 Gift-bearers by Kristina Ibitayo The gift of life, the art of healing, belongs to the God of grace and wisdom. It is he who bequeaths skills, ingenuity and joy to those chosen as gift-bearers. It is his message, quietly interwoven with technology, that his gift-bearers speak in silence, heralding the message of hope and care to the weary and ill, fellow sojourners on the path of life. Gift-bearers live a life of service in uncertain times, daring to care for all travelers met on the path of professional nursing. First appeared in the Journal of Christian Nursing, Fall 2004 |
by Phil Richard
Kristina (McMillen) Ibitayo has been writing poetry since she was a fifth grader. At the time, her parents served in Guatemala with Wycliffe Bible Translators, so she attended a boarding school. “In class, I started to write poetry,” she recalls. “I worked on it for several years and it felt good.”
Her friends called her a bookworm, because she was always reading. “I loved to read and had a love for words.”
When she came to Hesston College in 1983, she had to keep a weekly journal in one of her first nursing classes, “a way of debriefing after each clinical,” she said. “As I journaled, I also started writing poetry, and began filling up small-size notebooks.
“I had an enjoyable time at Hesston,” she said. “It was the genesis of many things, including a nursing career and writing poetry again.”
After receiving her nursing associate degree in 1985, she worked full-time in nursing and attended classes, first earning a journalism degree, then a bachelor’s degree in nursing. In 2004, she finished a master of science in nursing degree, with a focus on nursing administration.
Now working part-time, she attends The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) as a Ph.D. nursing student.
Kristina continued writing poems while working and studying. During her master’s degree studies, she began sending queries to publication editors about her poems. More than a dozen have been published, in publications such as American Nurse Today and Journal of Christian Nursing, with more forthcoming.
Poems “help me make sense out of life,” Kristina said. “Sometimes I don’t know my thoughts and feelings. But as I write, those thoughts and feelings take shape. It’s almost like they pour out of my pen. It’s fun to see what comes out.”
Sometimes what she sees or an event triggers a poem. One recent poem was commissioned as a retirement gift for a UTA faculty member. She also writes for herself, her husband Femi, her children (Tobeya, 14, and Yosef, 9) or for friends.
“Things that I care about and write down might find an audience later,” she said. “I don’t trash my poems, because maybe they’re just for me. Sometimes I read my poems months later and they give me comfort. I won’t ever give up writing poetry, because it has personal meaning for me.”
Hesston College Nursing department