While you were sleeping . . .

At approximately 3:30 a.m. this morning, after thirteen days at sea, the Africa Mercy was securely docked in the port of Pointe Noire, Republic of Congo.  Crew will be using the next few weeks to set up and prepare for Screening Day on August 28.  To God be the glory!

God's Sense of Humour . . .

Yesterday afternoon the owners of Cole Cuts stopped by to give us an estimate on what it would cost to trim up some of our trees.  While I was talking to Mrs. Cole, she said, "I watched the most interesting program on TV the other night - all about a medical hospital ship."  Gee, really?  Perhaps on 60 Minutes Sunday night?  What a joy and privilege it was to share with her the mission, ministry and beauty of the ship.  The best part had to be they were looking for ministries to financially donate to and we could without reservation or hesitation so highly recommend Mercy Ships!  To God be the glory!

ONE MORE . . .

Zoe's mama and Mercy Ships nurse Ali Chandra posted this on her blog today.  It's just amazing.  I hope you take the time to read it.

Today is the last day we look back on countries we've already served before setting our sights ahead to Congo. Benin is all a bit hazy in my memory; I had just gotten married, the hospital was running at full capacity for the first time, and I was moving into a leadership position on the wards in the midst of one of the hardest field services I've been a part of here. It's no surprise I've allowed time to dull the sharp corners of some of those memories; they're a little too much to handle on a daily basis.

But I don't want to leave you with heartbreak at the end of this journey; there's been enough of that to last for several sails over. Today I want to tell you one of my favourite stories from the past five and a half years. I want to tell you about Wasti.



Wasti came to us from the far north of Benin where he lived with his mama, his sister and his papa's other wives and children. His sister had something wrong with her eyes, and when Wasti was born with a cleft lip, there just wasn't any money left over from paying the doctors for his sister to even dream of surgery. Wasti's mama was thrown out; a woman who made nothing but broken babies wasn't worth anything and certainly didn't deserve a place in the family.

The situation seemed hopeless.

But then Wasti's mama heard about a ship docked in the port in Cotonou, a ship that would operate on her baby for free, and she knew that she had to make the journey. She sold the only thing she had left, the cow her husband had given her when he added her to his collection of wives, and used the money to make the long journey south with her little boy on her back.

They arrived to the ship at the eleventh hour. We had already filled the surgery schedule and were starting to turn our eyes towards packing up and sailing away when Wasti and his mama showed up on the dock. Our initial reaction was to turn them away. It was too late. Wasti had a respiratory infection that meant he couldn't go under anesthesia. There was something not quite right about the shape of his face, and we suspected (and later confirmed) a neurological disorder that would make the surgery even more of a gamble. The reasons to say no added up enough to tip the scale, and we sent Wasti to a local hospital where he could be treated for his infection.

A week later, I heard that there was a baby on the dock and ran out into the hot night to find Wasti and his mama there, determination stamped across her face. She knew that it was her last chance, that the ship was going to be sailing soon, and she had brought him back in the wild hope that we'd say yes this time.

After much prayer and discussion, it was decided to go ahead with the surgery. We knew that, because of Wasti's brain abnormality, he wasn't going to lead a normal life, and we couldn't send them back to their village with a baby still so broken; maybe if we fixed his lip his mama would have a chance at being allowed back into the family.

Wasti's surgery was the very last one we did that field service, a short half hour in the operating room held out to his mama as a promise of better things to come. He recovered perfectly, watched over by his mama and everyone else that came through the ward.



And when it came time for them to leave, on the morning we sent the last patients home, Wasti's mama took with her more than just her baby. In a little pouch, tied around her neck and hidden under her dress, was money collected from all the nurses and doctors who had cared for Wasti, enough so that she would be able to buy a new cow when she arrived back home. Because it wasn't enough just to do the surgery and send her back to nothing; she had only the clothes on her back when she came to us and would have had no way to provide for herself and her children without the cow she'd sold before she made the journey.

Mercy Ships talks a lot about bringing hope and healing. For Wasti and his mama, it was hope, healing, and a new cow. I think about them often, and every time I remember them I'm reminded that we are not called to help every person in the world. We're simply called to be faithful to the ones God places in front of us. For Wasti and his mama, that meant one more late-night prayer meeting, one more difficult discussion about how to proceed, one more surgery in a field service that had already seen us do so many.

There will always be one more.

And that's why we can't stop, why we're sailing towards Congo right now, ready to drop anchor and welcome all the ones that God is already preparing for us in this upcoming field service.

GONE . . .

