Tag Archives: Nursing

•

Since I last wrote, I’ve been juggling work, school, family, and church. Working in the Emergency Department, a new and hectic environment with every encounter a potentially life-altering one, I am understandably stressed. Add to that a full-time online college career and every other facet of my life has had to make sacrifices. Just a couple weeks ago, I was feeling so overwhelmed I was sure something would have to give. Then just as I began to feel crushed under the burden, God began to lift much of the worry right off me. He showed me I was on secure footing at school, and repeatedly shows me how He is using me in people’s lives at work. I may not be the most confident Emergency Department Nurse yet, but I am useful, and most days that gets affirmed at just the right time. 

Cindy is between jobs at the moment. Resigning her former position may have relieved her of one of her major stressors but it added one for being unoccupied. You might well imagine that an out-of-work workaholic is an unhappy person. Please pray that God will open a door of opportunity for her to again find purposeful structure. It wouldn’t hurt if that opportunity came with a paycheck.

My parents have decided that, since Cindy and I are planning to leave the continent to serve long-term in Africa, they might as well leave town and seek residence near my sisters. So they are moving to Memphis next week. I have tried to pitch in and help in preparations for their move where I can, but the opportunities to help between night shift work and college deadlines have been scarce and brief. Cindy has made herself available like a champ, and my siblings have all responded like heroes. My emotions are mixed about this move, but mostly I feel like the cause of the problem rather than a source of help. Add guilt and loss onto the pile I was carrying. 

Our church family is preparing for a missions expo that will launch the week of my birthday, September 14th. We are looking forward to being a part of that, and will have an information table as part of this “Go Expo”. Thanks to our Missions Pastor Lance Sellon, CrossRoad Church, and the CRC missions team, for their willingness to allow us to participate. 

So, as you can see, prayers are needed and appreciated. We are not just sitting still waiting for Summer 2021 to arrive. It’s coming quickly, and we’re busy preparing. God is crafting me into a competent healing minister, and turning us both into what we will need to be for the tasks and times ahead. Please don’t forget to pray for us. We need you! We need God’s power and peace in our lives. I know Jesus said not to worry, and that each day has enough of its own worries (Matthew 6:34). He was right. And right now our days are filled with what feels like more than our share. 

Your fellow servant,

Todd 

•

In a recent Global Missions Podcast, Melissa Weissenberger, of South American Missions (SAM) spoke of the importance of developing care groups. Missionaries need communities of support, prayer, and encouragement, and if you are reading this you are part of ours. By merely subscribing to this blog or periodically checking in, you hold us accountable to believe, plan, persist, and report about our missionary preparation endeavors. According to Proverbs 16:9, “We can make our plans but the Lord determines our steps” (NLT). We have heard the call to serve, have responded with positive affirmation, and have felt the tug on our hearts to serve in Uganda. Now that I have begun a new professional vocation as a nurse in order to serve the mission of God’s abundant life more practically, I am eager to know the steps God has laid ahead of us. Sometimes believing gets tough, especially because our season of preparation is longer than a lot of mission careers, and our future is still not yet known to us. We covet your prayers as we build into whatever comes next. 

Missionaries need communities of support, prayer, and encouragement, and if you are reading this you are part of ours.

At a time when the world is looking forward to finding out the Avengers’ Endgame, we recently got a glimpse of a possible future for our ministry, and are excited to share the vision with you. We identified a mission organization that seems to be doing what we are called to do, where we are called to do it, and for whom we also feel called to serve. To quote their website, which I hope you will visit:

"(This mission) exists to join Christ in restoring peace and healing wounds among the vulnerable children and war-torn people of Northern Uganda. 700 acres of land overlooking the Nile is being developed into a holistic, reproducible community through Orphan Care, Health Care, Empowerment, and Ministry to the Church."

It seems only right to join up with these brothers and sisters who have gone before us, rather than reinventing a well rounded wheel. We have begun to investigate the possibility of serving with them, first as short term visiting missionaries, then possibly staying on longer as the Lord determines. It is too early to make solid commitments or promises but, Lord willing, this could very well be our future home. We have made soft plans to serve in a short-term capacity next year. After all, you can’t steer a parked car, so we need to stretch out our legs in order for God to plant our next steps.

We identified a mission organization that seems to be doing what we are called to do, where we are called to do it, and for whom we also feel called to serve.

