Tell us a little about yourselves. What is your background and where are you from?

Caleb: I grew up in Decatur, a small town a half-hour south of Fort Wayne, Indiana. We live in North Vernon, Indiana, where I pastor the Church of the Nazarene there.

Lisa: I am from Sanford, Florida. I went to Olivet Nazarene University, where I received my English degree and met Caleb. At Olivet, we discovered and experienced international missions and felt the tug to make that a bigger part of our lives. Unfortunately, because of illness in our extended families, we could not pursue missions as we had intended. As an adult, I went back to school for my nursing degree. For the past 10 years, I’ve worked in a 16-bed emergency room. I love the chaos and variety of the emergency room.

How did you hear about Global Care Force?

Caleb: I knew Carla Sunberg, General Superintendent of the Church of the Nazarene, from past mission trips to Russia. I caught up with her at our District Assembly and shared that Lisa had been working as a Registered Nurse and looked forward to going on a mission trip as a nurse someday.

Carla suggested we check into Global Care Force and explained that they take monthly medical trips to Ukraine. I texted Lisa the link, expecting that it would be something we might consider some years down the road. To my surprise, when I called to check in a few hours later, she had already begun recruiting prospective team members. She was 100% on board!

Did you specifically seek a volunteer program that you could do as a husband and wife team? Have you volunteered together before?  

Lisa: Yes, we have traveled on many trips together as a married couple. This was unique in that I was the more “skilled” worker. As a pastor/pastoral student, Caleb was always in a bit of a leadership role, and I was a general worker. It was nice to be part of a trip where I could use the skills I have acquired in my profession. Also, I enjoyed recruiting our team from nurses and doctors I have worked with in the ER. I recruited 2 providers, who each recruited another person. The team came together perfectly, and we had a wonderful time together.

Caleb: Before our two girls were born, we went on a mission trip to Eastern Europe about every eighteen months. We did construction work on church buildings and had the opportunity to work with some local church programs. One year our team headed up a retreat for the pensioners in one of the area churches. We had a great time playing games and teaching the Bible to the ones who had come.

Lisa, you are a registered nurse. Can you tell us a little about the patients you saw and the types of health issues they had?  

The patients we treated had general medical complaints like diabetes and high blood pressure. We also talked to patients about insomnia and depression as it relates to the ongoing war.

I don’t know why, but when this distinguished gentleman said his goodbyes and thank after our triage, he teared up, and it went straight to my heart. We are doing so little, and the Ukrainian patients are overflowing with kindness and gratitude. This man made me feel so humbled. I took his hands, and we teared up together and exchanged kind words that neither one of us understood. But there was warmth and gratitude on both sides. I asked to take a picture with my new friend, which I will treasure.

Throughout the days, there were so many mothers with sons lost or missing on the battlefield, and I continued to tear up. All I could think was I don’t understand, but I too am a mother…

Caleb, you are not a medical volunteer, but you are a pastor. Can you tell us about your role on the team? 

My role was in trauma care. My translator, Maria, is a mental health professional with the authority to prescribe medications. We took turns in conversation, each using the tools of our specialty. My job as a pastor involves listening. We heard stories of displacement, violence, and fear. But a deep strength and resilience that percolates up like dandelions through the sidewalk cracks. The hardest stories to hear were the women who had sons or grandsons who had gone missing during their deployment to the front. It is so difficult to find hope when the images on the television fill their mind with worst-case scenarios.

For those willing, I led in prayer, offering their story and their struggle to God, asking for his blessing, guidance, and hope. The Christian tradition has many spiritual resources that can help bring hope and healing to trauma. The feeling of profound loneliness cuts us off from everyone. But when we tell the stories of Jesus, we see God taking up the loneliness of our suffering into the very life of God. Through the centuries, Christian saints have shone as examples of perseverance in suffering and emerged victorious. They leave us their legacy and their prayers that we can turn to. Naming where God is in our suffering and our place within God’s suffering world can be an important part of finding a sense of healing and peace.

Any stories either of you can share? Maybe a patient or staff member that impacted you? What memories will stay with you?   

Caleb: One of our patients was a local community health worker. She helped us unload the medicine and equipment and coordinated which team would serve in the various rooms of the clinic. When the patient load had settled down, she came in as a patient herself. She is a caregiver for her children and for her mother. And as a community health nurse, she carries the weight of her village’s wellness daily. She was able to step around the table and ask for help after offering help, hope, and healing to so many.

Lisa: On one of our last touring days, I slept on my shoulder wrong the night before and had a sore muscle. I complained about it a little and mentioned I wish I had a lidocaine patch or something, but kind of forgot I said that. Then, in the middle of our walk to our tour site, our group leader, Eugene, a young Ukrainian doctor, turned into a pharmacy, purchased two lidocaine patches with his own money and handed them to me. I was embarrassed, humbled, and a little speechless. The kindness, hospitality and generosity of our Ukrainian hosts was amazing.

Is volunteering together one of the secrets to a good marriage? Or at least a reminder of the blessings you have in life?  

Caleb: It helps a marriage to have shared loves and passions. We have found that serving together allows us to see each other’s strengths and skills and celebrate the diversity of gifts that God has given us.

Lisa: Ha! So many “secrets,” but mostly the joy of a long marriage is “to know and be known.” Caleb and I have experienced a lot of life together and know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We make a great team that comes out in the mission field. Caleb is kind, slow, and gentle. I am an ER nurse; I am more fast-paced and love a little chaos. We like to defer to each other in specific situations. We are also playfully competitive and respect each other’s talents. I guess the real secret is that we each think we are the lucky one. He thinks I am smart and talented, I think he is brilliant and one in a million.

If someone is considering volunteering with Global Care Force, what would you tell them?

Lisa: I would tell them to go for it! This was a wonderful experience. There will be “hardships,” so to speak, but you will be enveloped by the deepest love and hospitality. Our hosts (interpreters and group leaders) made us feel like heroes, but they were the ones doing amazing things daily.

Caleb: I was very apprehensive about traveling to a war zone and found great comfort in the structure of the team’s travel while in Ukraine. In a pre-trip Zoom call, Roxanne Jones shared how they strictly regulate the team’s travel and that violating the protocols would not be tolerated. The translators and leaders know where it is safe to travel, and where it is unsafe, and they took great care of us while we were there.

We take for granted the comprehensive medical care we depend on here in the West. Our walk-in clinics have advanced machines for everything, and medicine is simple to get with a prescription. When patients came into the clinic in Ukraine asking for “pain medicine,” they weren’t asking for opioids. They were asking for Tylenol and Ibuprofen. And they were extremely grateful to go home with a month’s supply.

Is anything else you would like to share about your experience with GCF?

Lisa: The trip brought home a sense of history and connectedness in the world. Despite living in war circumstances, our Ukrainian neighbors are just living their lives, enjoying family, good food, good jokes.

Interested in volunterring with Global Care Force? Learn more!