100 Things about Me

1. I'm a registered nurse.
2. I am currently in grad school to become a family nurse practitioner.
3. I'd also really love a master's in public health.
4. I used to not like kids.
5. Now I really like kids.
6. I help teach the 1st-5th grade kids at church on Sunday mornings.
7. I am starting a one-on-one mentoring program called KidsHope in a few weeks.
8. I volunteer at the Salvation Army Medical Clinic when I can.
9. I love serving people in need.
10. I get the biggest kick out of meeting basic needs: food, water, shelter, love.
11. I want to move internationally in the semi-near future to do that.
12. I love learning about different cultures and languages.
13. If I was doing something other than nursing, I'd work for a Christian non-profit agency helping people in crisis.
14. Or I'd be a photographer/reporter for National Geographic on human rights issues.
15. I like being really cheap.
16. The reason I try to be cheap is so I can give more away.
17. I became a Christian when I was 13.
18. I was baptized by my top role model.
19. I was scared to talk to my role model/mentor until this last year.
20. I become more amazed by God all the time.
21. A lot of people say I look like Natalie Wood who played Maria in West Side Story.
22. I've been a little self-conscious of my weight since college.
23. It's pretty silly that I am considering I am a big 112 lbs.
24. I've never said I've felt that way in "public" before.
25. I would live outdoors all the time if it never got hot or cold.
26. I really like running. I think I am physically addicted to it, though I'm just a casual jogger now.
27. I ran a marathon my senior year in college.
28. I don't have the itch to do another one yet, but I'd like to do a half marathon in the spring.
29. I did an internship in Minnesota in 2005 and moved here in 2006.
30. It still strikes me funny that I live here.
31. I love the down-home cabin feel of the rural parts and the trendy-green loving feel of the cities.
32. My friends know me better than my family.
33. I miss my grandma who died last year.
34. I learned to knit last winter, but have only done a lot of scarfs and one hat.
35. I don't think I've ever seriously been in love.
36. Though there are people I admire greatly from afar.
37. I have a really bad sweet tooth.
38. I like doing creative arts and crafts things.
39. I make my own stationary.
40. I love singing.
41. One of the few things I miss from Harding is singing with other believers.
42. Just about the only other thing I miss is the people.
43. I guess I miss some of the activities too, though I have different things going on now.
44. I tend to sing alto when there is not instrumental music, and soprano when there is.
45. People ask me to giggle for them sometimes because apparrantly my giggle is pretty funny.
46. I used to have a variety of nicknames, but nobody here uses them.
47. I love to read.
48. I used to get in trouble when I was a kid for reading too much.
47. I also got in trouble for talking back.
48. I'm better about that now.
49. I always wanted to have red curly hair like my sister's.
50. As I get older it is getting curlier, but it is still just brown.
51. Fall is my favorite season.
52. I like it best because of sweatshirts, colors, and pumpkin flavored everything.
53. This last winter in MN wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.
54. I tend to be an optimist and see something good about everything.
55. Patients ask me all the time if I am old enough to be a nurse.
56. I get asked if I am in high school on a regular basis.
57. My favorite color is green.
58. My birthday is on St. Patrick's Day.
59. That's not the reason my favorite color is green.
60. I have a bad habit of eating unidentified berries when on a hike.
61. I'm not scared of dying.
62. A big part of my heart is in Honduras.
63. I spend exclusive time with God every day.
64. My faith has changed in incredible ways since I started doing that.
65. I used to play piano, but I haven't seriously in years.
66. It makes me really sad when I think of how I let my talent go.
67. If I could play another instrument besides piano, it would be the fiddle.
68. I really do like a small portion of country music.
69. One of my weaknesses is jealosy.
70. I love change.
71. I love surprises.
72. I used to be pretty strict about my shoes to matching my outfit, but now I don't care.
73. I love to wear skirts and chacos, sometimes together.
74. I think it is sad there are such things as rich Christians in a world of need.
75. I have a dream of living in a house in a poor neighborhood with several others.
76. I want it to be a safe place where we could get to know people and become involved in their lives.
77. I want to share possessions and live simply so we'd have more resources for outreach.
78. I want to help struggling people in that neighborhood.
79. I want to become friends with the kids.
80. I want to learn from those people who have a better idea of what community is than I do.
81. If I could take 3 types of items out of this world, they would be drugs, alcohol, and guns.
82. I am addicted to chapstick.
83. I don't like tv.
84. I am extremely picky about movies I like.
85. I am dependent on the internet.
86. If I had a super-power, it would be that of instant transportation.
87. And anybody who was touching me could go with me.
88. I've picked up enough of the MN accent to sound funny to people in TN, but not enough to hide my Southerness here.
89. I'm glad I grew up on a farm.
90. When people ask me where I want to live when I leave Rochester, I have a hard time answering.
91. In a rural area of some yet-to-be-determined underdeveloped country?
92. But then you have to explain more.
93. It's easier to just say Seattle or Denver or some other cool city.
94. But I usually end up telling the whole story.
95. Because I want people to know me.
96. I went for a long time where nobody really knew me.
97. That was years ago. I'm done with that now.
98. And I really want to deeply know other people.
99. I hope this post strikes you as funny and thought-provoking and not too self-centered.
100. I truly am grateful for the life I have.

