What Our Nurses Have To Say About Grace Clinic, Malawi and Our Kids!
Last May, 4 nurses received scholarships from One Nurse at a Time for their trips to Malawi. Thank you so much, ONAAT! We are so thankful for your help and encouragement for our nurses and our children.
Hannah Yoder, Liesel Ratliff and Lindsey Draper work together in the clinic to care for a child.
Karly Glibert, Liesel Ratliff, Linsey Draper and Sylvana Paternite, all RNs, traveled to Malawi in May 2018 to do well-check ups on the children. They each experienced Malawi and Grace Clinic in different ways. They’ve shared their stories through the blog of One Nurse at a Time, an organization that helps send nurses around the world to serve. I wanted you to hear their stories!
First, hear from our Board Member, Karly Glibert. Karly has dedicated her time and energy to get the clinic up and running. She was in Malawi in May, September, and she’s going again in January to get everything set up for the Malawi Medical Council Inspection. We could never have moved forward so quickly without her dedication and love for our Malawian children, and the country of Malawi.
From a medical perspective, we saw approximately 675 people. We most commonly saw malaria, asthma, pneumonia, otitis media, dermatologic conditions, tinea capitis, and wounds. For the first time, we had an optometrist and a dentist travel with us. We were pleasantly surprised to find that many of the children did not need glasses or dental extractions. While our men would have loved to be constantly busy with work, we are thankful for the population that these services that are very rare and expensive in rural Malawi are not as desperately needed as we had assumed. One man commented that even though many did not need these “luxurious services,” we provided the community with dignity just by providing the opportunity to be assessed. This stuck out to me as one of the many intangibles that we as healthcare workers can provide through our care—dignity. And everyone deserves that. READ MORE…
Click on the link or picture to read Karly’s story on the One Nurse at a Time blog.
Next hear from Liesel Ratliff. This was Liesel’s first trip to Malawi.
I was a little unsure of how helpful I would be as I tried to provide medical care in a completely different context than the state-of-the-art pediatric hospital I work at here in Chicago. But, my 6 years of experience as a nurse definitely prepared me well for what we saw in the 675 children we treated. Doing a head to toe assessment on an American child and a Malawian child are vastly similar. The young children are skeptical of a stethoscope and penlight. So, I would have them play with the equipment before I used it on them. READ MORE…
Lindsey Draper has sponsored children through Circle of Hope for several years, May 2018 was her first time to go to Malawi.
On May 12, I began my travels to Malawi – after a couple long plane and bus rides, we arrived at our final destination on May 13. Despite my preparations for this trip, we encountered things we never imagined. READ MORE…
Finally, hear from Sylvana Paternite, this was Sylvana’s 5th trip to Malawi. She has given countless days and weeks to the people of Malawi because of her great love for Jesus and for Malawians!
Something else that was really encouraging to us, was that we felt that the overall health of all the kids was significantly better than last year! This means our kids are taking our education to heart, and we are seeing the benefits of that! We also have been encouraged that the Medical Malawian team we have there, have been teaching in the villages! The goal is to always equip the people to care for their own people! READ MORE…
Even grown ups need a doctor or a nurse! Sylvana gives Pastor Lungah a check-up!
We are counting down the days, the supplies, the buildings, the renovations, the staff…everything needed to register Grace Clinic! There is a still a LONG way to go, but if you haven’t checked out the registry or the thermometer, today might be a good time to take a look at how things are going and what we still need to open the clinic!