Incredible Internship

I am LOVING living in DC! I have the most wonderful job and have met some great people. It is overwhelming to write about the past 8 weeks but since I have a snow day home from work, I am going to try to put this grand adventure into words.

Let's start with the job. Everyday I go to work at Children's National Medical Center as a Child Life Intern. I am finishing up my first rotation right now. I have been on the pulmonary and general medicine inpatient floor for the last 6 weeks. I have an incredible supervisor and I have learned so much about Child Life. Each day I check in with the patients on my floor and assess their needs. I offer to help prepare them for any procedures or treatments they may be receiving and I offer normalizing play and activity for them so that they are still a kid when they leave our hospital. I have met some incredible patients and families and have learned so much about God's sovereignty through seeing people deal with both acute and chronic illness in their children. God has a plan for each of us and he will give us the strength and grace that we need to deal with whatever we are dealt in life.

In the next couple of weeks I will start my second rotation which is in the Interventional Radiology Clinic. We will see both inpatient and outpatient kiddos here. Kids come to receive MRIs, CT scans, X-rays: really anything that they need radiological scans for. I am excited to transition to this unit because I know it will be very different from my first rotation and I know I will learn so much!

Overall, I love going to work today (though I was not mad about being told to stay home today because of the snow!) and I am excited to see what the second half of my internship holds!

I am still thinking that I will return to Texas (Austin or Dallas) after my DC adventure is over at the end of April. I am going to start looking for Child Life jobs in the next few weeks and I will be excited to be closer to home soon.

Adventures in Africa

I do not even know where to begin. It has taken me a while to formulate this post because gathering my thoughts after such a life-changing trip has taken time. I am still processing what all this trip means for my life and will continue to do so for months, I am sure.

I felt mostly prepared for Zambia after getting to hear about this wonderful place from my bestie Ellen for years. I thought I knew the feelings it would evoke, the things that would be hard about it, and what I would want to do upon returning to the states with that experience. Oh, how wrong I was!

While it was wonderful to be prepared in some ways, the country continued to surprise me, day after day. Unfortunately I experienced some weird side effects of the malaria medicine I had to take which caused me to be some what mellow throughout the trip so looking back through pictures, sometimes I feel like I am experiencing it for the first time. (Weird I know, and hard to understand--ask me about it if you want more info!)

The most memorable things from this trip will always be those 8 precious faces. Ellen couldn't have said it better when she said, "you will never, ever forget the faces you see over there." She was so right. The 8 kids at the home, as well as countless others we met in villages. Their faces are ingrained in my head. And I am so grateful for that. I will never forget their daily life, their struggles, their fears, their joys, their laughter and their hope.

Another aspect of Zambia that I will never forget is how impoverished, yet joyful the people of Zambia are. I have so much hope for that nation because of the people I met on my trip. They are full of the Lord's joy and love and are raising up children in the same way.

After the mission work we did in Lusaka, the team went to Victoria Falls. I am fairly certain I will never go to another place as beautiful as this. This is probably the closest thing to Heaven on Earth as you're going to get. This was a wonderful oasis to journey to for some rest and reflection after such a life-changing experience. I hope I never forget the beauty of this place and how crafty our Creator is in His work.

Lastly, we experienced some amazing wildlife on a sunrise photo safari nature drive. Again, seeing the evidence of how our God loves us through His amazing creation--I could never have imagined this.

As I have bouts of inspiration or deep thoughts about ending world poverty, I will be sure to blog more about my adventures in Africa. I know this post wasn't sufficient but this is what I could manage for now. Super overwhelming and daunting task.

Shout out to my best friends who I got to experience this with! Such an incredible support and encouragement to me throughout the entire thing! I am so thankful we had/have each other!