Diversity
Volume 17, Number 3 Summer 2000

Article Summaries

Editorial-Enlarging Our Tents by Judith Allen Shelly
The solution to our separation is not homogeneity or trying to become like one another. Instead, diversity gives us cause for joy and celebration. We are one in Christ, but many in colors, cultures and gifts. . . . As we welcome others who are different from us into the center of our tents, let's celebrate our differences as well as our unity in Christ.

The Power of Opposites by Elizabeth von Keitz
Are you an organizer or a communicator? We need both, and they are often paired in marriage, work and other relationships. We need to value the differences in each other's perceptions. The best biblical example of such a team is Moses, the organizer, and his brother, Aaron, the communicator. It took both of them to complete the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt to Canaan. Two basic dimensions of leadership effectiveness are: concern for the task to be done (organization) and concern for the people who accomplish the task itself (communication). We need each other.

It Takes All Kinds (sidebar) by Dorothy J. Allbritten
"It takes a village to raise a child," and individual gifts of many different people were needed to offer a Nurses Christian Fellowship® continuing education conference in the mid-Atlantic region. In Christ, we are many members but one body.

Understanding Yvonne (sidebar) by Jill McCullough
This RN found herself navigating a difficult work relationship with a nursing assistant. Even though both wanted to care for patients, the way they set out to accomplish tasks was entirely different. Through learning to understand each other and to work together, they blended their styles and became a caring and efficient team.

Discovering Our Common Humanity: Developing Partnerships in a Vietnamese Community by Evelyn Labun
Diversity characterizes our society in North America--racial, ethnic and lifestyle-accompanied by different values and beliefs about health and health care. Giving culturally competent care starts with a commitment to being culturally sensitive, but we also need awareness, knowledge, skill and encounters with people from diverse backgrounds. Discovery begins when the nurse is able to connect with people. Labun reports on a research project where she interviewed nurses who work with Vietnamese clients in the U.S.--how the nurses learned to really see their clients and discover a common humanity and make a connection with them. As a result, the nurses found their personal worldviews changed.

Getting Under Our Skin: Three Small Steps Toward Racial Reconciliation by Diane Stegmeir and Jane Bacon
In God's eyes we are all equal. Sadly, though, culture and human nature distort our perception. The first step to reconciliation is to admit that a separation exists; then we must build bridges between the races. Step three is to work toward an intentional lifestyle that enables us to confront our racism and replace fears with love. As we build mutual trust, we draw strength from each other's experiences and gifts, and learn from one another. These two Nurses Christian Fellowship® staff members on the West Coast have been meeting with Bay Area nurses from the Black Nurses Association every six months for over three years, and share the growth in understanding and trust they have experienced. Practical resources and biblical survey questions are included for others who may wish to begin such a dialogue group.

Breast Buddies by Jane E. Cunningham
The author shares her experience of a rich friendship with nurse Yvette Scott and their confrontation, together, of Yvette's breast cancer, which eventually led to her death. A black Jamaican and a white Irish woman--they seemed an unlikely pair. But from the diverse backgrounds, their friendship blossomed, blending naturally through a common value system and sense of humor. And that's how prejudice is overcome, one friendship at a time.

Disability in the Body of Christ by Linda L. Treloar
The author wondered why some disabled people respond to their circumstances with bitterness, while others seem resilient despite continuing adversity. She then explored the relationships between spiritual beliefs, response to disability and the evangelical Christian church's influence on people affected by disability. She interviewed 30 people, including nine adults with physical disabilities and thirteen parents of disabled children. The study contributes to the growing body of knowledge that establishes a positive role for religious faith in experiences that affect well-being. The participants have much to teach health professionals about spiritual health and well-being. Treloar suggests things that the church could do better for the disabled community.

A Mission Unlike Any Other: Life in a Kosovar Refugee Camp by Meredith L. B. Kerger
As part of a small summer team of three U.S. young people who ministered under Team Expansion among the ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo, the author gives us a glimpse of life in the camp of 300 displaced persons, predominately Muslims. Hindered by a lack of medical supplies, Kerger's effectiveness as a hands-on health care worker was overshadowed by the encouragement and support she was able to provide by listening to the stories of suffering, playing with the children, learning their language and sharing their meager diet and primitive living conditions, planting seeds of the gospel where possible. Kerger not only had a cultural immersion, but she literally fell in love with the people as individuals and rejoiced to see indications of the light of God rising in their darkness.

Caring When You Can't Condone: The Value of Clinical Role Modeling by Ellen L. Poole and Deon M. Logan
Cowritten by a nursing student and her clinical instructor, "Caring When You Can't Condone" shows us a positive clinical role model, guiding a student as she confronts a lesbian patient for the first time and works through her own issues in order to give competent and compassionate care to this client, as she would to any other.

Adolescent Sexual Crises by Jeffery J. McNeil
A nurse in an ambulatory care clinic is confronted by a teenager and her mother, the latter demanding birth control pills for her sexually-active, fifteen-year-old daughter. As the nurse works through how to handle this ethical/spiritual crisis in his experience, he reviews statistical information about teenage pregnancy and STDs, sexual developmental problems, influences on teen sexual behavior and the choices teens have to make. We see how the RN handles this particular situation, and what steps the client and her family choose to take next.

Empowering Teens to Say Yes to Abstinence by Kamalini Kumar
Kumar, an RN, leads by example to show nurses how to be proactive in getting involved in sex education and abstinence teaching in the local public school system. A sidebar of valuable teaching/informational resources is included.

It's the Livin' That's Hard by Marcena Walker
This nursing supervisor in a retirement community had great respect for the aged men and women she cared for. She was impressed with the knowledge they possessed and curious about their life experiences. But she had never thought much about whether they were happy or not. An encounter with Lettie during a dressing change one night made an impression upon her that she didn't fully understand until a time of bereavement in her own life several years later. Recalling the woman's words affirmed her faith in God and his precious gift of life.

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