________ in Translation

I think had I written this, I may have entitled it "Lost in Translation".  This was written by Catherine Murphy, one of the ship writers and she aptly titled it "Found in Translation."

The tumor on Grace’s face had been growing for nine years. It was shocking. On Tuesday, September 10, she had surgery in the operating theater that is down the hall from me as I write this.

Grace is a spunky 17-year-old. From the beginning, she said she was willing to share her story about coming to Mercy Ships. We interviewed Grace and her family and later a short feature about her was posted on Mercy Ships Facebook page. The response was overwhelming, there has since been a great interest in Grace’s progress. Pretty cool.

When I went to visit Grace in the hospital the night after her surgery, I could tell she was hurting. It was late and my translator was long gone. Help? Who here speaks Lingala? A nice man named Chadley came over.

“Grace had her photo taken the other day, does she remember?” I ask.
I hear my words slip into the local language. Grace nods from behind a lot of bandages and gauze. Her lips are chapped.

“Well, Mercy Ships put up the photo on Facebook and I want her to know that there are lots of people all over the world – thousands – who know about her and are hoping that she gets well soon.”

As Chadley relays this, Christine, Grace’s mother, nods and smiles. She looks as if that magnitude of support is not unexpected. She says something to Chadley.

“Yes, they know. Those people came before the surgery to see Grace,” he says to me. Grace has closed her eyes, resting.

“Well, no, I’m talking about tens of thousands of people in Switzerland, all over Europe, Canada, the States, Australia – everywhere. There were thousands of people who saw Grace’s photograph on the Internet. They are all thinking about Grace and hoping she recovers. They are praying for her.”
Chadley and Christine speak for a few minutes.

“She knows about them,” Chadley says again. “She already knows those people. She is very thankful…”

Hmm ok. It seems that my message isn’t getting through, I think. Were some zeros lost in translation? Does Christine know about the audience of more than 80,000 that has overwhelmed Mercy Ships Facebook page with support for Grace in thousands of likes and comments? I look at Grace, she’s fallen asleep, so I decide to let it rest. I’ll try to explain again tomorrow, maybe I can print out the post.

Perhaps sensing my disbelief, Christine says something to Chadley.

“…She says she knows about them because those people came to Grace’s bedside. She saw people come and sometimes they would sit. Some people would put a hand on Grace to comfort her. There were many.”

Christine was smiling. I saw how touched she was and suddenly it didn’t matter that we were talking about two different groups of people. I thanked Chadley and said goodnight.

The people Christine was referring to were some of the 390 volunteers from 40 different countries that live and work here. They had sat in my very spot. They had come here to love Grace, to comfort her, to reach out and touch her. I’ve long admired these nurses, doctors, engineers, and crew-members who keep this place afloat. In fact, I’ve suspected for a while that they are pretty amazing.

So it was fitting then, that in a bedside conversation in Africa, their kindness was mistaken for that of 80,000.

It was the best thing I’ve ever found in translation.

Really?

Sometimes I just wonder, "Really?"  Like today.  I taught two CPR-PR classes, one oxygen and one first aid class at the Y.  Multiple people were signed up for the afternoon CPR, oxygen and first aid courses which meant they had each received three links for the blended learning.  I asked the first girl in the room after lunch to give me her completion sheets and she gave me one - not three.  I asked her if she did all three classes on-line and she said we had sent her too many e-mails, so she only did one.  Really?

You can bet your bottom dollar that she only did one class, too!  Matt may be getting a job at the Y sooner than he thinks! (:

 

Two Years and One Month . . .

 Now you seem them . . .

Now you don't!

Micah's braces came off last Wednesday, 

two years and one month after she got them.

Tomorrow, we pick up the retainers!

If not us . . .

Do you know what I love most about this picture?

The boat in the very front

which reminds us all . . .

GOD IS ABLE.

An Update from Deb . . .

