Recently, Institute Students had the great privilege of hearing from a panel on Public Health during our chapel. The panel was composed of alumni Jaimee Arroyo, FNP, Jordan Miller, RN, Julie Carpenter, LPN, and Brynn Buchanan, MA.

Each person shared their experience as students of the Word and health care, as well as their experience in the medical field and its intersection on the mission field. This was a powerful time, and I felt the Lord as each person spoke and testified about God using them to bring healing and restoration to people who are in desperate need of it because they chose to first learn who God was, then learn health care. 

Throughout this interview panel, one thing was consistent. Each person reiterated that it was specifically their time spent learning the Word of God at The Institute that taught them how to be a healthcare worker that demonstrated Jesus’ way. Their nursing education was secondary.

It was through their biblical education that each of these women learned how to humanize people and help them experience restoration in their health. Sometimes, medical professionalism sits in contrast to Jesus’ way. For instance, in the medical world you keep your distance, you shy away from touching people, and you definitely don’t end each visit with prayer. But at Hopewell Family Care, the integrative family health clinic in which they work, these ladies are following the Jesus path, even as medical professionals. 

Holistic healthcare was Jesus’ way, his ministry. Jaimee shared a story that I found too special not to include in this blog.

Several years ago, Jaimee worked as a nurse on the night shift in the Critical Care Unit at a local hospital. As she was being briefed on her patients for the night, she was informed of an elderly woman who had been admitted. Jaimee was told to watch out for this patient and warned that her night would likely be terrible because of how unruly this woman was. She was then advised to give her very powerful medications to sedate her to keep the woman calm because she had caused problems for the previous nurses. 

However, Jaimee was in Luke-Acts class at the time at The Institute, and the story of the Gerasene Demoniac was fresh on her mind. She knew what to do. As Jaimee entered the room, she discovered it to be completely disordered and unclean. The woman looked crazy, her gown was dirty and disheveled, and the room was strewn with trash. No one had cleaned it during her time at the hospital due to the woman’s mental state.

Jaimee approached the woman with the peace she carried from God’s spirit. As she walked in, she heard the Lord tell her “Just do what I’ve taught you to do.” Jaimee ended up spending hours listening to his woman tell her whole story while she conditioned and brushed out her beautiful, long gray hair. Jaimee cleaned her room and put her in bed with clean clothes and clean sheets, and the woman slept the whole night without needing any of the powerful medications Jaimee was told she would need.

What this woman needed, and what so many people in this world need, was to be humanized. “If you can humanize a person, you can change their world.”

This is the work that our Lord is involved in, and thankfully, so are these women. To wrap up our time, they encouraged us to continue faithfully in our study of the Word–holding it as the highest priority in our lives as that will be what equips us for whatever it is the Lord asks us to do.