Volunteer Nurse Connects With Long-Distance Dad Via Skype for Father’s Day

As part of our ongoing Father’s Day series celebrating the unbreakable bond between dads and their children, Your Daily Dish is featuring amazing stories that highlight that special relationship.

After Elizabeth Harter traveled to Africa — thousands of miles away from her home in Nashville, Tennessee — she knew that celebrating Father’s Day with her dad would be difficult.

On previous Father’s Days, Harter and her siblings would shower their dad, Jim Harter, with unconditional love.

“My siblings and I would make him breakfast and have all of our Father’s Day cards and gifts sitting there waiting and ready for him in the morning,” Harter wrote to Your Daily Dish. “Dad loves to grill, so often we would grill out in the afternoon. My family is very active so usually we would also go out for a hike if it was nice or just enjoy the outdoors together as a family.”

It was Harter’s parents who instilled a sense of altruism in her. She is currently providing high quality training to African healthcare providers on the largest civilian hospital ship in the world.

“I am a full-time volunteer nurse with a global charity called Mercy Ships and have been working with them in Africa since 2015,” she wrote to Your Daily Dish. “So far I’ve been to Madagascar, Benin and Cameroon with the charity.”

With Harter living in another continent, she uses Skype to stay in contact with her father. They use the platform at least every other week. Harter often shares stories with her dad about the health care that she is providing to patients.

“We recently operated on a beautiful little girl who had severely deformed legs,” Harter wrote to Your Daily Dish. “I told my father all about the free surgery we provided to allow her to be able to stand up straight for the first time and to be able to walk without help. He is a big supporter of me and always enjoys hearing the stories.”

Elizabeth Harter said that she became a nurse educator with Mercy Ships because her parents encouraged her.

“I wouldn’t be able to do it though without the love and support of my parents and being able to see their faces and hear their voices on Skype,” she wrote to Your Daily Dish.

On Father’s Day 2017, Harter scheduled a special face-to-face Skype video call with her dad.

“On Father’s Day I plan on using Skype to talk with my father,” she wrote to Your Daily Dish. “I want to remind him how special he is to me and how much I appreciate all that he has done for me in my life. From club soccer as a child to making big life decisions as an adult, my dad has always been my coach. I love and trust him with my life.”

Loved Ones Like Elizabeth Harter Use Skype.

Skype is becoming a staple for Father’s Day by helping long-distance loved ones speak to each other. In recent years, we’ve seen deployed dads in the military depend on Skype to connect with children for Father’s Day.

And as Elizabeth Harter proves, Skype can be used to stay in touch with loved ones during the entire year.

“My advice to other children who live far from home is to take advantage of Skype,” she wrote to Your Daily Dish. “Being able to see their faces and hear their voices makes being far from home a little more bearable and little less lonely.”

Special thanks to Help a Reporter Out.