Journal #2

For my second journal entry for Bethel I was assigned a couple questions to answer. Here is it! 

1. What are the most important health-related needs of the people with whom you work?

                  In the area where I live, there are lots of people dealing with diabetes, obesity, and COPD or other smoking-related problems such as emphysema. Many of our regular patients are on oxygen at least during the night, and some ‘round the clock.

2. What societal problems do you think are linked to these needs?

                 

                  West Virginia is the 3^rd fattest state according the businessinsider.com and the 4^th poorest in the nation according to the Huffington Post. Poverty and obesity often, unfortunately, go hand in hand. As a unit we have discussed this issue. We’ve talked about how the cheaper, processed foods that are more affordable and available are much less healthy than the more expensive organic or less processed alternatives. Government help is available, and a large amount of the Philippi community is on welfare or a part of the WIC program or others like it. Although this is a step in the right direction and definitely helps a lot of people out, it often is not enough. From talking to co-workers and other community members who are a part of these programs, I have gotten the idea that although they do get some assistance, it doesn’t go very far.

                  Philippi does have a garden market that is run by the local food pantry/thrift store that my roommate Renee works at. It is open during the spring, summer and fall. They buy vegetables, baked goods, eggs, canned goods, and fruits from local growers (all community members, not necessarily occupational farmers). It helps bring in a little extra income for people who might be struggling and also supplies the community with fresh goods. Unfortunately, though, it is more expensive to buy at places like the garden market, so that doesn’t help the poorer people I referred to earlier to have more access to fresh foods.

Another health issue that affects the Philippi area is smoking-related issues. There are no statewide smoking bans in West Virginia. There are several counties with varying degrees of smoking bans, but Barbour County, the one I live in, has none. Many people smoke here and a lot of children are exposed to secondhand smoke.

Both obesity and smoking are definitely linked to the lifestyle here. Since smoking is such a common thing, many people start young. Eating, too, is social which I think is a big issue for people. This is true in most societies, though. Hospitality for guests in shown by supplying them with lots of good food, and eating that food shows respect for the hosts.

3. What background of knowledge and skills seems necessary in order to satisfy those needs?

                  I have found that when treating a patient, it is important to consider not only their immediate health concerns, but also their lifestyle and how it affects their health. The medical knowledge is obviously the crucial foundation, but doctors also need to take into account how patients’ daily life will affect their reactions to medication and other treatments they are given while at the clinic. Doctors and other healthcare workers must have the foresight to see beyond just the immediate problem the patient is being seen for at the time.

4. Is addressing the needs of these people or others like them an important part of your life goals?

                 

                  Yes, I think addressing peoples’ health needs is definitely a part of my life goals. Not only do I want my career to be something I enjoy, I want it to be meaningful and be a way for me to help other people. I also have found this year that I really have fun interacting with all the people that come through the clinic and hearing their stories and getting to know them. I am a strong believer in healthy eating and sustainable living, for the health of other humans and the environment. Not only do I strive for this in my own life, but I think education to the public is important too. I think that locally grown and homemade foods, exercise, and simple living are incredibly important. I believe there should be more emphasis on these things in educational programs that are available to everyone.

5. How do you think your scholarly work in college will help move you toward your life goals?

                  My work in college will help give me the foundation I need to be able to serve others who are hurting or sick. Things like understanding societal problems that are often underlying causes of health issues is something that has to be learned through experience, but I know that I need a strong medical background knowledge to be able to properly treat and heal people.                  

These are a few of my favorite things

I'm having so much fun this year getting to know new people, a new place, and getting better at old things I did back home. So here's a couple things I've enjoyed been spending my time doing while here in WV.

Being crazy with my amazing roommates! 

We have lots of fun with my Macbook camera and effects!

We have had such a mild winter with hardly any snow, but we took advantage of  one small one we had and went sledding in the park by our house!

Baking! Along with making dinner for all the 9 people I live with, I've started doing a lot of bread baking. One of our church members wrote a cookbook that I use a lot. One of my favorites is cinnamon rolls with banana in them! It's another good way other than banana bread to use over-ripe bananas. It's a bit time-intensive, but I love making them on Saturday mornings when we don't have much planned for the rest of the day!

