Cedarville Stories Minisode: Changing Course Because of COVID
Rachel Hartley, a 2015 nursing alumna, and her husband, Taylor, have built their lives for God-ordained sailing as they hear His call.
Earlier in 2020, Rachel Hartley was serving as a preoperative nurse in Lynchburg, Virginia. By mid-April, she had become a night shift ICU nurse at Brooklyn Langone Hospital, caring for COVID patients.
Rachel, a 2015 alumna, and her husband, Taylor, have built their lives for such God-ordained pivots. Sailing into unknown waters, they have learned how to tack as the wind changes. With elective surgeries postponed to make room for sick COVID patients in Virginia, and Rachel’s hours greatly reduced, they began wondering if the Lord was calling them to serve somewhere else for a time.
So, because the need was greatest in NYC, this faithful and adventurous couple sailed their boat, Turning Points, 30 hours from the Chesapeake Bay to Brooklyn. Once there, Rachel was overwhelmed by COVID’s impact on the Big Apple. It had impacted young and old alike, and the tractor-trailers serving as makeshift morgues were a sobering reminder of the pandemic’s toll.
“It just gives me thankfulness to the Lord for my personal health,” she said, “for the ability to be here and to help out, and to use the skills and the training the Lord had equipped me with. It was like, ‘Wow, they need help.’ We hadn’t seen anything like this.”
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Located in southwest Ohio, Cedarville University is an accredited, Christ-centered, Baptist institution with an enrollment of 4,550 undergraduate, graduate, and online students in more than 150 areas of study. Founded in 1887, Cedarville is recognized nationally for its authentic Christian community, rigorous academic programs, including the Master of Science in Nursing - Family Nurse Practitioner program, strong graduation and retention rates, accredited professional and health science offerings, and high student engagement ranking. For more information about the University, visit www.cedarville.edu.