing a lot of writing.  So this is fair warning to you to be prepared for several posts in a row.  You could always skip around and read what you like as well!

I’m feeling REALLY good about the progress of Caritas.  I’m making strides in the development in terms of putting together my goals and purposes, and picking out where I feel like God is leading me geographically.  These have been some big hurdles for me as they are the necessary footwork before I can start fundraising and recruiting.  I can’t very well go to someone and say hey, I’m doing this “thing” that I feel is my “calling” wanna give me money? Sure maybe some of my friends who know my heart and passion would give a bit of money but no one would buy that.  They also wouldn’t want to join me with such a vague description.  SO in that way I feel like I’ve come a LONG way since December when this “brain child” emerged. BUT fundraising really is another issue in itself that will be my BIGGEST personal challenge – I’m working on it.

So let’s talk geography…

If it was entirely up to me I would split myself into 54 different pieces and spread myself out over the entire continent of Africa. I want to be everywhere, but I am only one so I had to really sit down and think about what my values and goals were for going to work in Africa, what I feel God calling me to, and then look at the broad needs of each country.  Here’s the list that I came up with and the statistics I looked at:

• My number 1 criteria was that the country had to be more than 40% unreached (see The Joshua Project for this info)

Then I looked at some health statistics using the WHO website:

• Percent of urbanization
• Access to improved water and sanitation
• Life expectancy at birth
• Newborns with low birth weight
• Underweight children
• Neonatal mortality
• Infant mortality
• Under 5 mortality
• Maternal mortality

Initially solely based on the country being unreached I came up with 12 countries all within North-West Africa.  Then when I looked at the health statistics I narrowed it down to eight countries.  Health wise four of the countries were doing alright comparatively speaking.  Then I took those eight and narrowed it further to five countries.  Then once again I narrowed it to three countries – Guinea-Bissau, Sierra-Leone and Niger. So this is where I am at currently.  If you want to check out the statistics click below for my chart.

Data

I’m very drawn towards Guinea-Bissau for a few reasons.  While I dated my ex (Carlos) who is from Guinea-Bissau I was immersed into his culture for 4 years and I loved every minute of it.  I know the people, I know both of the languages (to listen and understand but less in speaking), I know the food (and how to cook it), I know the superstitions and beliefs.  It seems to me to be the obvious choice.  There is obvious need in the country as it is one of the most unstable and poorest African countries, as well the health status of the country is poor.  Being as I am so close to the culture, have many friends who would help me to solidify my language skills, as well as coach me through traveling in Guinea-Bissau, I know that being in Guinea-Bissau would not be hard for me.  Generally speaking (I’ve never been to Africa so it could be different when there) when I travel I never have a hard time adapting to the culture of the country I am in.  I never get home sick for Canada and I always feel like I’m home when I’m traveling (that’s a definite blessing).  I think Africa would be the hardest adaptation to make in terms of culture shock, but Guinea-Bissau would be easy.

Having said all of this, I’m still really praying about it.  I don’t necessarily want to be “comfortable,” I don’t want to take the easy road for the sake of taking the easy road.  There is MASSIVE need in the entire continent of Africa, both physically and spiritually, and I can only choose ONE country.  So part of me hesitates in picking Guinea-Bissau but the other part wonders if God spent 4 years preparing me for just this.

So if you could pray for me, pray for these countries, and ask God to give me specific direction because my heart is torn in 54 different directions.

Discipleship

In preparation for promoting Caritas, and for clarity in my own mind and heart, I’ve been starting to put to words my heart in setting up this program.  There are two branches to the program: 1)Going in teams and 2)Rooting into a community. I have specific visions/desires for each branch and I’ve made a list of those.  I will start to blog about each vision/desire one at a time.  Today is my first installment. I pray that the Holy Spirit would challenge you through my own challenges.