Banana Buns

2 pkgs. dry yeast

1 cup warm water

1 cup mashed bananas

1/3 cup oil

1/3 cup sugar

1 egg

1/3 cup instant nonfat dry milk

1 t. salt

1 t. vanilla

3 ½ - 4 cups flour

1 ½ cups whole wheat flour

1.     Dissolve yeast in water.

2.     Combine bananas, oil, sugar, egg, dry milk, salt, and vanilla.

3.     Combine dissolved yeast with banana mixture.

4.     Add 2 cups flour and mix well.

5.     Stir in whole wheat flour and mix well.

6.     Add additional flour to make soft dough.

7.     Knead on lightly floured surface for 8 mins.

8.     Place in a greased bowl, turning once. Cover and let rise till double.

9.     Punch down. Divide dough in half. Cover and let rest 10 minutes.

10. Roll each half into a 16” x 9” rectangle. Spread lightly with softened margarine. Sprinkle each rectangle with half of the following mixture:

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup chopped nuts

½ t. allspice

2 t. cinnamon

11. Roll dough up from long side as for jelly roll. Seal seam well. Cut into 12 pieces.

a.     Place on greased baking sheet, cut side down.

b.     OR place the cut pieces in a round, square, or rectangular-shaped baking pan.

12. Let rise till double.

13. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes for single buns; 20-25 for pan buns.

14. Ice with confectioner’s sugar icing if desired, or drizzle with a mixture of 2 cups confectioners’ sugar and 2-3 T. lemon juice.

Ta da! I even figured out how to make them into little heart shapes for Valentine's Day. :)

Exploring Philippi and the surrounding area. Although it's a small town and we sometimes get a little stir-crazy from being in our house, there is lots to do in Philippi! There's an 8 mile bike trail that Mike and Ben ride every week and I've tried once, a park by our house, a national park about a 30 minute drive away, a restaurant that has lots of live bluegrass music, and many other places! We also enjoy visiting other people from our church. Several families live together on a farm and raise chickens, sheep, and ducks. They also have some really good sledding hills! 

Allison and I scare unsuspecting passersby in the pajama section.

The view from the top of the bike trail.

And... My job at the Myers Clinic of course! The nurses I work with have become good friends, so I never dread going to work! I'm also learning so much helping them, and love getting to interact with all the patients that come in everyday.

The legit blog

So here's a link to our "legit" Philippi Service Adventure blog. (Where people who are more dedicated than I am post more regularly.) I'm not sure if I've posted it before... Anyways, check it out! Do it. I dare you.

http://philippiserviceadventure.blogspot.com/

Journals!

So Bethel College, the school I will be attending next year, recently started a program in which they give college credit for service work. I'm psyched for this opportunity! Although it does come with the added work of having to write journals to send to them every two weeks. But this also gives me something new to post on the blog, woohoo! So here's my first one. It's just kinda a general overview of what I'm doing this year and is old news, but hey, maybe I said something you haven't heard before.

Journal #1 – March 5, 2012

            This being my first journal entry, I figure I’ll give you some background information about me, my decision to do Service Adventure, and what I’ve been doing in Philippi, WV for the last 7 months. Here it goes!

            My home church, First Mennonite of Newton, has always stressed the importance of voluntary service. I first became aware of the opportunities after high school my freshman year in youth group. A large portion of the senior class that year, who I had gotten fairly close with, decided to do service after high school. That stuck with me, and from hearing stories of their experiences and others’ in the church who had done mission work in the U.S. and overseas, it sounded like something I wanted to do. I began looking into service options for myself several months into my senior year. I knew I wanted to go somewhere out of state where I would be taken out of my “comfort zone” and into different surroundings, but I didn’t think I was ready yet to go out of the country, to somewhere completely foreign. That led me to Mennonite Mission Network’s Service Adventure program.

            I knew that one of the girls who was part of that senior class during my freshman year of youth group went to Philippi for her voluntary service year and worked in a clinic. I figured that this would be a great placement for me, given the interest in the medical field that I had developed during my junior and senior year of high school. I looked into the program and location more, talked to mission network people, friends, family, and prayed about it, and made my decision to apply to the program. I wanted to be sure to get the placement, so I applied really early and got accepted around November of 2010.

            My job at the Myers Clinic has been a huge learning experience. I’m so glad I got the chance to be where I am! Not only am I learning so much about the medical field, I also get to work with some of the craziest and fun co-workers ever! Their hospitality and generosity to me since my first day here has been incredible. But as for what I actually do: I spend most of my time in the walk-in center of the clinic. It’s a small family practice with just doctors and two physician’s assistants. I help the nurses with whatever needs to be done. The majority of my time I spend answering the phone, taking patients’ vitals (height, weight, blood pressure, heart rate/respiration rate), and calling pharmacies to fill or refill prescriptions. I also do some work with patients’ charts such as scanning in documents to the computer and updating shot records. I also learned how to hook patients up to the machine that does EKG tests, give nebulizer treatments, and fill syringes, although I’m not allowed to give shots. I’ve also been able to observe several procedures such as biopsies, steroid injections, and pap smears. I’m very grateful I have been able to be such a part of the medical aspect of the clinic, and not just the booking or reception work, as I hope to study pre-med or biology next year in college.

