This past week while I was preparing for clinical, I had an epiphany of sorts. I was reviewing how to do a sterile dressing change, since I had not done one in a while, and realized that I had done something wrong. Realizing this, I quickly fixed the problem and moved on. Then it came to me… how the Christian life is a lot like nursing.

While I was doing the dressing change, a tiny piece of the sterile gauze touched something that was not sterile. It didn’t touch something dirty, but because it was not sterile, the gauze was now considered contaminated and I could no longer use it. Realizing what I had done, I threw away the gauze and picked up a new one. It was then that I realized how the Christian life is like nursing… just bear with me here! Our life, after we become saved, is like the sterile gauze—completely free of anything bad! However, sometimes in life we do things that are not right (sterile). They may not be horrible, but they are not right. Instead of just ignoring what has happened and not being able to be used of the Lord, we should “get rid of it,” grab a new one, and keep on going on for the Lord!

This is just a little something that the Lord gave to me this week. Hope it encourages you and that you are able to use it as you finish out the semester and head into summer!

I had a jolly ole time recently as my crew and I set sail to go see PCC’s fine arts production of H.M.S. Pinafore. The voyage there started out with the whole crew getting ready in their barracks. Once the crew was ready, the fleet was assembled and the anchor raised to sail on over to the play. Upon our arrival on campus, we disembarked and headed in to see the play.

For this fine arts, I had the most amazing man accompany me—My dad! He came down for the week so we were able to go to fine arts together! It was a really fun time to be able to spend time with him and enjoy the show.

The play started with everyone standing and reciting the Lord’s prayer, and then the orchestra played a beautiful overture before the play started. The play was amazing! It had a fun, humorous plot, with lots of funny things in the middle.  The main story is about a lowly sailor and a captain’s daughter who like each other. However, they do not admit to it because of their ranks. But through a myriad of incidents, some things come to light, and in the end the two are happily married!

The whole play was a fun, and exciting story that kept the whole audience laughing. I enjoyed every second of it! The faculty and staff did a great job putting on the play, and I am looking forward to see what they are going to do next!

Mr. and Mrs. Allen in PNG

If you haven’t caught on yet, the title of this post is not in English! It is in a language called Tok Pisin, the language spoken by the people of Papua New Guinea (PNG). A few weeks ago John Allen, missionary to PNG, came to speak in chapel here at PCC. I had the privilege of interviewing him and getting to know a little bit more about his life as a missionary. It was nice to learn a little more about PNG since I will be going there this summer to work with the Allens! Hope you enjoy it and learn something new! ☺

How did you learn about PNG?
Years ago, I was exposed to tribal missions by a Venezuelan missionary who worked among tribal people. I hadn’t realized there were still tribal missions in the world. After I met him, I found that one of the last tribal frontiers was New Guinea. Then I saw the video Ee-taow in the early 90s. The Lord opened my eyes—wow, there are people that haven’t heard!

How did you know that God had called you to PNG?
I had tried to go to mission fields from 1980 on, and the Lord would never give me peace. I tried really hard to go to Russia—I went there three summers and begged God to let me stay. I can tell you what 95% peace is. I kept thinking, well maybe the little piece that’s lacking is that I need to step out, and every time I tried to step out, the Lord would stop me completely in my tracks.

When we went to see Matt and Becky [his son and daughter-in-law who serve in PNG] in 2005, I didn’t think of the Lord calling me there—I didn’t really like it. It was the Lord. When Matt was able to share with me his burden, I know he didn’t think I would be the one to come help. He said, “I need help with language, I need help with medical, and I don’t know where I’m gonna get this kind of help.” And I thought, I don’t know either.

That night, the Lord began to speak to my heart. I remember crying and saying, “No, You wouldn’t let me do this after I’ve tried so many years.” My wife, who didn’t know all that Matt had told me, said, “You know, I think we could do this kind of a ministry.” And I said, “Really? Well let me tell you what Matt said.” I remember stepping out on Matt’s back porch, and I said, “God, is this that 5% peace I’ve lacked my whole life about missions?” And I really felt the Lord said, “Here’s your green light, this is yours, this is where I want you.” It was a calm thing, and I just wept. This is what I’ve always wanted to do: I wanted to be in missions. When Paul writes about a peace that passes all understanding, I truly experienced that peace and have that peace even today.

What are some barriers that you face in PNG?
Obviously linguistic—their tribal language is extremely difficult, especially because it’s not written, so there’s not a whole lot I can go on. There is also a cultural barrier. You must learn to turn off the switch in your brain that thinks one way and learn to put yourself in their frame of mind and try to understand why they do what they do, or why they think it’s logical. Humans are prejudiced—we are all ethnocentric; we all think our culture is it. That is one of the barriers that we face.

What is one of the hardest things about being on the mission field?
Being away from family and friends in the States.

What is one of your favorite parts of being on the mission field?
I love the whole thing. Our ministry is so physical, spiritual, and emotional that at the end of the day, I collapse from exhaustion. In America, we’re not a physical ministry. We get in a car and drive some place. In PNG there’s no car. You hike everywhere, come home, and then part of the roof is broken. So you have to get saws and hammers and repair the roof out of raw materials.

Not only is it more physical, but it is also more emotional. Some people get in our yard and look right in our window. Because of that, we have to be conscious from morning to night about what we’re doing, saying, and thinking spiritually. At the end of the day it is tiring, but it is so rewarding.