Did you see 60 Minutes last night?

We were gone!

I mean - they changed the ending!

And Matt and I were deleted!

Big time bummer.

(Although that Zoe-girl is rather cute!)

MERCY SHIPS HAS CROSSED THE LINE!

Thank you, Jay, last summer's rescue hero, for the top photo

And Shelly, last summer's boss, for the bottom photo!

FUN FACT!

Tomorrow evening the Africa Mercy will sail over the Equator at the very point where it intersects with the Prime Meridian.

In other words, the M/V Africa Mercy will pass through the coordinates (0.0°, 0.0°). If you are a geography major, a sailor, a pirate, have ever served in the Navy, or just know random facts about maritime stuff – you may already know that this is super cool. For this plottable accomplishment, crew will even get a nautical title: “Royal Diamond Shellback.” At a ceremony tomorrow night, everyone on board will receive certificates to prove it. 

 

For sailors who achieve this esteemed coordinatry, there is also a tradition of getting a tattoo of a sea turtle.  

What a year to miss the sail - although I don't mind missing the opportunity for a tattoo!

From Ali's Blog . . .

As you may know, many crew members, both former and current, are posting their thoughts on "#sailwithus".  I found this on Ali's blog (her husband Phil was two doors down from us last summer while Ali was home on maternity leave) and it's a must read.  Enjoy!

Thursday, August 1. 2013

#sailwithus - liberia

If Sierra Leone has a special place in my heart, then Liberia has the rest of it.

There's something about the beginning of an adventure that just doesn't let you go, no matter how much closer to the end you get. Liberia was my first taste of West Africa, the first time I drove through darkened streets and turned into a port to see the ship all lit up like a beacon in the night. I met my husband on the side of one of her red dirt roads and knew I'd marry him on one of her beaches under a sky full of stars. Even now, five years down the road, it feels like I can still conjure up every face that smiled up at me from a bed in A or B or D Ward that year.



Liberia's where I came face to face with the shocking realities of poverty and lack of access to healthcare, the place I learned that where you're born will often determine the manner in which you die. It was a country still riddled with bullet holes, populated with people who ducked under their covers when a balloon popped, and I fell in love with it the second my feet touched the ground.

I credit that first, impossible year with Mercy Ships for making me into the person I am today; something about coming face to face with mortality (both your own and others') often has that effect. And nothing that year was better or harder than Baby Greg.



Born to an unwed mother whose father had cursed her, saying that she would never hold a living child in her arms, Baby Greg was a long shot. He had a tumor on the side of his neck that was growing to cut off his airway, and none of us knew whether we'd be able to take it off. But with two siblings already in the ground and a mama filled with wild, quiet desperation, we knew we had to try.

When we removed the tumor, it was discovered that Baby Greg's airway hadn't formed properly; it was too weak to stay open when he breathed, and so we spent the next month doing everything in our power to support him while we looked into other options. (For his whole story, you can click on his name under Patient Stories in the sidebar.)

Baby Greg's story doesn't have the happy ending we were all hoping for. I'll never forget that day in July, sitting next to him on his bed, when he just slipped away into the arms of Jesus. After everything we'd done, all the extra shifts and ingenious breathing machines and tear-filled prayers, he died anyway, and sometimes I still can't believe it.

I remember lying on the floor of C Ward with Marion, his mama, weeping in my arms. I remember the way the room in his house looked, lit by a single candle, when we sat vigil with his family after we took him home through the dark, hot night. It made no sense to me; this wasn't why I came to Mercy Ships. Where were the smiling faces, freshly-repaired after successful surgeries? Where was the joy? Where was the healing?

I wrestled with those questions for months afterwards until, one day, Marion came to visit. I'd been working to raise money for her to continue her education, and she wanted to stop by and let me know how school was going. As she was leaving, almost as an afterthought, she dropped the bomb that shattered every last question I had asked in the wake of Greg's passing.

My father and I are talking again. I told him about what you people did for me, and he wants to say thank you. And he asked me to please forgive him for what he did to me.

It was then that I realized how much bigger the story is than the tiny part I can hold in my hands. We thought we were supposed to save Baby Greg; it turns out all we had to do was love him and love his mama. God took care of the rest, just like He always does, and a broken family was pieced back together again, one fragile step at a time.

Whenever things seem hopeless, and when the night threatens to last forever, I remember Baby Greg, and I know that the sun will rise again. God is at work, and He will never leave us stumbling in the dark; the morning just might not look exactly the way we expected it to.



(Photo of Baby Greg courtesy of Mercy Ships.)