            I also work as a tutor or “mentor” in an after school program for elementary school kids twice a week. I love working with kids, so I’m enjoying this second job opportunity immensely! For the first 45 minutes of each day, we work on homework, then have snack, then games. It’s been great to see how the kids have progressed and are learning so much! It is often difficult to get them to settle down and working on their homework after a long day at school, but I’ve learned how to handle them and am so proud when I see them come back week after week and improve! It’s also been so fun to build relationships with the kids and learn more about their interests and their lives.

            One of my main goals for myself for this year was (and continues to be) to get out of my “comfort zone” and learn to rely on God more fully. I’ve lived in Newton, gone to the same church, and had mostly the same close friend group all my life. I wanted to go somewhere unfamiliar where I would need to trust that God would lead me to the right place and the right people. Being away from my family and friends has definitely been difficult at times, but being thrust into a new town where I don’t know anyone has been incredibly rewarding. I’ve learned to be more outgoing and share more about myself with others. I’ve also learned to love the community living aspect of Service Adventure. I live in a house with four other people ranging from the age of 18-20, our leaders who are a young couple, and their two children who are 3 and 5. It’s also been great to be a part of the local Mennonite church in Philippi. It’s a small group – just 20 or so people on a given Sunday. The way they all contribute to the church to keep it running and care so deeply about each other continues to amaze me. Philippi is also the oldest Service Adventure unit, going strong since 1989, and the church has been supporting it every year since then. It’s incredible the time and sacrifice the congregation make to help keep us comfortable, occupied, and making the most out of our year here.

            I feel like I’ve grown a lot in the last seven months, but I know I still have a ways to go! It feels like the time has flown by! As it gets closer to the end of my service time, it is easy to focus more on plans for the future and what I’m going to do next year, but I know I need to stay focused on the task at hand. I look forward to making the most out of my last 3 months here!

Throwback to January

So I've been feeling bad about not posting anything on here, so I'm gonna try to get back to doing that! Now, picture yourself back in January. It's a few weeks after Christmas, and you're getting back into the swing of things after the holidays. You may be a little tired from all the festivities, you may have had to loosen your belt a couple notches after all those yummy Christmas goodies, but now it's time to return to some sort of normalcy. That's about how I was feeling when I wrote this update for our church newsletter. Thought I'd share it with you in case some of you haven't read it... here it goes:

It's the beginning of a new year, the time for reflecting on a year past and a new one about to start! These last four months since I've moved to Philippi and started service have flown by. As I look back on them, I realize that I have grown in so many ways and experienced so many new things already in such a short time. 

My work at the Myers Clinic and Kid Reach continues to be very rewarding and constant learning experiences. I enjoy getting to talk to so many people each day as I answer phone calls and take people’s vitals. Even though I only see them for a short time, I've had fun making small talk and getting to know some of the more regular patients at the clinic. Work there continues to go well as I have gotten more

comfortable with medical lingo, procedures, and other doctors and facilities in the area. Answering the phone has probably been my biggest challenge at the clinic, as many patients call asking about radiology results or advice on medications they are taking. Obviously I'm not a trained nurse, but with help from the doctors and actual nurses and more experience reading charts, I can now answer some of the more basic questions on my own. Needless to say, I've gotten really good at transferring phone calls to more qualified personnel! I've also learned to do more new things like give EKG tests and fill  syringes for shots. 

Kid Reach, the after school program that I work at two days a week, is also challenging at times, but I've grown to love the children I work with. They're often rowdy after just getting out of school and then expected to jump right into doing their homework, but it's great to see how much they've improved just since August. There are two boys in the group in particular who were often almost uncontrollable at the beginning, but are definitely making some progress. One of them has become one of my favorite kids to work with because he needs so much help. At the beginning of the year, he had trouble even sitting down and reading several pages of a book along with one of the tutors. Recently, though, I was leading a game and he followed almost all the directions without trouble and paid attention the whole time. 

I see God everyday through the people I encounter, whether it be the patients, nurses or doctors I work with at the clinic, the kids and teachers at Kid Reach, or the awesome people I live with. I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to

build relationships with new people and serve God through those relationships. As I start a new year and the second half of my term here in Philippi, I look forward to continuing to meet new people and strengthen the relationships I have with ones I have already met!

Happy's and Crappy's

Before bed, some parents go through "happy's and crappy's" with their children (a good thing about their day and a bad thing). This was never a practice at my house, but we've kinda done it a couple times here for either worship or dinner time conversation. So I thought I'd share some of my recent "happy's and crappy's" with you now.

