Fresh Perspective

Soon after arriving in the Middle East, I became aware that in the rich Arabic countries there are many foreign nurses working in the hospitals. I started reading books about their experiences.  Several of them were not positive in terms of the demands, expectations and more. I read about passports being taken away, inadequate housing, endless shifts with few days off and more. However, I reached out to several contacts that I had and the nurses I spoke with sounded very positive. I longed to meet with them face to face.  That was 3 years ago. Recently, this dream of meeting with foreign nurses who are interfacing with the local culture, at its most vulnerable state, became a reality.   My goal was to dialogue and hopefully inspire them to be caring for the whole person.  Specifically, offering spiritual care of prayer and/or reading a comforting passage from The Book when they felt impressed to do so. Journey with me back 30 years… I was a young nurse ...

  I never watch horror movies. My heart is too sensitive. There is no reason I would volunteer to do that to myself. In many ways, that is how I felt about going to the epicenter of the Syrian earthquake zone, Aleppo. I felt like it would be a movie I didn't want to see. Yet my name had been selected to go. Others in our group, really wanted to go, but they were not chosen. We could not exchange names. We could not fake passports or legal documents.  Special permission had been granted for Darron and I to travel through Syria, from Damascus to Aleppo. Passing through check point after checkpoint with men armed with not so friendly looking machine guns. I steeled myself and decided that there must be a deeper reason for me to see what I didn’t want to see. https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/evgeny-stepanovich-kobytev-1941-1945/ Clearly, seeing too much can have an impact on us. See the boy's face above. A big part of my reasoning for not wanting to see and go, was t...