By Kefa Senoga
When two-year-old Karen relocated with her parents from the USA to Japan for missionary work, little did she know that that act was an initiation into her future life. 

Over the years, she has taught nurses in the USA and Africa on how to save lives. Dr. Karen Drake, a lecturer in the nursing programs at Uganda Christian University (UCU) and Bethel University in Minnesota, USA, has taught in the two institutions for the last two decades.

She describes her experience at UCU, where she has been lecturing since 2005, as marvelous. “I find teaching very rewarding and very fulfilling,” she says, noting that she’s impressed with the progress of some of her former students of the nursing program at UCU.  

Throughout Karen’s career as a lecturer, one of the key virtues people always mention is the special bond she has with her former Ugandan students. 

In October 2022, when she visited Uganda, her pioneer class at UCU organized a meet-up with her. “I listened to each one of them as they shared how they have progressed,” Karen said, adding: “One of them has completed a PhD and another is working with the Ministry of Health…That was a good day for me to meet and hear them mention how far they have reached with their goals.” 

Even though she is a foreigner teaching mostly Ugandan students at UCU, she manages to connect with them academically and culturally. 

“I came to UCU with some African experience from Zimbabwe, where I spent 17 years teaching in similar settings like at UCU, so my experience there helped me understand how things are done in Uganda,” she said.

Karen believes that the nursing program at UCU provides a holistic and extensive education to the students, especially since the course is taught from a Christian perspective.

“This helps nurses that have passed through this program to develop a caring spirit for their patients,” she said. “When our students give care, they give care from a Christian perspective exemplified by the love of their patients.” 

Before the Covid-19 outbreak, Karen would come to Uganda to teach at UCU three times a year and would spend a couple of weeks on the campus each time. However, the outbreak of Covid-19 disrupted her schedule and everything was put online. Additionally, her caregiver role for an aging parent in Minnesota, USA, has cut visits to UCU shorter. She’s hoping to eventually resume her in-person schedule.

“Today, when I come to Mukono, I no longer spend so much time there because I am taking care of my father who is now 101 years old,” she said. “It is when my brother comes to take care of my father that I come to UCU. I came three times in 2022.” 

Karen says she got acquainted with UCU through Bethel University, where she lectures. “I got introduced to UCU because Bethel had developed a strong partnership with them. I took Bethel students to UCU and other parts of Uganda, and some UCU nursing students also came and spent some time at the campus at Bethel.”

Karen says that the UCU community is welcoming. “When I stayed on campus at UCU, I had very good neighbors and friends, besides my nursing colleagues.” 

Before coming to UCU, Karen says she stayed in Zimbabwe as a missionary. It is in Zimbabwe where she met her husband, who was also a missionary working as a doctor. 

“We were married in Zimbabwe in 1975, and we have two grown children,” she said. “My husband also came to UCU many times before he passed on five years ago.”

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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.

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By Nicole Nankya
Chat Leah Abasiya is not a full-time hair stylist. In fact, she has not even attended formal training in hairstyling. But her skills would make anyone doubt these facts.  

For people who know Abasiya’s history, the exceptional crocheting and hair styling skills are not by accident. They are skills she has mastered after more than 10 years of experience. Abasiya, a Uganda Christian University (UCU) student from Nigeria, took advantage of the fact that her country allows girls to keep long hair throughout primary and secondary school to start learning hair styling skills since she was sure she had the market. 

The UCU student of Bachelor of Nursing says her mother encouraged her and her three female siblings learned hair styling so that they would practice on each other’s hair.

She further mastered the skill and earned money from it since she came to Uganda in 2017. When she arrived at UCU, she started by styling hair of only Nigerian students, many of whom were not comfortable with the way Ugandans braided their hair.

Then, one Ugandan came, followed by six. And that opened Abasiya’s door to braiding hair for Ugandan students.

“I believe that students don’t have much money to spend on their hair,” she said. “So, I charge a modest fee of sh15,000 to sh30,000 (about $4.10 to $8.20) per head.”

Gloria Okeke, a year-four UCU student pursuing a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery, says Abasiya has been her hairstylist for the time they have known each other at the university.

“She is a good listener who puts in her best to ensure customer satisfaction,” Okeke says. Abasiya usually plaits students’ hair from her hostel room or, where need be, she travels to where the client is. For the latter option, she charges slightly higher, to cater for the costs of the travel. 

Abasiya ended up pursuing university education in Uganda miraculously. First, she says she did not know any university in Uganda. Kenya was originally her first choice for a country in East Africa, but she later settled for Uganda because of relative peace in the country. The 2015 attack by Al Shabaab on Kenya’s Garissa University made Abasiya and her family change their mind to studying in Uganda, after she did not get admission into universities in Nigeria for her preferred course of nursing.  

She also runs a YouTube channel, where she often posts information about what she does and her life in a Ugandan university. With all the demands of the nursing course, one wonders how Abasiya is able juggle the course and update her YouTube channel. Planning is the answer, she says. On days when she is free without lectures, she uses them for recording, editing and posting videos. Being on the media team in her church back in Nigeria gave her opportunity to learn how to edit videos.

“This semester, I am free on Tuesdays, so I record from 5 to 6 p.m., edit the videos at night and then upload them on Thursday mornings,” she said. Sundays are usually reserved for crocheting. 

For students who wish to do business while still at school, Abasiya has this counsel: “Have a passion in something and take action. Whatever you are passionate about, just go ahead and do it.”

