Snapshots of Lawndale

Lawndale has been, is, and will continue to be an amazing experience. God has blessed me so much. It's pretty unreal.

I've met some people here who I will keep in touch with forever. It blows my mind to think that we were complete strangers only 2 weeks ago. Again, God is good.

Work highlights:

-- Home visits with patients. Two days a week another intern and I go on home visits with a practitioner from Lawndale. The patients we see suffer from hypertension, diabetes, or asthma. In the home we check bps, blood glucose, and go through a series of educational materials with the patient. It's been so great to see the patients in their home environments, to set goals with them, and to hear about their lives. We've prayed with many of the patients about their conditions and other issues too. Amazing to see how God works through those visits.

-- Devotions time and conferences with Lawndale staff. Many people on the Lawndale staff have led us in fantastic devotions, discussions and conversations. Pastor JB has challenged us to really take what we're experiencing to heart instead of just academically understanding what we see.

-- Working with some talented, humble, and selfless doctors and staff at Lawndale. Two days a week I shadow providers. I see them remain calm when they're two hours behind. I see them speak spanish. I see them witness to patients. I see them ask for my opinion. I see their commitment to the community and to their patients. Mostly, I see things I value and love in what they do. I see myself in their shoes. One day!

-- Saturday health fairs. I was in my glory last saturday, which marked our first health fair in Little Village. I checked blood pressures, spoke spanish, met new people, talked about God, and felt like I was in Mexico for the day. Couldn't stop smiling. Need I say more?

-- I get to speak spanish everyday. No lie, figuring out what to say and how to say things in Spanish is like an insanely fun game for me. Last night our group had dinner at a Lawndale psychologist's home. We wound up sharing study abroad experiences and chatted about how useful spanish is around here. At one point he said, "I don't think I've ever met someone who is so excited about spanish." Classic.

Other highlights:

-- Community dinners with the other interns. No words can describe the awesome bonding that occurs during these dinners that turn into entire evenings of laughing, deep talks and general splendor. As a friend said, "We're like a little family." And we are.

-- Experiencing the community as a whole. So I've always had this vision of living in a community that is very intentional about loving their neighbors, holding events, investing in relationships, etc. Great news, I found that. I've only been at Lawndale for a few weeks, yet people are inviting me to bonfires, hangouts, retirement parties, church events, volleyball games.. the list goes on. It's rare to find such inviting, genuine people doing life together.

Basically, I love being here. I love Lawndale's mission, I love this community. I'd like to give all the thanks to God though for bringing me here. I was honestly hoping to spend the summer in Ecuador or Guatemala. This internship was my back up plan incase things didn't work out.

The phrase, "We plan, God laughs" has never felt so true.


Rach