Vision for teams:

• Discipleship
• Christ centered nursing
• Compassion
• Love
• Passion

Vision for Community

• Evangelism
• Partnership
• Empowerment
• Hope
• Love
• Health

Discipleship

We have been called to go and make disciples.  Matthew 28:16-20 says:

“Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holey Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’”

I’m interested in discipleship not only because it’s what I am called (as are you) but because my heart longs for relationship.  I’m a very relational person. I mean we are all relational – created from relationship (the Trinity) to be in relationship.  In the beginning God said it’s not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18).  So at the core of our being we are relational, we desire relationship because that’s what we have been created for.  I’ve written countless things about this, and I know I’ve repeated myself over and over, but I know that my heart desires to disciple because my heart desires to be in relationship.

I think discipleship is something that isn’t done quite as well as it should.  Discipleship calls for sacrifice, for selflessness, for commitment.  These are three things that my generation in particular isn’t good at.   The disciples of Jesus left everything, literally everything to follow him.

Imagine that you have a thriving oil business, you are making millions, and you are at the top of your game you feel like nothing could knock you down.  You have a million dollar house, a hundred thousand dollar car, you spend your weekends golfing and shopping, you can’t imagine how life could possibly get better.  Then one day you meet this guy and He shows you that life beyond what you have now is possible, that you’re possessions and your power are fleeting, they are temporary and not really useful.  He opens your eyes and your heart to an eternal life, one where possessions don’t matter, people matter, and people matter because they were created in the image of perfection for a specific purpose, time and place.  YOU matter because you were created for a specific purpose, time and place.  So he shows you this and then asks you to give everything you have and follow him.  COMMIT to HIM, SACRIFICE everything you have for HIM, become SELFLESS for HIM.  This is what Jesus disciples did for HIM.

If you are a Christian you have assumed the same as His disciples, because you are His disciple, but are you really a disciple?

I’m not saying you have to sell all your earthly possessions and go off to the bush to live a life of simplicity because everything is fleeting.

All I’m doing is asking if you have truly counted the cost of following Him?

There is a cost, what is it in your life?

I struggle with this EVERY SINGLE day of my life lately.

Have I counted the cost? Is the cost negotiable? Can I talk Him down to a price that I feel is doable? Is this life of commitment, sacrifice and selflessness worth it?

Jesus talks about this in Luke 14:26-34

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple. Any anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.  Suppose one of you wants to build a tower.  Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king.  Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand?  If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.  In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.  Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?  It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.  He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

It’s a high price to follow Christ and I fear that we do not portray that price adequately.  When someone comes to Christ do we read them this scripture? Do we warn them of what they are getting into?  Do we ask them to count the cost?

I really believe that God is rising up this generation to count the cost.  He is calling people to leave everything they have known and follow Him.  This might be on missions, at work, in their family, or sacrificing finances in order to support others.  He’s teaching this generation about the cost, and people are following.  We have a long way to go though, and part of my passion in doing medical missions in a team setting is to make disciples.  Disciples make disciples, so if I disciple two people, and those two people disciple two people and those four people each disciple two people then we have multiplied His disciples.  I can impact two people’s lives for the Kingdom and together our impact becomes huge and the ripple effect will continue.

Discipleship is mandatory in the Kingdom of God and I’m ready to go there.  I’m ready to see lives completely and utterly sacrificed to His calling in their lives.  I’m ready to walk beside them and support them, teach them and most importantly learn from them.

Introducing Caritas

Well I’ve promised a medical mission update, and I’m finally able to give you at least one! After a lot of prayer, reading, frustration I have finally picked a name for the program! It’s an exciting day! There’s something about putting a name to something that makes it more real.  Another step into the reality which my life is becoming.  Scary yet exciting!

I’m going to include my explanation of the name because most people don’t know what the word caritas means (I didn’t know before stumbling upon it).

I’ve been praying about a name for the medical mission program for a few months and nothing seemed to fit.  Finally I sat down and made a list of what I wanted the name to represent, I came up with this:

• It must line up with my own philosophy in nursing.
• It must convey Biblical principles.
• It must be able to be universal (not geographically specific).
• It must be (somewhat) original.