Some highlights of the past several weeks:

• Making a pumpkin pie completely from scratch. We noticed that we were growing a pumpkin in our compost pile a while back. Mike (my leader) picked it and I went to all the trouble of making it into a pie. It was a rainy weekend and we didn't have much to do, so I spent a long afternoon cooking the pumpkin, pureeing it into a baby food-like consistency in the blender, making pie crust out of my Grandma's recipe (failing the first time and having to start completely over again), and finally baking the pie (forgetting to set the timer and burning it just a little). But despite some initial difficulty, it actually turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. Next time though, I'll probably just buy the canned pumpkin!
• Going canoeing. It's so much harder than it looks! A river runs through town right behind our house, so one of the church members took us all for a spin in it in his canoes last Sunday. Keeping those things going in a straight line is so much harder than you would think! After a while, we were getting tired and frustrated. So my partner Renee and I decided to just float downstream for a while, which was nice. We laid back and enjoyed the sun that had just come out after a rainy couple days. Even though it was difficult, I'm glad I got the experience!
• Getting to know my host family. I have a really fantastic host family, Jim and Karen Skidmore, their dog Tovah, and three cats, whose names I cannot spell, unfortunately. The Skidmores are very creative with their pet naming. Anyway, they are the host family to end all host families. Jim and Karen have hosted a Service Adventure participant every year since 1992 and have pictures of every one of them on their fridge, along with every unit since then. So I'm very excited to make it on their fridge Hall of Fame! They also share many of my interests such as music, baking, and cats. Karen and I have already done a song for creative worship in church and are planning more to do later. Jim loves to cook and bake, and has shared some of his fantastic recipes with me that I can't wait to try out! I hope sometime soon we can make something together. I also discovered that Jim and Karen love to watch Dancing with the Stars. I don't usually regularly watch the show back home, but I enjoy critiquing the dancers with Karen during the commercial breaks.
• Starting work with the Kid Reach program. I love working with little kids, so being able to tutor them two days a week after school has been a blast. It's a pretty strict program. Those kids get down to business for the first about 45 minutes to an hour, but after that we get to play games. It's a bit stressful when there are four kids at a time who need your help with their homework, but generally there are some older kids in the group who are willing to help the younger ones, which I really appreciate.

Things that have been difficult/stressful:

• Chores at home. While living in community with 4 other people my age is a blast, this is our first time away from home, without our parents telling us to clean our rooms and pick up after ourselves. We have a chore rotation here, but there have been several small arguments already over people not keeping up their end of the bargain. I'm finding out that I really like a clean house, and not everyone here has the same standards as me, which is something I'm struggling with right now. 
• Homesickness. This hasn't been a huge deal, but I have been missing my family and friends lately. It's good to get many letters from them though, I have been putting the cards the things up on my wall and it's getting full quickly! It's also very reassuring that I have so many people from the church keeping me in mind and praying for me too.

Things I'm looking forward to in the near future:

• Visits from the East Coast units. The Johnstown, PA and Raleigh, NC units are visiting us this weekend. We're going to the Forest Festival in a town about 30 minutes from here, having a bonfire and cookout at the farm where several families from church live, going to church and the potluck afterwards, and making cider. There will be 15 extra people crowded into the house, so it should be a good time!
• Halloween. Ian and Ella (and possibly Renee, Allison, and I) will be dressing up and I look forward to taking them around trick-or-treating!
• Pumpkin foods. I go crazy for anything with pumpkin in it, and it's finally that season! I know what I'll be spending my $30 stipend on this month....

One month

As of today, I've been in Philippi, West Virginia for one month. I immediately liked it here. There are so many beautiful trees, hills, and green grass - something I really appreciated after our dry Kansas summer! Our first week here was orientation. We spent several days just getting to know each other, going over house logistics, and touring everyone's work places.

 Our unit, from the back row left: Micah, Ian (5), leader Mike, Ben. Front row: Ella (3), Me, Allison, Renee,  leader Heidi


At the end of the week we went for a three day backpacking trip led by one of the former Philippi Service Adventure leaders. I'm not real big on camping and hiking, but I had a lot of fun roughing it with my housemates and one of our leaders, Mike. We hiked along a creek about 2 hours from our house called Otter Creek. At the end of our hike Ben, our hiking leader Jair, and I all got to jump off some big rocks into the creek which was a highlight for me!

Once orientation week was over, we all started our jobs. I am working at the Myers Clinic. It's a small clinic that serves people in the area, many of whom don't have insurance. I started in the walk in center working with three other nurses and two Physician's Assistants. I really enjoyed getting to know the nurses there. They're really fun to be around and were very nice about teaching me everything I needed to know, and not making too much fun of me when I almost passed out watching one of the PA's drain fluid from a boy's knee! (I got over that, I can handle watching those type of procedures now.) Last week I changed positions and now work in another part of the clinic with the actual doctors who take scheduled appointments. At the walk in center and my new location I have been taking patients' vitals, faxing, updating patient records on the computer, and doing anything else the nurses need done. I'm enjoying getting to know the many regular patients and seeing all the little kids that come in!

This month has gone fast and I'm very grateful that God has blessed me with great people and a wonderful location! I definitely feel that He has led me here and I look forward to his plans for the future!