Return of the Camera

Well, my duct-taped ghetto camera finally meandered its way to Rochester from Honduras where I left it this summer. It was abandoned in my favorite place to lose things: in the pocket on the back of the seat in front of me. I never used to be this forgetful.

Nevertheless, some pretty decent photos came back to me. The ones of buildings are part of the new children's home that opened just a few weeks ago. Amazing. God has prepared a place of paradise for these children who have been through hell. The rest are dear friends who live and serve full-time in Honduras.

Labor Day Weekend

Bayfield, Wisconsin with its Apostle Islands is possibly the best place in the Midwest I had never heard of. At the last minute, my friends Amy and Kate and I set off for the 5-hour drive to this charming little town on some friends' recommendations for the long Labor Day weekend. Here's some of what we found...

A few boats...





The biggest lake in the world....












Some sea caves pounded out by the previously mentioned lake...









Lots of charm....

and a few funny trees.



It was gorgeous, pristine, relaxing, and fun. Pretty much perfect.

Jesus Loves Me

I cried for the second time ever at work Monday. Not a big all-out sob, but just enough tears welled up to call it a cry. It didn't help that I was on hour 16 of my shift and physically and mentally worn out.

I just got done assisting with a procedure with this patient where I give her enough drugs to make her loopy enough to not feel us taking two samples of her bone marrow from her hips while keeping her awake enough to follow directions. I was sticking around to take one last set of vital signs and her husband came in after the bone marrow people left.

Now this lady is not all with it. She knows who she is, but she talks nonsense most of the time and says the most hilarious things. Some weird virus is making her this way. We're working on figuring out what it is and what we can do about it. But until then, she basically acts like a 90-year-old Alzheimer's patient instead of a normal mid-50s woman.

So she keeps talking while I'm standing there, just like she has all through the procedure. Except she makes sense for a few minutes. She's talking about how hard this disease is, how sick she is of being sick, how she wishes they could find answers....but that she still has to praise God. "Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me" she says over and over while starting to cry. "Jesus loves me and my husband loves me and Jesus loves me....."

Her husband kneels on the floor next to her bedside, puts his head in her hand and silently starts crying himself. Neither of them are paying a bit of attention to me, but I just take her other hand and let my own tears and prayers come.

Life is hard. But Jesus loves me.

For Obang

I had dinner tonight with a friend whose English I have to struggle to understand and whose story I can barely comprehend. Obang is his name and Ethiopia is his home country. He's been here in Rochester for 8 years, 12 in the States, I think. Long story short, his people are being persecuted and killed off by his government. Many of his people, the Anuak, have fled to go to Sudan. Talk about a place of refuge. Many are in Kenya, like his fiance.

But before I get too serious here, Obang made some good food tonight. I'm not even going to try to spell it, but it was this spongy bread/tortilla thing you use to scoop up a stew-like mixture of meat and veggies. He told me where to buy the yummy sponge-bread, and you can be sure I'm going to get some real soon.

Obang didn't go to school when he was little. He never went until he was 12 or 13 because the government physically blocked the way and set up insurmountable barriers. He has recently started to learn to write his native language through a church in the Cities that hosts tutoring on Sundays. There are only about 100,000 Anuaks to start with, and roughly 400-500 live here in Minnesota.

He doesn't really know for sure how old he is now. By my estimates, he's got to be close to 30, but looks much younger. His skin is the darkest of dark, which make his white teeth stand out so much you have a hard time not staring at them. But you have an excuse because if you stare at his lips you will catch more words. Somehow he and his brother came over here before this pre-genocide started. His brother got sick and needed a kidney transplant. Obang gave him one of his.

The main incidence of genocidal killings started in Dec. 2003. Several other skirmishs and persecutions have happened since. And now Obang has a fire in his body to help his people and raise awareness about what's going on there. He's networking with everyone he can over here to get support, money, and awareness to do something. He and another person want to raise enough money to go to Africa and find some responsible, dependable people who will accept whatever funds/supplies Obang and his stateside community can muster up and do good things with it. Education is his first priority. There are not many schools, and they don't have supplies anyway. Today he went to the Kiwanis group and they gave him $42. It's a start. Besides education, they don't have adequate food and water either.

With all the atrocities occuring in Sudan, the crisis in Ethiopia has been overshadowed. But it's real and it's affecting my brothers and sisters. And it's causing Obang to lose a lot of sleep.