So from this list I started trying to pinpoint my nursing philosophy, putting into words why I am a nurse and what I want my practice to represent.  To gain insight I began reading different nursing theories.  I came across Katie Eriksson’s Theory of Caritative Caring and instantly knew that this is what I wanted my practice to model as well as this program.

In terms of Biblical principles I want this program to be rooted in God’s heart for His people.  I want to portray that love through relationship and caring for the downtrodden.  I want the orphans, widows and poor to know God’s love, to embrace Him and enter the Kingdom.

The word caritas is Latin for charity, but the origin of the word comes from the Greek agape.  The Britannica Encyclopedia provides the following explanation of charity:

the highest form of love, signifying the reciprocal love between God and man that is made manifest in unselfish love of one’s fellow men. St. Paul’s classical description of charity is found in the New Testament (I Cor. 13). In Christian theology and ethics, charity (a translation of the Greek word agapē, also meaning “love”) is most eloquently shown in the life, teachings, and death of Jesus Christ. St. Augustine summarized much of Christian thought about charity when he wrote: “Charity is a virtue which, when our affections are perfectly ordered, unites us to God, for by it we love him.”

Eriksson’s theory lays out assumptions that I have made and which I base my nursing practice on. I really like Katie Eriksson’s theory  because it resonates with everything inside of me. The following are the axioms (fundamental truths in relation to the conception of the world) of her theory:

• The human being is fundamentally an entity of body, soul, and spirit.
• The human being is fundamentally a religious being.
• The human being is fundamentally holy. Human dignity means accepting the human obligation of serving with love, of existing for the sake of others.
• Communion is the basis for all humanity.  Human beings are fundamentally interrelated to an abstract and/or concrete other in a communion.
• Caring is something human by nature, a call to serve in love.
• Suffering is an inseparable part of life.  Suffering and health are each others prerequisites.
• Health is more than the absence of illness.  Health implies wholeness and holiness.
• The human being lives in a reality which is characterized by mystery, infinity, and eternity.

And these are Eriksson’s theses (fundamental statements concerning the general nature of caring science):

• Ethos confers the ultimate meaning on the caring context.
• The basic motive of caring is the caritas motive.
• The basic category of caring is suffering.
• Caring communion forms the context of meaning of caring and derives its origin from the ethos of love, responsibility, and sacrifice, namely caritative ethics.
• Health means a movement in becoming, being and doing, striving for wholeness and holiness, which is compatible with endurable suffering.
• Caring implies alleviation of suffering in charity, love, faith, and hope.  Natural basic caring is expressed through ending, playing, and learning in a sustained caring relationship, which is asymmetrical by nature.

After reading all about caritas and Eriksson’s theory is was really clear to me what I should name this program.

So I would like to introduce you to:

Carits (Medical Missions)

There’s so much ground to go but I’m trudging through to get to the goal!

Random Update

I thought that I would do a bit of writing today on my designated “office day” – they are few and far between lately and honestly between working, sleeping, and the occasional coffee date I barely have time to check Facebook (shocking!).

The last month or so has been pretty exciting for me in terms of making head-way in my Africa plans and really putting down on paper my heart and vision.  I find that the more I talk about it the more clarity comes – this has always been a truth in my life.  I love to sit and talk about my passions and bounce ideas off of people, get new fresh perspective.

I am now in the process of narrowing down the country that I want to plant into.  I’m of course praying about it but I’m also using some strategy.  This will be an entire post on it’s own in the very near future so stay tuned.

I’ve had so many discussions about Africa lately and I’m overwhelmed by the support that I am receiving from friends and strangers alike.  I’m beginning to REALLY believe that this will happen.  It’s been fairly abstract in my mind, a HUGE dream from a very MEAGER dreamer.  It’s hard for people to understand a dream that’s your own, for them to get behind it and support if you don’t put to words what your dream is.  It’s so personal that it’s scary to put it out there, to talk about it, to put your passion behind it.  This has been my struggle as of lately.  I’m blessed to have friends who support me 110% and who urge me forward, who encourage, bless, and pray for me.

