Online global health student joins with Samaritan’s Purse to meet the needs of children in Liberia

In her career as an ICU nurse in Illinois, Liberty University Master of Public Health (Global Health) student Alicia (last name withheld) has worked a strenuous schedule. But she has always carved out time to volunteer over the years with Samaritan’s Purse serving medical needs around the world. Her most recent experience was in Monrovia, Liberia, in late April, where she and nine other medical professionals assisted in life-changing cleft lip and palate surgeries for 28 children.

Alicia served as a recovery room nurse.

“I really enjoyed my role because I get to interact with the national staff and the patients’ family members a lot there,” she said. “It’s a good time hearing stories of what brought them to us and what life is like for them, especially with them having a loved one that has this cleft lip or palate and the kinds of struggles they’ve been through.”

According to a Samaritan’s Purse press release, children in Liberia’s small rural villages born with cleft lip and palate are viewed as cursed and often become outcasts from their community, with some mothers even encouraged to abandon their children. In spending time with the children and their families, Alicia said she saw how the condition had affected them firsthand,  and she witnessed how the different families bonded over their commonality.

“I just think that it’s such a neat atmosphere because these people don’t know each other, but they go from being in areas where they’re the only one with someone that has this cleft lip or palate to now being in this kind of little community,” she said. “I just feel like there’s so much healing that goes on there at that camp by bringing all these people together and seeing that they and their child are not the only ones with this. We had chaplains who were out there every day who reiterated that this is not a curse and that God loves you and God has His hand on your life.”

Since 2011, Samaritan’s Purse has sent volunteer medical teams to perform these surgeries around the world, completing more than 900 cleft lip/palate surgeries across several countries including South Sudan, Liberia, Bolivia, and Guatemala.

This was Alicia’s fourth time volunteering on an international team with Samaritan’s Purse; she has served in various capacities in Togo, Bangladesh, and the Bahamas. In 2017, after hearing about the organization’s work in Iraq, Alicia said that she was inspired to get plugged in and find ways where she could use her skills as a nurse and live out her faith by serving others in need.

“They do have lots of different missions trips with church groups and other organizations, but the capacity that Samaritan’s Purse has to go in and really provide excellent medical care and have a strong focus on ministry and sharing the Gospel along with that, it really resonated with me and it’s what’s kept me going with them.”

From serving refugees in Bangladesh to helping survivors of a hurricane in the Bahamas, she said that the trauma and suffering she witnessed was difficult to experience, but to see it through a Christian viewpoint and work as a part of a team of believers positively influenced the experience.

“I think if I would have been there with just some other people that want to do good is one thing, but to be able to come back every night and talk with other believers about the day is another,” Alicia said. “Maybe one of us is struggling more than the other, so then hearing God’s truth spoken into our lives from each other and repeatedly reminding each other that God is with people through their suffering, that has been great.”

On each trip, Alicia said she has seen God’s provision and healing in miraculous ways in the midst of harrowing circumstances. One such moment came in Liberia when a girl had a high fever and the power in the facility went out, limiting the technical capabilities of the medical staff. The team stood in the room with the girl, unsure of what to do, when one of the team members suggested they pray.

“We prayed, and then drastically her temperature came down within a matter of 10 or 15 minutes, and that wouldn’t be able to be explained from our medicines or what we were doing,” Alicia said. “There’s always been at least one time on these trips when we see God do things, and that’s just such a good reminder because we’re problem solvers in the medical field and there’s always something that we want to try, but remembering that God is the ultimate healer is important.”

“Whether it’s just clearing our mind and God can show us the right way, or maybe it’s completely depending on Him for something that we have no capacity to fix on our own, those are just great moments that I try to remember when I come back to the (United States) and am in the ICU again,” she added.

Although Alicia’s trips have been individual volunteer opportunities organized outside of Liberty, the university regularly partners with Samaritan’s Purse for short-term trips though LU Send and LU Send Now, Liberty’s disaster relief initiative, as well as Operation Christmas Child.

Alicia has been an ICU nurse for 10 years. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, especially, she said coworkers have often asked her why she takes time away from her job to volunteer in another area of the medical field and to take classes through Liberty University Online Programs.

“I feel that God has called us to be the hands and feet of Jesus, and this is a way that He’s put a passion on my life to do that,” she said. “Just being in the field more, really having a passion for that, and seeing the work that is done has made my future plans possibly align more with doing overseas work in a disaster-type capacity. That has helped me decide to pursue global health. Liberty University has a very good reputation for their programs, and it’s great that it’s online because I started right at the beginning of the pandemic and then was working overtime at work. It’s been a lot, but I’ve been very thankful for the ability to do that right now.”