Practice．Walking together – HKNCF Sharing (Issue 492)
Icy Lam, Frontline Staff, Hong Kong Nurses Christian Fellowship
[email protected]
When the COVID outbreak subsided last year, we focused our short-term missions back to the local community, partnering with local Christian organizations to provide simple health check-ups and deliver health talks.
In the local community ministry, we not only recruit nurses, but also encourage student nurses to participate. Since student nurses were not able to practise in hospitals or other settings during the pandemic, we hope that through this ministry, students can come into contact with people in the community, conduct simple health check-ups with the nurses, chat with the neighbors, and care about community physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually, so that they can try to serve others with their nursing knowledge.
I saw nurses taking initiative to care for the students, not only passing on their nursing experience to the new generation, but also sharing how knowledge of the nursing profession can be integrated with faith. Meanwhile, the nurse students were humbly asking questions and striving to learn from the experience of their seniors. This is truly a picture filled with grace and beauty.
It was my first time to participate in community service. Although there were not too many people on that day because of the rain, precisely this way, we had a longer time to chat with and care for the elderly. After my internship at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, I realized even more how rare these opportunities are. The workload in hospitals is rather heavy, and as work is a race against time, there are fewer opportunities to care for patients. While we are often taught to be “compassionate” in school, hospitals provide limited space for us to care for the sick. Yet, the community service creates opportunities for us to reach out and care for those in need. I hope that I will continue to have the energy to serve more in the future.
Bosco / Nursing Student, CUHK
This was my first time to participate in ministry/volunteer service as a nursing student. With one year to go before graduation, I am uncertain about what lies ahead, but I always remind myself not to forget what I set out to do—I have always wanted to be a truthful, embracing, and caring nurse since I was a little girl. Until I actually enrolled in nursing, I learned that in addition to professional knowledge and love, we also need to have critical thinking, communication skills, good character and moral values.
Communication skills have always been an area where I am not very good. I kept asking myself, “Can I really do this? What if they ask me questions that I don’t know how to answer?” I kept thinking back to the class—what was the dietary advice, what not to eat for what illness, what to eat more of. At this point I heard the Heavenly Father say, “Don’t be afraid, my child, you can do it”. After struggling, I finally made it to the program as scheduled.
In the short span of three hours, I came into contact with several elderly people, each of them with different understandings of the body and dietary health. Most of them are having the diseases that I learned in books and classes, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, gout and other chronic diseases. They were lovely, and it made me happy to talk to them. After all, the older you get, the more weight you put on your happiness. These are question-and-answer techniques that cannot be learned from books but require the accumulation of experience.
There were also a few seniors serving with us and they shared a lot of their own experiences and knowledge, such as how the patient assessment model was when they were learning it and how it is different from what we are doing now. The service not only helped the needy elderly, but I also benefited a lot from it. Thank you HKNCF for giving us this opportunity.
Elaine / Nursing Student, HKMU
As Hong Kong moves into recovery, apart from serving in the community, we hope that in the coming days we will be able to go on short-term mission trips to different places again, to continue to practice the knowledge and faith of the nursing profession, and to witness and spread the gospel of God.