a new adventure, a new season.

I am going to Alaska!!!!! Each and every exclamation point emotes something different: enthusiasm, fear, uncertainty, faith, hope, the joy and confidence of answered prayer. I don't think I have ever cried so much about something I'm so excited about!

So here's my story... I just graduated with my bachelor's of science in nursing at Biola University in bright, sunny, diverse, and ever in motion, Southern California. Maybe I should go back even further...Let me weave a thread through for you...

Born and raised in the wilds of Oregon, I have had an early and deep love for nature's beauty, for adventure...and for nursing. I fell in love with science in tenth grade. A summer camp for students interested in pursuing medicine opened my eyes to the world of nursing. A short term missions trip to Ensenada, Mexico, the summer of my junior year in high school ended with an evening candlelight service where I offered my life before the Lord as one eager to serve Him through nursing on the mission field. Since that night, as I prayed with open hands as the sun set on the dry, crisp Mexican horizon, life has taken some pretty awesome twists and turns...

I spent the summer after my senior year of high school in Guatemala. It was there that I met a missionary couple that suggested that I consider Biola for my undergraduate studies. I took their prompt seriously and rerouted my intention to head to Idaho. A year later, I found myself in Los Angeles! I was drawn to Biola for the opportunity to gain a biblical education...and because I would be able to not only pursue nursing, but to do so as I learned to integrate my faith into practice and service! I was thrilled to know from the beginning that Biola partnered with a church in Mexico...and even sent students to rural Alaska!

I love Los Angeles. It is here where I have found a deeper love for the nations, for people of all cultures. During these past five years I have been blessed with the opportunity to spend a semester in Uganda, to wander aimlessly in Europe for a couple weeks, to dig ditches in Honduras, even to venture to rural India! In the global meandering, God has ripped my heart up and peeled of a number of lenses from my eyes; He has continued to patiently lead me forward, beckoning me to join Him, to be an agent of healing and love amongst the world's poor.

This last semester of school I was torn between traveling to Alaska for a community health experience and completing a clinical rotation at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. I chose CHLA with the hope and intention bettering my odds of employment in LA, with the tentative plan (post graduation) of transitioning into work with the urban poor. During one of my community health experiences this semester I engaged in conversation with a doctor about Christian Community Health Fellowship, an organization I had learned about at Urbana Missions Conference the previous January, an organization that strives to live out the gospel through health care among the poor in America. Reminded of my heart and motivation to use nursing unto this same end, I was quickly perusing their website and eagerly looking for job postings! To my bemusement Cross Road Medical Center (the site in Alaska where I would have done clinicals) had one of the few openings listed! So I applied! But I applied so many places this semester! One of my fellow students was able to to travel to CRMC for her community rotation and not only was I able to hear the inside scoop on the facility, the ministry and town of Glennallen, but she was able to put in a good word for my application! So I waited. Turns out CRMC wanted an interview! Turns out I was offered a couple other interviews in Los Angeles! Turns out CRMC offered my first RN job!

The chasm presented itself anew: would I choose Alaska or a intensive care job in Los Angeles? My heart would love to invest in both populations....best as I can describe....the last couple weeks it has felt as if two magnets of the same polarity are waging war in my mind. WHAT WAS I TO DO!? I love critical care, I love the thought of working in a hospital in this emergent and dynamic setting (pediatrics or adults!). Just yesterday I had a promising interview!

AFTER MUCH VACILLATION....I continued to come back to my roots. Why am I pursuing nursing? What is the intention? What is the mission, the dream? Is it about what I want to achieve, about personal accolade, or is it about positioning myself to be a minister of healing among the broken and forgotten? WHAT IS MY CALLING?!

For SO LONG I have pleaded with God, "Lord, SEND ME!!!!! I will go, I will go, I will go!" I have wrestled with God....crying out, "WHY LORD, why five years of nursing school, why years of experience prior to heading out the on field, why so many roundabouts and barricades between me and and the launch pad??!" And here God was, smiling with a green light and an open door for Alaska...summoning...."Erin, I have paved this way for you, just as you have prayed for....no more waiting, now...go!" In praying about this decision, I glanced at some blogs and websites regarding missionary nursing...and I had a bit of a revelation. LONG TERM GOAL: to be a nurse, most likely amongst the rural or tribal poor....to be a missionary nurse practitioner providing care in a clinic (not hospital) setting. SO why my drive and push for critical care? Will I really need lots of experience with intubated patients, patients with central lines and chest tubes? Praying, "Lord, I want to do what pleases you most," I was overcome with the raw truth: my hunger for a position in critical care was yes, motivated by intrigue, but also by pride and the itch to gain the prestige of working in a difficult department that demands a high level of competence.

What would please God most? Answering the call He has placed deep within my heart. Surrendering my pride. Yielding to the challenges Alaska involves...knowing they will only make me depend on Him more than ever before. I almost caught myself off guard. ALASKA was the alarmingly obvious answer. After all....it is about dying to self and following the Shepherd who sees what our myopia cannot, right? His grace has met me in releasing the other hopeful prospects (a couple of which I have not yet received an answer)...

So. I'm going to be heading to rural...remote...cold...dark....but wonderful and shockingly beautiful ALASKA to work in a medical center and urgent care clinic that strives to share Christ's love through accessible, quality health care. I'm headed out on a very new adventure...one that poses a stark contrast to life as I've known it in the buzzing city of angels. I'm heading in with open hands....hoping to be met by the Lord's good strength in my weakness, hoping to find sanctuary in the wonder of the north, hoping to be an instrument among the native people of the Copper Valley, hoping to learn about God, myself and the mission field. I pray that this will be a stepping stone...that these next couple years (!) will help equip me with tools for the mission field in the future (who knows where!)! To Him whose ways are higher, to Him who is more than able to do more than I could ever dream or imagine, to Him who goes before and hems us in, to Him be all glory and honor due His name!