What is some advice that you would give to today’s young people?
Everyone should be involved in missions to some extent. Everyone, every day, can pray. They can partner with a missionary (or more than one missionary) and covenant to pray for them and learn about them.

Always be involved in giving. When you don’t have “skin in the game,” it doesn’t matter. Make an investment of your time, finances, and heart. It’s not really an investment until it hurts. Passion for serving God carries a risk. The safer you want to be, the less reward there will be. People need to learn how to stick out their necks and be “broken bread, poured out wine, and willing to be the doormat for the world“ (Oswald Chambers). That’s hard, but that’s where it starts. It is where the attitude toward Christ from the heart is poured out. Those are the young people and adults that start going.

A few weeks ago, I had my first day of clinicals at the nursing home. The first six weeks of the semester, I was in lab learning how to perform certain procedures.Now that I know how to perform these procedures, I am able to use and apply what I have learned in the clinical setting. Here is a short synopsis of my first day at clinicals!

Just breathe, just breathe, I kept assuring myself. Things are going to be fine. Sure this is your first time working on a patient as a student nurse, but everything will go well. With tons of adrenaline in store I paced my way all the way to the van where we were going to load up and get ready to start our first day of clinicals.

When I first walked into the nursing home, my heart felt like it was pounding through my chest. From all the questions I had learned to ask for a cardiac assessment, I was sure that I was going to have a heart attack because I was having a lot of chest pressure. Although I knew it was all mostly in my head.

After the instructors finished giving us instructions on what to do and let us know what patient we had, I dashed off to go look at my patient’s chart and meet her for the first time. It was amazing how hard it was to knock on that door. I mean, it’s a simple task really. Just take your fist and knock. Right? Well at the time, it seemed like the hardest task in the world. As I am standing trying to muster up the courage to knock on the door, my instructor came by with a breeze and just knocked and walked right in. Feeling like a complete chicken, I forced myself to fake confidence and followed her into the room to go meet my patient. Wow! What a relief. After the initial fright, I was slightly more at ease and was happy to find that my patient was a very pleasant person!

The first thing that I did was vital signs. Most of the vital signs were taken the normal way; however, my patient had a problem to where I had to take her blood pressure on her foot instead of her arm. Because this is not something that is normally done, I had my instructor help me. It was really hard to hear, and I didn’t quite get it all the way, but it was a great experience to be able to practice something new.

After I completed vital signs, I finished off the day by completing a physical assessment, and giving a patient a bed bath. When the day was done, I reported off to my instructor and prepared to head back to campus. Right before we headed back to campus, we had a quick in service training there at the facility to teach us how to use the lifts. It was a neat time to be able to learn about the advances that nursing has made to be able to help nurses with the care of patients!

Over all, the first day went very well, and I am excited to see what is going to happen in the days to come!

A few times every semester we have what is called white glove. It is when everyone cleans his own room so cleanly that you could take a white glove over any surface and it would still be white!

White glove is an awesome time to get together as a room and clean things up a bit that probably did not get cleaned over midterms/finals. It is a time when you can learn to work together as a room and have fun while cleaning together. My room last year listened to Christmas music and sang along while we cleaned! And in the end, you have a wonderfully clean room to come back to!

Our next white glove is just aroud the corner–it is only a week and a half away! It is on Friday, November 11th, so…

Here are some tips to help you make white glove a successful breeze:

#1: Get involved! White glove always goes better when everyone in the room is helping and getting involved.

#2: Split up the room! Talk things over with your roommates and decide who is going to clean what. Doing this will help things to go faster, and then you will not miss anything or “re-do” something that has already been done.

#3: Don’t mix chemicals when cleaning the shower! If you mix them you will have residue from the chemicals reacting to each other.  I have actually found that just plain ole washing detergent does a really good job of cleaning the shower. Also… for white glove, the shower curtain needs to be washed too!

#4: Save dusting till AFTER you vacuum! When you vacuum, lots of dust gets stirred up in the air and lands everywhere.  So vacuuming first helps to save you from having to dust twice.

#5: Go over the bathroom floors with a semi-wet paper towel before you scrub it to help to pick up the hair. This will make scrubbing much easier and will also help speed things up.

#6: Use a wet paper towel to clean the baseboards. The water will pick up and trap more dust so that it is not just spread around the room.

#7: Make sure that your drawers are free of dust, small particles, and that they can be opened easily! This is easily done by wiping them down with a damp rag.

#8: Don’t forget to wash the “bellybutton” (aka. the overflow drain) of the sink –this is the most common place that is missed during white glove.

#9: Finish off the bathroom by wiping everything down with Windex to give it a beautiful shiny appearance!

#10: Don’t forget to wipe down the blinds and the windowsills!

Common misconceptions about white glove:

• You do not have to iron your sheets.
• The ceiling does not have to be dusted! The vents do, but please don’t try to hang off your bed and dust the middle of the ceiling!
• Your clothes do not all have to be perfectly folded in the drawers; however, the drawers do need to be clean and easy to open.
• Leaving candy for the RA (Resident’s Assistant) does not help… however it is appreciated

Have a great white glove!

Fellow students, if there is another tip that you have and want to share please feel free to leave it in the comments section! Thanks