A pair of Grand Valley State University students took time from their busy clinical rotations to volunteer two weeks in the war-ravaged West African nation of Sierra Leone.
Stephanie Oakes, a third-year Physical Therapy major, and her husband Matthew, a third-year Occupational Therapy major, spent two weeks working with amputees and other people wounded in that nation's decade-long civil war.
The couple left on October 14 and returned to Grand Rapids on Sunday, October 29.
Matthew is in the middle of a clinical placement at Spectrum Health, while Stephanie is just beginning a placement there.
The trip, which was organized through World Hope International's Limbs of Hope project, focused on making prosthetics for war amputees and making sure people could use them.
The capital city of Freetown was filled with signs of the brutality, the couple said. Armed bodyguards accompanied the team, and the streets had checkpoints manned by machine gun-toting soldiers.
Nobody has been spared the effects of war, Matthew said, adding: Everyone has lost a family member or a loved one.
It was a learning experience, Stephanie said.
When we first got there, it was a shock, she said. I got a lot out of it spiritually. It made me thankful to live in a place where I have access to health care and basic needs.
Also volunteering on the trip was GVSU PT instructor Jeff Johnson, who had previously visited Sierra Leone. It was in one of Johnson's classes that the students first learned of the volunteer opportunities in Africa.
