We are currently in the midst of National Nurses Week! It begins every year on May 6th with National Nurses Day, and ends on May 12th with International Nurses Day, which always falls on the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birthday. For those of you who may not know, Florence Nightingale is often considered the founder of modern nursing.
During this week we celebrate the significant contributions made by these amazing health professionals who work incredibly hard to provide the best care to all patients who cross their paths. Mission and nursing intersect in the story of former Maryknoll Lay Missioner Christine (Chris) Divin. A nurse since 1976, Chris used her healing skills in both Venezuela and at the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2024, she was recognized by her peers as Texas Nurse Practitioner of the Year. Please keep reading for Chris’ account of her early work training health promotors in Venezuela. You’ll clearly see her passion for what she does.
“Soon after arriving in Venezuela, about five years ago, I had the opportunity to visit an experimental health project in a small village in central Venezuela. A Dr. from Caracas was working with a group of ‘campesinos’, country folk, animating them to become health promoters and take on more responsibility for their own lives regarding their health and the health of their community. Many of the people had little or no formal education yet I remember him telling them that THEIR LIVES WERE THEIR UNIVERSITY, that they had within them, through their experience, a wealth of knowledge.
I spent only a weekend with the group but the experience was a tremendous classroom for me. El Trompillo, where we live is a barrio in Barquisimeto, Venezuela of 8,000 people where 90% of the people live in critical poverty, their salaries aren’t enough to provide sufficient food. Because health and food are so interrelated, as a nurse, I haven’t for one moment felt that I wasn’t in a place where my gifts couldn’t be shared. The struggle has been in prioritizing and discerning how to best share them.
Our first year in Trompillo was spent in visiting and becoming acquainted with our neighbors and trying to begin to understand community health center in the barrio, a small well-child clinic open 3 mornings a week and run by a nun from the U.S. Her 6 years in Trompillo were coming to an end and she asked our Maryknoll team if we’d take the responsibility for continuing the work at the clinic.
We agreed to continue the work under the condition that the community would become responsible for ‘their’ clinic. My job initially and still today has focused in training health promoters to continue the work in the neighborhood clinic.
The community suddenly brought ‘new life’ to the clinic. After an initial 2 month course in First Aid a group of 6 women began working in the well-child clinic. In only a short time they learned to monitor children’s growth, vaccinate, etc. Most of all these women, some with only a 2nd grade education, began discovering the tremendous potential within them.
The health group has grown in numbers over the past 4 years, we are now 15 women but most importantly we’ve grown in love and support for one another. We’ve grown in our belief in the God of life who wants us all to live healthy dignified lives.
The growth is never without struggle. Some of the women in our group live in very oppressive situations where they can only leave their house when their husbands are gone. Some are beaten and told at home that they are worthless. Coming together they’ve discovered that they are valuable as women. They find love and support through their friends even when it is absent at home. They discover a ‘new woman’ within. Upon discovering their goodness, they want only to share it with their community. They seem to never tire. With their new found strength within they’ve managed to keep the clinic going 3 days a week now for 4 years.
I came to Venezuela with little knowledge of community health nursing, with little knowledge of what being a missioner is all about. I’ve learned so much. Through the process of animating others to discover and believe in their own human goodness and potential, one is truly blessed. The ‘pueblo’, the people of God are giving birth and we are midwives in the process. Accompanying this process of new life is truly a gift to be given.”
Some of the women were never given the chance to study as children as they had to begin working at early ages to support their families. Four of the women are now earning their high school equivalency. Although they’ve already become wonderful ‘nurses’ through their experience, some want to become licensed as nurses. […]
[T]he women with whom I’ve had the privilege to live and work with these past five years have given me much hope. At times as missioners, we are thought to be the bearers of hope. Perhaps we bring some hope but the real hope comes from the people who struggle daily, their hope is what truly helps us to not lose ours.
The women in the health group have vaccinated literally thousands of children, given first aid classes and animated many new people over the past few years. These things are all important but most importantly perhaps is that through working together, living together as community and friends, we’ve discovered that change is possible, that the kingdom of God, of justice and love is in process. We are living it together. […]
While searching for additional information on former Maryknoll Lay Missioner Chris Divin, Returned Missioner News shared that Chris had been awarded the 2024 Texas Nurse Practitioner of the Year!
See the full article below:
“CHRIS DIVIN NAMED
2024 TEXAS NURSE PRACTITIONER OF THE YEAR
September 2024: Congratulations to Chris Divin, PhD, APRN, FNP-BC—returned Maryknoll Lay Missioner, Class of 1985! She was named the 2024 Texas Nurse Practitioner Educator of the Year by the professional association of Texas nurse practitioners—a group that seeks to empower nurse practitioners to advance the profession and the health of all Texans. Chris has been a nurse since 1976. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. She served as a Maryknoll Lay Missioner in Venezuela from 1985 to 1992 and at the U.S.-Mexico border from 1992-2002. In 1997 she completed her Master of Science in Nursing degree in Community Health and the Family Nurse Practitioner Program from the University of Texas at El Paso. In 2015, she completed her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing. For the past seven years, Chris has served as the director of the Family Nurse Practitioner program at the University of Texas at Austin. 
In addition to teaching, she routinely precepts students each semester, sharing her passion for universal healthcare at a central Texas clinic for the underserved. While many nurse practitioners in clinical practice hesitate to return to academia for a variety of reasons, Chris specifically obtained a PhD after decades in practice so that she could give back to the nurse practitioner profession by teaching the next generation of nurse practitioners. Once a missioner, always a missioner—as evidenced by Chris’ ongoing service to others!”
