California Dreamin'- Week 1

It's been a hectic week to say the least. This week was the conference that kicks off the preceptorship. So all week we've been learning about spiritual care, kingdom living, and getting to hear lots of stories from doctors and nurses who basically are doing what we want to be doing. It's been really encouraging, slightly intimidating, but mostly fun.

We went into the hospital for the first time on Tuesday. I was scared out of my mind. We were going into patient rooms and asking them questions to try to feel out where they are spiritually (coined a spiritual history) and share the gospel if we so feel led. I didn't really feel ready to talk to patients and so I decided it was best that I go second. God decided otherwise. I ended up going first… I survived, no worries. The patient I learned most from was my second patient. We walked in and I wasn't going to talk in this room. Again, jk. The patient didn't speak English and that meant they were all mine. It was a kid's room so I was actually talking to his grandmother. And I was struggling. I mean my spanish was bad. No, really. So then after about eternity it felt like his mom comes in and she speaks english. Praise the Lord! Well, she was more than willing to talk to us but whenever we brought up God she just completely ignored the question and answered whatever she felt like. So that was kind of discouraging but she let us pray for them before we left.

Later that night I was going over my patients in my head and I was just really stuck at this room. I was frustrated with myself with how bad my spanish had been. So I went through the whole spiritual history in my head in perfect spanish…then I prayed for the family again, in perfect spanish… That frustrated me even more and I was like "God, why couldn't I have done that earlier!?!?" And He told me that it was because I wasn't suppose to be talking to the grandmother but that we were suppose to be talking to the mom. I felt a lot better after that and I just found it really cool because just like God can give me the words to talk to a patient, He is just as sovereign to shut me up when I need to.

I'm learning and growing a lot even just after this week. I'll continue to share stories as the weeks go on.

Prayer requests: I've been really sick so please pray for that. Also please be praying for the patients that I will be encountering and hopefully talking to that I would just be able to tell them what they need to hear.