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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.

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By Patty Huston-Holm
Given the choice between having a doctor or nurse at your bedside, pick a nurse. 

Brian and Judith Taylor, a recently retired husband-and-wife physician team in Uniontown, Pa., humbly make that recommendation. 

This endorsement is not to say that doctors aren’t important.  They are.  To state otherwise would negate the long and productive medical careers the Taylors and countless other physicians have. 

But the world’s need for nurses is critical. The World Health Organization in 2020 reported 28 million nurses make up 59% of the world’s health care workers. There are about two for every doctor. At that, WHO says there is a 5.9 million nursing shortfall. The demand is even greater in developing countries. 

For close to two decades, the Taylors have been doing what they can to help plug the nursing gap in one of those countries – Uganda.  They have funneled their contributions through the Pennsylvania-based non-profit, Uganda Christian University (UCU) Partners, which, among other roles, provides UCU nursing scholarships. 

The Taylors’ support has been anonymous – until now. 

In late February, they agreed to publicize their names alongside their philanthropical efforts in hopes of inspiring others to contribute. For the parents of three, with two grandchildren, the Taylors have been downsizing – such as moving from a five-bedroom home to one with two – to give more. 

“You can’t put a U-Haul behind a hearse,” Brian joked.

In conversation from their modest home in rural Pennsylvania, Brian and Judith Taylor shared part of their story. It’s one that has influenced countless UCU nursing student stories. With seriousness and humor, the two doctors described what led them to appreciate and understand the need for nurses and why they champion UCU nursing education.

“Too many times, doctors from economically poor countries go to wealthier countries to make more money,” said Brian, who first visited UCU in 2005. “Nurses stay behind and care for families, friends and neighbors to the very end.”

Judith, who, five years ago, concluded her medical career of decades in oncology and hospice care, has first-hand knowledge of the impact nurses have at the end-of-life stage. Nurses “are keen observers and listeners,” acting as a bridge between the patient and the doctor, she said. 

“Most of the time, 70 percent of a diagnosis can come from asking good questions, 25 percent from an exam, 5 percent with a technical test,” according to Judith, who worked as a nurse aide in the early part of her career. “This applies especially in the developing world, where there is limited access to technology.” 

A native of England, Judith’s early professional career focused on radiation oncology. Before retirement, she was a doctor in Hospice.  Now, she is a volunteer with an interfaith organization, mostly taking patients to appointments. Brian started out as a computer scientist, but shifted to general medical practice after “falling in love with an English woman while in Scotland.” Following retirement as a general practitioner, he taught anatomy and physiology to nursing students for three years.

“At UCU and through Partners, I saw a critical need and a good organization to help a quality university meet that need,” Brian recalled of his visit to Uganda 17 years ago. “The Christian focus aligns with our faith-based beliefs. And the wonderful notes from the nursing students let us know how much they appreciate us.”

Judith has never been to Uganda. She was poised to go in 2020 when Covid hit.  She hopes to visit this October. 

Practicing medicine in disadvantaged countries is not foreign to the Taylors. In their 46-year marriage, the couple has provided health care services both in the United States and abroad. Through church and other Christian groups, they have felt a calling to lend their medical expertise in Bolivia, Honduras and Myanmar. 

Both on their own and through the Society of Anglican Missionaries and Senders (SAMS), the Taylors spent most of their out-of-country time in Myanmar, one of the poorest countries in southeast Asia. In their six years of visits to Myanmar (also known as Burma), they built friendships and provided health educational services.

“We spent a lot of time listening before teaching,” Brian said.

With listening comes understanding, according to Judith who, along with Brian, quickly realized that many people in huts with dirt floors and limited sanitation believed in witchcraft and took advice from unqualified tribal “healers.” 

In some villages, Judith recalled, there was a practice of putting pig feces on umbilical cords with a belief this prevents infections. At the same time, she observed one young man with no formalized health credentials correctly identify someone with leprosy and, as a nurse would, “stay at the leper’s side until he got the care he needed.”

Their role was one of gently dispelling myths while teaching healthcare and wellness and sharing the word of Christ.

In one lesson of wellness in Myanmar, Judith used balloons to demonstrate a lesson about high blood pressure. She watched as her class of mostly young people from farming backgrounds positioned the deflated balloons at the sides of their mouths like flutes to blow them up to various sizes and pop them.  This, she explained, is not unlike blood vessels that can burst and cause strokes if proper care isn’t taken to lower blood pressure. 

The Taylors administered health care training and provided prevention information through local health care workers who visited villages on mo-peds. 

And they incorporated evangelism.

“It’s hard for physicians to think that prayer is the first thing to do,” Judith said. “They often think it’s the last thing, but prayer should be first, last and ongoing.” 

Brian said the Taylors have served in the USA and other countries in times of calm and discord, observing that situations of “natural or political crises are when people will most turn to the gospel” and that “if people have heard the message before, they better realize how the Word gets them through.”

For the Taylors, as Judith concluded, helping future nurses fill the health care gap in Uganda is simply a continuance of “putting the talents and blessings God gave us to work.” 

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(NOTE: Judith made the first Taylor contribution for a Partners nursing scholarship fund.  With Brian and Judith Taylor’s recent agreement to be open about their involvement, the endowment includes the new designation of the Dr. Judith Taylor Nursing Student Award.)

To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.

Also, follow us on Twitter and Facebook.