If you want to read a little more, check this out
http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2004/07/28_straumanisa_anuakproject/

Quiet Night

Many times people ask me what kind of hospital unit I work on. The answer is: General Medicine/Nephrology. That translates into kidneys and everything else. Here's the breakdown of my patients tonight:

#1-Male with left groin abscess and a history of pelvic cancer and chronic kidney failure
#2-Somalian male with a joint infection of his ankle-speaks no English
#3-Woman recovering from multi-organ (kidney, liver, respiratory) failure after going into shock from an overwhelming infection
#4- Male with GI bleeding and acute kidney failure, history of heart failure
#5-Woman with some serious stomach bug or possibly ulcerative colitis
#6-25 year-old male with bone changes in his hips causing great pain, plus extensive psych issues including drug dependency, bipolar disorder, and multiple suicidal attempts.

And I have little to do. Its a quiet night on Domitilla 3D. And I'm relishing in that fact.

Home

In July, I left my home to visit home on my way to what feels like home.

Let me explain.

I left Rochester, MN, (which is where I would probably consider home is), to go to Lebanon, TN (which is where other people would consider my home is). I said hi and bye, and then left to go to a place that really feels like home: Honduras, Central America.

What a strange feeling—to travel who-knows-how-many-miles with one carry-on suitcase and feel like you are really home. I told a few people that. Some looked at me like I was crazy and others said “I know exactly what you mean” before I had even finished my sentence. But Honduras felt like home much more than my middle-class suburban life in Lebanon or my single adult professional life in Rochester.

Maybe it’s the lifestyle. When I try to describe what I feel when I’m deliberately serving and loving people in a developing country, I usually say, “I am more like myself when I’m there.” What I mean is, when I’m there, I am who I want to be and who I believe I am really deep down. I don’t care about materialism. I care about people. I don’t care about fancy food. I want to make sure others are fed enough to live. I don’t care about the latest high tech expensive surgery. I care if people receive basic healthcare. I don’t care that my shirt and pants may not exactly match. I care that others have enough clothes to survive.

Maybe Honduras felt like home because I’d been there before and I recognized places and people more so than the people I was with. But I think it was more than that. While we were working, someone said to me “I can definitely see where your heart it.” Whoa. Did they mean Honduras? I don’t know. I took it as if they meant serving people who desperately need it.

You always hear people say you should find something you’re passionate about and make a living out of it. I’m passionate about helping people in need who don’t have much. It keeps me up at night. I lose sleep and shed tears and skip meals struggling in my mind and in prayer for those struggling in this world. And by them not having much, I mean more than food and clothes. I mean hope. And faith. And a relationship with God. It just so happens that God told us to go to those in need and help them. To feed, clothe, shelter, and teach them.

Honduras isn’t the only place where there are people in great need. I don’t know where God will send me. I also don’t think it really matters now. But I’m listening, soberly.

To the Frimily

To those soulmates scattered near and far:

I've written and erased this opening sentence probably a dozen times. I started naming some of you but kept thinking of more to add to the list. I don't know how to express how grateful I am for people like you--people I can dream with, laugh and cry with, love with. Though months may pass between the times we speak, there exists a sweet, sweet bond that is not easily broken. Thank you for having hearts soft enough to hear both God's shouts and whispers. Thanks for caring passionately about people. Thanks for challenging me and encouraging me. Thanks for sticking through the insecure and indecisive times. I'm excited and sobered by what tomorrow brings. I know you'll be there in spirit no matter what. And I praise God for all of you.

Sometimes when I read books or hear about events or witness awful things occur, I get kind of discouraged. Like tonight, when speaking with a new friend from Ethiopia pleading for attention for the genocide occurring in his country. Like last night at work, with the woman with obvious signs of physical neglect whose stories just don't add up. Like this morning when I'm reading a book that talks a lot about materialism, community, and how far the normal philosphopies of Christianity are from what Jesus actually talked about. Like today, when I'm packing up my apartment and embarrased that I have so much stuff when there are others who have so little.

Discourage: "to deprive of courage, hope, or confidence; dishearten; dispirit." (dictionary.com)

Then I came across this quote tonight: “Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’”

Take courage, my friends. Make some changes, keep a little esperanza in your soul, and keep trying.

It took 'em a year, but they finally came

So this week, my family came all the way from Tennessee to come see me. That is, minus my sister, who was working and being a bridesmaid for a friend. We went "Up North"--what Minnesotans call the North Shore of Lake Superior, the largest lake in the world. Here are some highlight photos.


This is Gooseberry Falls, a really wonderful state park.

This is Split Rock Lighthouse.

A barge on Lake Superior in the chilly early morning

Superior from a distance at Gooseberry.

Check out facebook for lots more. The week also included a lot of corn fields, elk farms, a lot of driving, a huge park in St. Paul, the Farmer's Market, a nature center, wild blackberries, and a tour of Mayo. I believe a good time was had by all. My new goal is to get them here in winter.