Speaking of stepping out, Cindy has taken quite a stride. Feeling she has given all she has to give to the non-profit she has been working for, she has tendered her resignation to seek other opportunities. It took quite a bit of courage for her to take this step, and I hope you will join me in encouraging her and praying for God’s will for her and the power to carry it out. 

As for me, my orientation in the Emergency Department is going well. I am learning a lot under very intense circumstances, and hope to continue in my orientation for a couple more weeks. God really worked a miracle to give me a clinical coach who is dedicated to my success and who has been an amazing example for me to emulate. My first semester of Baccalaureate classes is coming to a close with a final exam next week. I am also enrolled in a seven-week course to supplement my orientation to Critical Care Nursing, and, as if that wasn’t enough, just finished renewing my nursing license and several critical certifications and all the continuing education those require. If you can see the wind and waves around me, remember I’m trying to keep my focus on the One who invited me to walk these waters, and pray me on if you please. 

With Him we can do anything, without Him we can do nothing, and the bounty of His blessing is unloaded with prayer.

In addition to all the mission vision building and preparation, we still have a marriage, home, church, family, illnesses, and all of the normal stuff of life that keeps us in need of God’s grace for every moment of every day. We believe that prayer is powerful and effectual, and we humbly ask you to petition God for our guidance, resource, and grace. With Him we can do anything, without Him we can do nothing, and the bounty of His blessing is unloaded with prayer. 

•

Easter blew past the Lemmons this year. Since I was working several days in a row to make up for time I took off to recover from hernia repair surgery, we really didn’t get to experience Easter the way we like. Still, we got to worship together in church and serve together in the nursery for the second service, so it didn’t go completely unnoticed. While Easter is a special time of remembrance of the death and resurrection of the Messiah, ever since Cindy and I spent Easter 2014 in Uganda, we are reminded of the marching on of time. This year, we are more than half-way through our seven year wait. We are nearer to our planned move-out in July 2021 than to our initial visit to Uganda in April 2014. It’s time to get planning!

We have signed up and booked a trip for a Medical Missions gathering of the Christian Health Services Corps in Texas next month, and plan another trip for an orientation education experience with Mercy Ships in June. While CHSC operates hospitals in several locations, one as near to Uganda as D.R. Congo, Mercy Ships generally deploys the Africa Mercy to ports west. Either of these ministries, as well as several others, may give us the opportunity for experience in missionary nursing and service Cindy and I desperately need, as well as exposure to other ministries with which we might someday partner. Cindy has wanted to serve on a Mercy Ships cruise since long before she met me, and we both would benefit from the experience of living and serving on board for a year or so before we deploy to Uganda. These are all merely possibilities at this point, but it seems prudent to begin gathering information and making plans, since time is flying so quickly by.

When last I wrote, I was reeling from the ego punch of losing my position in the Intensive Care Unit. Since then, I have made great strides toward learning how to manage six less-intense patients on a medical-surgical-telemetry unit, many of whom can walk, talk, and ask for coffee. This is a stark contrast to the two patients I would have in the ICU, who were often intubated, sedated or comatose, and struggling for life. It is a different kind of stress — that of being behind rather than terrified. Working on the night shift at least makes the pace something I can generally catch up with by daybreak. Overall, I’m glad for the change and do not plan to reapply to the ICU. Instead, I think the Emergency Department or perioperative care would give me better experience related to missionary nursing, the E.D. for clinics, village nursing care, or disaster response, and the O.R. for surgical support. Such decisions are pushed back by the hospital policy which requires I work in a unit for one year before making any other moves. I will content myself to spending this time learning to be a nurse, and then start over learning to be an Emergency Department or Operating Room nurse.

Additionally, my back trouble represents a physical obstacle in my development plan. It appears back surgery is necessary, but recovery times necessitate that I push surgery past July, so I have enough employment history to qualify for leave under the FMLA. My neurologist is confident a spinal fusion will remedy my problems if I don’t put it off too long or do anything too reckless in the meantime. So, I’m being careful and trying not to be a superhero at work.

every day is an opportunity to serve God, and everyone we meet is a mission field

It is easy to get lazy in “when I, then I’ll…” thinking, which takes the pressure off serving today deferring it to a hazy future moment, but every day is an opportunity to serve God, and everyone we meet is a mission field. Every single soul needs encouragement, and most remain in need of a Savior. Today, I’m asking God for the opportunity to reflect the glory of His grace onto those around me so that His love and light are felt, and so He is better known. Won’t you join me in this petition?