Posted: 3/30/07
ETBU nursing students put
training into practice in Mexico
By Mike Midkiff
East Texas Baptist University
MARSHALL—East Texas Baptist University Department of Nursing students took time away from the books and put their training to use, conducting free medical assessment clinics during a weeklong mission trip to Mexico.
The eight nursing students accompanied 28 students involved with the Baptist Student Ministry, traveling to Monterrey, Mexico, during spring break.
| Residents of a remote village outside of Saltillo, Mexico, wait to have a free health assessment done by nursing students from East Texas Baptist University. ETBU nursing students spent time during spring break to do medical missions in Mexico. (Photo courtesy of ETBU Department of Nursing) |
Other ETBU students participated in a Habitat for Humanity project in Laredo.
BSM students helped International Mission Board journeyman Josh Walton with his duties as minister on the campus of Tech de Monterrey University.
Meanwhile, the nursing students conducted clinics in a nursing home, an orphanage located in a remote village and a church in Monterrey.
“At the clinics, we did a health history, head-to-toe physical assessment and blood glucose test on each patient,” said trip sponsor Carla Smith, ETBU assistant professor of nursing.
Freshman Brittney Robinson emphasized that in spite of the language barrier, people in Monterrey responded positively because they could see the students wanted to help them.
| Students Minister at Spring Break • Beach Reach volunteers immersed in missions service • Baylor fraternity brothers serve God in the Ozarks • DBU students build homes in South Carolina & South Dakota • HBU students take local & global missions plunge • ETBU nursing students put training into practice in Mexico • Students find missions calling through BSM • More than a day at the beach |
“I went on this mission trip to serve God and for the experience. I am discerning a call to medical missions and thought this experience would give me an affirmation of that calling,” said Robinson, whose home church is First Baptist in Mount Pleasant.
“I believe God taught me how he wants me to serve him for the rest of my life. This trip inspired me to work harder on becoming a nurse.”
The clinic held at a nursing home for indigent geriatrics became an emotional time for nursing student Eric Luesvanos of Richmond.
“The whole experience was more than I expected and has changed me in a way that is unexplainable,” Luesvanos said. “I do want to continue doing medical mission work.”
Smith observed her students serving as ministers.
“The students were gentle, kind and caring as they provided care to the Mexican citizens,” she said.
“The love the students displayed amazed me. It left me thinking that this was probably similar to how Jesus ministered to the sick and injured.”
“Jesus healed the sick, and then he preached. He even instructed his disciples to heal the sick first. Jesus knew that tending to the sick provided a unique opportunity to reach people at a deeper level than could be achieved simply by preaching to them.”
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