Presentation by Anna Rickrode

Good morning everyone! It’s so lovely to see you all! I’m grateful for the opportunity to share about the work of Nurses Heart to Heart—it’s the international nursing education nonprofit that I work for and that my Mom founded—but first, I want to talk a little about today’s Gospel reading.

I was surprised to see it because when I was thinking about what to share about Nurses Heart to Heart, this passage is what came to mind. So it feels like a special something from the Holy Spirit that it is our text for today. So, here we go:

May the words of my mouth and meditations of our hearts and minds be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our salvation.

So our Gospel reading says:

21:9 “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.”

Jesus was likely speaking in large part about the Roman siege of Jerusalem that would take place in AD 60-70, about 30 years into the future for the original hearers. And I can easily imagine that for them, this was all deeply unsettling. Anxiety producing. It’s how Jesus’ words affect me. And like I said, Jesus was speaking about events to come in AD 70, not AD 2025… But we also live in a time of wars and rumors of wars. Natural and manmade disasters. This is one of the beauties of God’s word: we can see ourselves and our times in the text, too. What Jesus said to his disciples the “first time” is still being said to us this millionth time.

Jesus says, “do not be terrified”. Matthew’s account of this same conversation is much more detailed than Luke’s, so I’m going to jump us over there.

In Matthew 24, we get the carbon copy of today’s Gospel reading: “6And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: 8 all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”

And then Jesus shifts over to what feel like instructions, and some instructive warnings and parables:

In Matthew’s account, Jesus tells six parables and then gives a concluding speech. These are not separate, one-off stories. All of these are told collectively in response to what Jesus said to begin with: “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but do not be terrified…”

The last parable of the six is called “The Parable of the Talents” and many of us will be familiar with it. I want you to hear it in light of today’s gospel reading and the fears it evokes:

In the parable, a wealthy man is planning to go on a journey, and before he leaves, he entrusts his wealth to three of his servants: to each one according to their abilities. To one servant, he gives five talents, to another two, to another one. Then he leaves. (A “talent” is a measure of currency—literally, a weight of precious metals.)

As the story goes, “16The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. 17 In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. 18 But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.”

When the wealthy man returns, he settles accounts with his servants. To the servants who doubled their talents, he says “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.”

When it was his turn, the servant who buried his one talent in the ground said, 24 “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.”

26 But his master replied, “You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. 29 For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 30 As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Now, a quick word on how this passage ends: it’s harsh. But harsh to prove a point. You might call it a word of warning. The nature of a warning is that it comes in time to choose your actions and your responses in light of what you’ve heard. Jesus uses really similar phrasing elsewhere; “to those who have, more will be given; but to those who lack, even what they have will be taken away.” He uses this phrase to end several of his parables. It happens in the story of this parable, but it’s also about the parables themselves.

The nature of a parable is that you have to choose to ask questions if you’re going to understand and, again, you also must choose your response. Warnings and Parables both ask the listener to make a choice and take an action: inaction in both cases leads to loss.

To those who hear a parable and choose to ask questions, more understanding will be given. But to those who hear a parable and just go “meh” and move on, they won’t come to understand and even the memory of the story will fade away. Inaction leads to loss. For the servant in the story and for us the hearers.

Jesus’ words at the end of this parable are an invitation, a loving warning, to engage with God about these cryptic stories he likes to tell.

Okay. So what does any of this have to do with international nursing education? As I have been engaging with this parable, one of the conclusions I’ve come to is that, in the face of fear and pain and loss and uncertainty—“wars and rumors of wars”—God’s invitation to us is to keep doing the good things we know to do. We don’t let fear lead us to hoarding and inaction. We use what we have and we do good with it. Take your one or two or five “talents” and put them to work!

That is exactly what Nurses Heart to Heart does. And it’s how we were founded! Back in 2007, I was heading off to college and my parents were becoming empty-nesters. As a lot of you know, that transition can be difficult. And so my Mom started to look for something that would help—something she could do with all the time I freed up by leaving J My mom is a nurse and so she began volunteering on short medical mission trips, specifically as a nurse-transporter for children with congenital heart defects who were coming to US for life-saving heart surgeries. She went to Kosovo, Honduras, Uganda, and Mongolia. It was basically a weekend at a time: Mom took her “talents” as a cardiology nurse and as a brave, experienced traveler, and helped families in need. And she loved it!

About a year later, in 2008, an opportunity came up for her to go to Mongolia for two weeks: this time to do congenital heart defect surgical repairs and cardiac catheterization procedures in-country with a full medical team. Her job was to work alongside Mongolian nurses and teach them how to care for these patients through their recovery. While she was with the Mongolian nurses, one of them asked through the translator if Mom could teach her and her colleagues how to “pump the chest.”

It took Mom a second, but she realized the nurse meant CPR—the life-saving intervention that is the backbone of first-aid and emergency care. And nurses in Mongolia didn’t have this skill. They had received a lecture on CPR, but no hands-on training or practice for what is a very mentally and physically demanding intervention. Mom was shocked, but she knew she could help. She had already taught hundreds of nurses how to perform CPR as an instructor at her own hospital for years. And she knew she could figure out a way to get back to Mongolia and teach more nurses. This was another “talent” she could put to work in the world.

