A 22-year-old UT nursing grad recently decided she’d spend at least the first year of her new life in North Africa, raising money to get and keep her there. As with anyone fresh out of college, it took a special working of the Spirit to have her forsake her sure income for a year, lose her jumpstart on the industry, abandon her comfort and obey His will.
For Andrea in particular it’s been a long road, getting to a point where she could actually trust God to provide her every need. Even in heeding the call she felt surely was from Him, she wouldn’t fully trust Him to provide.
Starting when she was 15 on a short-term trip to the Dominican Republic, she began building her own résumé of short-term mission work, for the most part refusing to ask for outside funds. Her father realized his call as a sender, paying some of her way and motivating her to write a few letters.
Later, in preparing for her first return to the D.R. at 18 with a medical team, she sought full self-sufficiency.
“Chili’s paid my way,” she says, laughing.
Since she could understand she had a future in the workforce, Andrea had taken for granted her future in medicine. When she was 16, visiting her grandmother in intensive care, her calling became tangible.
The gaping voids between the doctor’s brief visits for diagnosis, check-up and surgery left her grandmother’s well-being in the care of the nursing staff. Andrea was taken by their compassion and relational power as they strove for the dignity of her dying grandmother.
Through college she forged her way to the Dominican a third time and then exercised her nursing gifts in the field again on one of two trips to Mexico.
Later, in her senior year at UT, the call came in her small group through a recruiting visit for the Austin Stone’s short-term summer trips. Having paid most of her own way for her first five trips, she feared being called to North Africa with only two months notice.
She prayed.
She asked for wisdom, taking note that one of the trips seeking medical experience fit perfectly into her busy summer schedule. Two days later the Lord proved wise in His timing, faithful in His providing.
Her boss from the hospital she had interned with the previous summer called heralding a human resources glitch. The hospital had failed to remove Andrea from the payroll, awarding her paid time off and holidays through the end of the summer, that fall and winter. A $700 check was in the mail.
“That was me realizing that God really does provide, and that I really needed to go,” she says.
On the trip Andrea, along with her team, worked through translators to provide on-sight care to refugees, also praying for each of their patients. She says the faith of the workers in the clinic was awe inspiring.
It’s as if they know God is with them, working through them, she says. They go each day, “trusting God, expecting miracles to happen.”
The traveling clinic she worked with kept her out of the local hospitals but close to the hem of a doctor who knows their failings. He suggested her return for a longer stay. He beat her to the punch.
“I’ve seen God move,” she says, “but there, my life just really started making sense.”
At the turn of the year Andrea passed her exams to become a certified nurse. She’s returning to North Africa this February to work with the clinic for at least the next year.
--
If you would like to be added to Andrea's Prayer Team Update, email her at aezainfeld at gmail dot com.
