A graduate of our Institute, Jaimee Arroyo, is now pursuing further education in order to be certified as a Family Nurse Practitioner. Nurse practitioners see patients of all ages, are qualified to prescribe necessary medications, and treat patients just as a physician would. She hopes to augment her knowledge with holistic and natural approaches that can be implemented in the third world, where medication is not readily accessible or affordable. Becoming a holistic nurse practitioner will have Jaimee searching for the distinct root causes of health issues and utilizing the available natural approaches (such as dietary and lifestyle changes, nutritional supplements, herbs, and homeopathic remedies) to regain health. Ultimately, her course of study will help her improve her skills in order to educate communities in preventative practices that will help them avoid sickness altogether. Below is a personal testimony of her journey of education--first nursing school, then a biblical and missiological education at the Institute for G.O.D. International, and now a return to nurse practitioner school (this time with a different mentality).
In addition to being a wife and mother, I work as an R.N. at a local hospital and help care for health needs in our community here in Antioch. I am quite immersed in the realm of health care. I love to teach and empower those around me to take care of their bodies in order to circumvent preventable illness, and I get the opportunity to do so through student-teaching one of the Institutes's primary health care classes. I strongly feel that, as a community that desires to educate and empower the poor and forgotten, restoring the health of people is foundational to such a pursuit. At this moment in my educational journey, I have realized that in order to adequately serve in my immediate context and in a third-world setting, I need to be further equipped. For that reason, I am pursuing a Nurse Practitioner program. I have followed a unique course in regard to my educational path. I graduated from nursing school and enrolled in a biblical-missiological education at the Institute for G.O.D. Int’l, and am now pursuing further education in nursing.
In the summer of 2005, when I first came into contact with G.O.D. Int’l, I was a headstrong young woman who thought I knew almost everything about how human beings worked, and I felt very authoritative because of the elite medical language I had obtained. However, after beginning my studies at the Institute for G.O.D, very quickly. Int’l, I realized that I didn’t understand God or human beings very well and therefore failed to know how to care for them. My trips abroad made me painfully aware that my nursing education was void of the spirit of God. I didn’t even know how to recognize very obvious signs of injustice or discern why a person was suffering. I had been trained in the business of health care, but it was Jesus’ example that would teach me how to look at a person, listen to their story, and touch them, using knowledge and compassion. I learned the vital distinction between treating a patient and restoring a person.
At the beginning of my summer internship with G.O.D. In 2005, I prayed that God would give me his eyes, ears, and heart. I learned that I couldn’t possibly change the world without understanding him. I enrolled in the Institute for G.O.D. Int’l, I subjected myself to the study of his word and received the opportunity to live out what I was learning in the context of a community. Sometimes I wish I had received my biblical education before going into nursing school. But this time, it will be different. I’m going into the Nurse Practioner program with entirely new eyes, ears, and heart. The word of God has changed how I think and act and even changed who I am. The world taught me how to make a powerful name for myself. But the word of God has taught me to deny myself and serve others with everything I have. That latter is what restores broken people.
Finishing nurse practitioner school will be a big step for me in becoming equipped for the vocation the Lord has for me and my family. Living it out in El Salvador with my community members will be an even bigger step. I can’t know for sure what health needs will present themselves in El Salvador. Whatever the context (one-on-one, at a clinic, in a formal school setting, in a community meeting, during a seminar, door-to-door, or while on a house visit), my goal is to be fully equipped to serve. I have the word of God in my heart, and I am developing additional occupational expertise in faith that the Lord will be able to use me to bring restoration to a group of people who are too often neglected.
Written by: Jaimee Arroyo
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