Balance has been a huge theme in my life lately as well.  In this new position of being an RN and working for a living instead of going to school, I really need to focus on balancing my life, and that first starts in my spiritual life – everything else builds on that.   I have so many long and short term goals that I’m working towards that I can’t help but feel overwhelmed by how fast my life is moving.  It’s already May, and I feel like I’ve made no headway in the balance department.  I’m thankful that I’m not looking to “arrive” anywhere, that God is in control and that I will always be making progress.

This post is really all over the place, I didn’t have a specific theme in mind other than to just update those who care.  I’ll have some more focused posts coming in the near future.

Thanks for praying for me and supporting me in something that seems beyond my grasp.

Just Like Israel

I’ve needed to sit down and write, to reflect and ponder but I’ve been intentionally avoiding it.

It’s been a rough couple weeks.  I’m not going to get into details but I’ve come to some realizations that have to do with life, love and friendships.  In the midst of that I’ve been working nights and having very little work-life balance, and when I think I do have balance I’m actually sleep depriving myself and then I crash.  Last week I crashed, I slept and worked for 5 days, it was a struggle to drag myself out of bed, to eat, to carry conversation – I believe they call that depression – I think it’s the closest I get to being “clinically” depressed.  I’m fortunate to have the ability to recognize it almost to the day that I start sinking into it, and I always know what’s going to get me out of it, it’s just forcing myself to do that that is the hardest part.

Here’s one of the realizations I came to.

When I begin to question, to doubt my life, to wonder what I’m actually doing, to analyze my decisions and when I look at all my answers with a life-lens of negativity and disappointment I will always avoid God.

I intentionally stop reading my Bible, I don’t pray and I avoid worship music at all costs.

Last week I thought to myself “wait a minute, I’ve been here before, and it’s in this place that I made decisions that will forever affect my life.”

Even though I knew that, even though I saw history repeating itself it was HARD for me to pull myself out.

How easy is it for us to forget God in the midst of our struggles?

It’s phenomenal to me that I even CHOOSE to disregard God, after what I KNOW to be true in my life.

How much heart-ache does God go through daily because His Israel, His Bride turns their face from Him, knowing He’s there but choosing to worship something else.  Worship something that is HERE NOW, that is bright and shiny, that is appealing in the moment.  It’s hard for us to be focused beyond what we know, see, feel right now.  It’s hard for us to see our lives as an intricate part of the Kingdom of God which has been here for centuries and which continues on for eternity.  The Kingdom which is now – in this very moment- and not yet.

My desire is follow Him into my calling, to listen to His words, to pray His words, to be focused not on what will satisfy me now (although I know God cares about that as well) but on what will advance His Kingdom into this world that is lost, broken and alone.

We haven’t come very far from where Israel was:

Doom, rebel children!God’s Decree.
You make plans, but not mine.
You make deals, but not in my Spirit.
You pile sin on sin,
one sin on top of another,
Going off to Egypt
without so much as asking me,
running off to Pharaoh for protection,
expecting to hide out in Egypt.
Well, some protection Pharaoh will be!
Some hideout, Egypt!
They look big and important, true,
with officials strategically established in
Zoan in the north and Hanes in the south,
but there’s nothing to them.
Anyone stupid enough to trust them
will end up look stupid -
All show, no substance,
an embarrassing farce.

Isaiah 30:1-5

Yet, thankfully God never changes because His grace and mercy are beyond our ability to say “sorry.”

But God’s not finished.  he’s waiting around to be gracious to you.
He’s gathering strength to show mercy to you.
God takes the time to do everything right – everything.
Those who wait around for him are the lucky ones.

Isaiah 30:18

He takes the time to do everything right – everything.

Wow.

In my struggle to want what’s here and now, I’ve forgotten that God’s got it covered.

He has everything mapped out perfectly.

If you’re struggling like me, wondering why you’re in this place, in this position, take heart in knowing that even in the midst of rebellion and frustration God’s taking the time to write your story with perfection.