A New Journey

Hello Everyone! (Jessica's Journey 1: 3/3/11 1700) I am beginning a new journey..and I am very excited to share it with all of you!!  My new journey... I have accepted a new job. I will be working as a travel nurse through American Mobile Healthcare (AMN).  As a travel nurse, I will work with an agent through AMN who will tell me where NICU (which is where I have been working for almost 4 years now in Des Moines) nurses are needed.  Different hospitals around the country post a need for a nurse/nurses, AMN responds by placing their staff, me, in those hospitals.  So- my recruiter gave me a long list of different states where the jobs were available all over the US... from California to Hawaii to Texas to South Carolina to Alaska and even to Iowa.  From there I told her where I would prefer to go.  She sends my profile, which includes my resume, references, licensing, certifications, etc to the hospitals in need of help.  They look at the profile and decide if I will be a candidate for the posted job or not.  If I am, I interview over the phone and then wait to hear if I am offered the job or not.  That's usually the process.  The jobs are called "assignments".  Most assignments are 13 weeks long, some longer..some shorter.  After each assignment I can choose to resign another contract anywhere I would like to go, or come home.  I have 30 days from the last day of my current assignment to the start of a new assignment to hold benefits with AMN.  AMN sets up and pays for my housing while on the assignment.  Travel is mostly reimbursed to and from the assignments.  A daily stipend is provided for food and gas.  Benefits are pretty cheap.  My pay is pretty good.  That is the "just" of the being a travel nurse.  I have had SO many questions about how it all works..I hope that clears it up a bit. If you have questions ask- I will answer.  You can also look at AMN's website if you are curious.  http://www.americanmobile.com So.. that's how it usually works.  This process has been long... I have been working on applications and paperwork and licensing now for about 6 weeks.  I wanted to actually accept an assignment before sharing it with all of you.  I have accepted an 8 week assignment in Las Vegas, Nevada.  I start my new job in the Summerlin Hospital NICU March 14th.  I will be living about a mile off the strip in an extended stay hotel.  Usually the company puts their travelers up in an apartment, however with shorter assignments it's easier to get a contract in an extended stay type place.  The NICU I will be working in is a 53 bed, Level III unit.  From talking to the manager it sounds very similar to the NICU I have been working in, which was also a Level III (which measures the level of acuity the NICU accepts).  I will be working 12 hour night shifts. I am nervous, scared, anxious, and apprehensive about this whole idea... but SO excited at the same time.  My life has not gone in the direction I saw it going a few years ago.  I have not ended up where I thought I would be.  I have endured heartache and pain, however I have come through everything stronger and ready for this adventure.  I am SO very thankful for all of your prayers and continued support through everything.   I know leaving everything I know will not be easy.  Living in a completely different city not knowing anyone is going to be hard.  It's going to be hard to start a new job and live in a hotel. (however the pool, hot tub, and sunny Vegas weather will be a very GOOD change... )  But I'm confident that this is the road that the Lord has led me to.  I'm excited to see where He will use me.  I know working with the babies is what I was meant to do.  I have made some life-long relationships with some of the families I have had the privilege to take care of at Mercy.  I know that will not be different in Las Vegas.  HE has a plan... I do not regret where I have been for the last few years of my life. I have made some friendships that I know will last forever.  I will miss the unit I have been working in as well as my amazing co-workers that I have grown to love and respect so much.  I will my friends and family more than anything.. but I know for many of them this is just an opportunity for a great vacation to wherever I am!!   I know a few of you have trips planned to Vegas... I am already looking forward to your visits.  Thank you for being my supports.. it really does help to have so many people behind me.  I know that if this traveling thing isn't for me..it's only eight weeks, I can say I did this, and move on.  It's a check off of the good 'ole bucket list.    As I said, I will send updates when I can.  I'll begin the road trip next week.. probably Wednesday morning.  Prayers for safe travel are appreciated.  I'll keep you all posted.  To end this I wanted to post a quote from an article one of my amazing friends sent me... it's so very perfect for me right now.  A lot of people have asked me why I would do this... because it's risky, it's not comfortable, and it probably won't be easy.  This is my answer.  Enjoy.  An excerpt from a book called Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist.

"This is the thing: when you start to hit twenty-eight or thirty, everything starts to divide, and you can see very clearly two kinds of people: on one side, people who have used their twenties to learn and grow, to find God and themselves and their deep dreams, people who know what works and what doesn’t, who have pushed through to become real live adults.

And then there’s the other kind, who are hanging on to college, or high school even, with all their might. They’ve stayed in jobs they hate because they’re too scared to get another one. They’ve stayed with men or women who are good but not great because they don’t want to be lonely. They mean to find a church, they mean to develop honest, intimate friendships, they mean to stop drinking like life is one big frat party. But they don’t do those things, so they live in kind of an extended adolescence, no closer to adulthood than they were when they graduated college.

Don’t be like that. Don’t get stuck. Move, travel, take a class, take a risk. Walk away, try something new. There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming. Don’t lose yourself at happy hour, but don’t lose yourself on the corporate ladder either.

Stop every once in a while and go out to coffee or climb in bed with your journal. Ask yourself some good questions like, Am I proud of the life I’m living? What have I tried this month? What have I learned about God this year? What parts of my childhood faith am I leaving behind, and what parts am I choosing to keep with me for this leg of the journey? Do the people I’m spending time with give me life, or make me feel small? Is there any brokenness in my life that’s keeping me from moving forward?

These years will pass much more quickly than you think they will. You will go to lots of weddings, and my advice, of course, is to dance your pants off at every single one. I hope you go to very few funerals. You’ll watch TV and run on the treadmill and go on dates, some of them great and some of them terrible. Time will pass, and all of a sudden, things will begin to feel a little more serious. You won’t be old, of course. But you will want to have some things figured out, and the most important things only get figured out if you dive into them now.

For a while in my early twenties I felt like I woke up a different person every day, and was constantly confused about which one, if any, was the real me. I feel more and more like myself with each passing year, for better and for worse, and you’ll find that, too. Every year, you will trade a little of your perfect skin and your ability to look great without exercising for wisdom and peace and groundedness, and every year the trade will be worth it. I promise.

Now is your time. Become, believe, try. Walk closely with people you love, and with other people who believe that God is very good and life is a grand adventure. Don’t spend time with people who make you feel like less than you are. Don’t get stuck in the past, and don’t try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven’t yet earned. Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep traveling honestly along life’s path."

Thank you for reading... 

In HIS name,

Jessica