And that is how Nurses Heart to Heart began. It took a couple of years to figure out the logistics with the hospital and nursing leaders in Mongolia and to start the nonprofit and raise the funds to buy the CPR manikins and make the trip, but in 2011, the first official Nurses Heart to Heart trip took place: we taught CPR at Third Hospital in Ulaan Baatar, the capital city. Mom trained me in CPR and took me along as her “teaching assistant,” which was incredible!

This was the start of an 11-year mission to teach CPR in every province in Mongolia. And over the last fifteen years, the mission has grown and expanded. Now, the work of NHTH is mostly centered on the Kurdistan Region of Northern Iraq and we teach more than CPR. We go teach nurses where they are: in hospitals, nursing schools, refugee camps, and at conferences.

And Nurses Heart to Heart provides medications, medical supplies, training equipment, educational funds, and other needed resources to nurses, midwives, nursing schools, health clinics, and hospitals in the regions where we serve.

To date, Nurses Heart to Heart staff and volunteers have trained nurses and served patients on 13 trips to Mongolia, 7 trips to the Kurdistan region of Iraq, 1 trip to Tanzania, and 1 trip to Uganda. In 2026, we are planning return trips to Tanzania and Uganda, and at least one trip to Iraq, which will be in January.

From that first trip to Mongolia to now, every time NHTH teaches, we leave our training materials behind with local nurses and healthcare leaders so that they can train others. Multiple nursing schools and hospitals have received their first (sometime only) CPR practice manikins from Nurses Heart to Heart.

Mom was inducted just a few weeks ago as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and at her induction ceremony, this quote from a former president of the Academy was shared: “The essence of nursing is human care.” That first Mongolian nurse knew she was missing a vital skill that would help her care for her patients. And she asked another nurse for help. And that nurse, Mom, cared about her colleague on the other side of the world and said yes—and has kept saying yes.

Those yeses are complicated. The needs are mammoth—there is absolutely more to do than can be done. For example, our work in Iraq involves supporting an internally displaced persons camp for survivors of the Yazidi genocide that took place in 2014. These people have survived hell—and are still going through it in many ways. Our partners at the camp’s health clinic told us recently that there has been an alarming uptick in cancers in the camp, likely due to heavy metal ground contaminants from the war and extremely poor air quality from oil and gas operations, as well as the fuels families have to burn for cooking and heating. There is no access to chemotherapy medications or other oncology resources. Nurses Heart to Heart is working to source chemo medications, but right now, we can’t get them. We’re working with the Kurdish Ministry of Health to see what we can do and we’re going through our rolodexes to see who else we can call on for help.

There aren’t enough “talents” in the world to fix this. But we’re taking the “talents” we do have and we’re putting them to work. We’re trusting God that, in the face of this uncertainty and fear, we can take what we do have, what we have been entrusted with, and do the good that we can.

And there is a great deal of hope—there is a great deal of good work that can be done. And we can do it.

If this mission of supporting nurses in the developing world resonates with you, you can join us in doing this good. You can give, you can share, you can pray, and you can serve!

So for giving: Like everything, the work we do requires money: from transportation expenses and CPR manikins to paying our accountant and keeping our website up and running. So if you would like to invest in the vital work of supporting nurses, you can become a donor.

The thing I love about giving to Nurses Heart to Heart is the exponential impact our work has. To give a concrete example, on our last trip to Uganda, NHTH trained 145 nurses, doctors, and midwives in hypertension (that’s high blood pressure), diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, as well as hands-on CPR and choking recovery training. Over the course of one month, those 145 healthcare providers will see over 43,500 patients! That’s if each of them worked five days a week and saw 15 patients a day. In reality, they will likely work a lot more than that. 43,500 patients! When you invest in a nurse, the return on that investment is astronomical.

So you can give. And you can Share: If you know someone who you think would be interested in the work of Nurses Heart to Heart—maybe they care about a country where we serve, or they are a nurse or love a nurse, or they just care about people—you can tell them about NHTH and help connect them with our work. Or you could invite us to share about our work at another club or organization you’re a part of!

You can Pray: You can pray for nurses—here at home and around the world. Pray for their own health and wellbeing, for their families, for their patients. Pray for God to provide the resources they need, pray for the peace and security of their countries, and for wisdom for health policy makers in their countries. And pray for NHTH—pray for my Mom. It’s heavy to know the magnitude of needs and to have to discern what we as an organization can say yes to and what we have to say no to for now.

You can Serve: You might want to serve! If you are or were a nurse or midwife or other healthcare professional, you could travel with NHTH and teach! Or you might want to host a fundraiser for Nurses Heart to Heart or, again, invite us to share about our work with another group you’re a part of.

And if you want to stay up to date with our work, you can sign up for our emails—that’s what I do for us

I want to close by thanking you all—thank you for asking me to share about Nurses Heart to Heart. I feel so grateful to be a part of it. And I’m grateful that God is at work in the world and has given each of us talents. May He give each of us wisdom and courage to use them. Amen.

Anna Rickrode

Nurses Heart to Heart

16 November 2025