This year, Jen is our lead in the ICU and this is her second trip with Healing Hearts. Being a
lead means scheduling of all the nurses, packing all supplies to ship or bring to Kigali from
Spokane and unpack and set up the ICU here at King Faisal Hospital.
Jen has always wanted to be a healer and came to nursing through massage therapy. She
trained in massage in Minnesota and used her training as a stepping stone to her nursing
career. She loves that massage has given her a holistic approach to healing and still
incorporates it in her nursing. She used to see herself as a pediatric ER nurse but really loves
adult ICU. She likes the autonomy she has in the ICU as well as its' fast pace and using her
critical thinking skills.
Her short term goals are to finish her online training for her BSN which she is working on now
while working full time. She is putting her Global Health class to test! Becoming a nurse
practitioner and possibly a hospital administrator is perhaps in her future.
She loves HHNW mission here in Rwanda. What she likes about being here is the spirit of the
patients, ministering to their recovery but also being able to teach the Rwandan nurses how to
care for the post surgical patients. She sees a lot of growth and advancement in their skills
because of the teaching that has been and is being done by the 4 worldwide teams that do this
surgery at King Faisal. She recently saw a quote that rang true for her, "I need Africa more than Africa needs me."
Jen has two interesting connections with HHNW. On our 2013 mission, Ingrid Barte joined our
team from San Francisco, knowing none of the Spokane team members. Jen and Ingrid have
connection is when Jen was younger, she babysat for Sue Silver's two sons. Sue joined us this
year as a volunteer!
Just before Jen left for Rwanda, she became engaged and we congratulate her lucky groom!
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| Rahema after surgery 2013 |
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| Rahema returned 2015 |
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