Students for International Mission Service (SIMS)

Reports from around the world
SIMS student volunteers share their stories of service

Victoria Thornton, a junior in the School of Nursing, holds Anita, a child she met during her time spent volunteering with SIMS at Kendu Adventist Hospital in Kenya.

Kenya
by Victoria Thornton, junior, School of Nursing, and Martha Lopez, senior, School of Nursing

Victoria's story:

When I arrived at Kendu Adventist Hospital, Kendu Bay, Kenya, for my seven-week stay I felt a connection to God like never before.

As I lay awake the first night, I listened to Africans in a nearby church beating on drums, singing, chanting, and praying. It was beautiful. It was something I had only imagined before.

I felt scared, intimidated, and lonely, yet when I thought about it I realized I was very peaceful inside. I had preconceived ideas about Kenya and the hospital where I would help. I imagined people wasting away, speaking in a language I didn't understand, sadness in their eyes. And although I saw this day in and out, I experienced something much different. I saw doctors and nurses singing songs of hope to patients. I watched nurses pray with the dying, hold the crying and the sick.

Ninety percent of those patients in that hospital were dying of AIDS, and yet they had love, they had joy, they had peace!

I watched my world of convenience become a world of meaning. I dropped my preconceived ideas, my habits, and my guard, and decided to become one of them. I didn't see people differently anymore: poor, rich, White, Black. I saw them as my beautiful brothers and sisters. I didn't see a difference in who we were.

The people I met didn't look at me as a White person, a woman, an American, or a nurse, they treated me first and foremost as a child of God. I saw those who lived in mud huts content, and it made me see how blessed I can be if I choose to acknowledge my blessings.

Children would run up and hug me and it didn't even cross their minds if they knew me, but they wanted to share some of their bountiful joy and peaceful love that they have known so well.

I finally understood and believed what Maya Angelou says: "You alone, are enough.î It's not in spite of treating AIDS patients, being in a poverty-stricken community, and seeing children die, it is because of those things that have made me who I am today.

My life is different now. I remember that there is more in my world than I can see, hear, or touch. I acknowledge the inner strength and the peace the Kenyans have allowed me to find in them. I have stopped blaming others and decided that I always have a choice and my choice is to live each day as I did in Africa„with every ounce of joy, peace, and hope I have.

Even as I have returned to the States I continue to look back on my summer in Africa not as the biggest learning experience of my life, but as the greatest reaching experience. I had the strength in me all along, I just needed a time and a place to reach inside and claim it.

Martha's story:
The day is just starting. It is 7:00 a.m. and I am ready to join the nurses and to take over for the night shift. The unit is full of patients as usual.

After hearing the nursing report the new shift has a meditation moment and a prayer at the nursing station. Shortly after that, we move closer to the patients' beds. With our small books in hand, we start singing religious songs. The lyrics are in Kiswahili yet songs have a familiar tune, so we join the local nurses and sing to the patients.

Some of the patients and their family members are lying down on their beds, some others are sitting up, others are eating their breakfast.

Many people in the hospital can listen to our songs. Yes, it is a new day in Kendu Adventist Hospital!

As this is the main community hospital, many patients have serious illnesses. People are suffering many aches in their bodies and spirits, but somehow they manage to join the chorus and sing with us these Christian songs.

I think that the music gives them hope. They know they are not alone. Jesus is there with them, listening to their music and praise.

After the song service we pray, asking the Lord to help us through the day. This is how the nursing staff starts its day at Kendu Adventist Hospital, Kendu Bay, Kenya.

"My life is different now. I remember that there is more in my world than I can see, hear, or touch. I acknowledge the inner strength and the peace the Kenyans have allowed me to find in them. I have stopped blaming others and decided that I always have a choice and my choice is to live each day as I did in Africa„with every ounce of joy, peace, and hope I have.î „Victoria Thornton

Victoria Thornton and Martha Lopez sing hymns in Kiswahili with the nurses in the pediatric ward of Kendu Adventist Hospital in Kenya.

"ƒThe music gives them hope. They know they are not alone. Jesus is there with them, listening to their music and praise. After the song service we pray, asking the Lord to help us through the day. This is how the nursing staff starts its day at Kendu Adventist Hospital, Kendu Bay, Kenya.î „Martha Lopez

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