Would you like to meet my friend, Deb Louden, from Australia?  She's in the top photo on the right (as you look at it).  And here's her update from the past week.  Blessings to you . . .

Abundantly Thankful

Emmanoel was admitted not a moment too soon. His airway was being blocked off by an oral tumour which caused him more and more distress every passing day. When we saw the tension in his body, distress in his deep, brown eyes and the horrible screeching noise from his throat when he gasped for air, we knew that soon his body would not be able to cope with such a huge amount of stress and he would die.

 

I wrote about him two weeks ago and how he was able to get life-bringing surgery and how he needed to go back to the OR and be put on the ventilator so that his poor little body could rest for a couple of days.

Moments before going back to the OR for ventilation

I wasn’t there when he was extubated but I was thinking about him. I wasn’t working that day but I couldn’t help myself but swing by the ward in the evening to peek at him. When I peeked from the window in the hallway, he was tucked in bed, snuggled next to his mama, who was also fast asleep. He was a new boy from the one who had previously sat in that bed, unable to lie down for the struggle to breathe. His body was completely relaxed and as I watched him breathe, I felt myself sigh and the tension drain away. He was sleeping as any little boy his age should.

Several days later I walked into work in the afternoon and looked around the ward. The usual business was a flurry of nurses handing out 1400hr medications before the new shift arrived. The activity distracted me for a moment and then I realised. Our little boy, Emmanoel, was gone and someone else was in his bed. My team leader told me he'd be discharged home that morning. He'd gone, just like that. He and his mama had been given discharge teaching, collected the appropriate medicines and then been walked out with a translator and caught the shuttle out of the port and then probably a taxi or bus home. There'd been no goodbye ceremony, no trumpets announcing that this precious little boy was now leaving the hospital a completely different boy. He was now loved on by scores of nurses and hospital staff, he'd been cuddled and played with and cherished and will now live a healthy, full life. I can just imagine him as he left the ward, his soft little hand, grasping his mama's as he walked by her side, something he was unable to do when he was gasping so desperately for air. We and you, prayed for him with all our might. God heard our prayers and we danced with joy.  Every time I looked at him I felt abundantly thankful for a God of mercy.

So it was strange that I could walk into the ward and find him gone. But that's how it goes. Each patient who walks into this hospital has their own precious story. Some need more urgent prayers than others, but each need our love in their own special way. So thank you for loving him by praying for him.

 

And a huge thank you for the outpouring of love and prayer for Baby Girl and her family. I felt so abundantly covered in love and prayer by each of you. The outpouring was truly remarkable.

To God Be the Glory . . .

John Wall is the new Finance Director on the Africa Mercy, new being the operative word.  You see, the "old" Finance Director was Mike Jacobson who arrived on board in Cotonou, Benin in 2009 and moved into our cabin with his wife and two children when we returned home that summer.  The Jacobsons left the ship the day before we left it in Tenerife last summer and their son Josh was a good friend of Matt's.  Hence, why John is "new".  Enjoy his post. 

15 minutes

I think I may be the last one on the ship to write something about our patient screening day here in Congo. It’s just taken this long for me to process it all. This screening day was something very special for me again. I remember the feeling last year when I got home. It was early in our time with Mercy Ships and I got to really see what it was like to see so many people come together for a common purpose. It was a fabulous display of unity and I held to that day when things were tough last year. So coming in to this year’s, I was really looking forward to being a part again.

Patients waiting in line to be seen.

I realized very early on though that this year was different. Not because there was not the same sense of unity, but just my role in that was different. And with that role would come very different emotions. Last year, the people I helped to move around the screening site had all been told “yes” so far. I did not deal with a single person that had been told that we could not help them. This year though, my post would be to escort people towards the exit after they had been told that we could not help them. At 6:30 am, I met my first person who had been told no. He was having troubling walking.  A lump caught in my throat and then I began to understand what so many others talked about last year but I did not experience. We can’t help everyone and I was beginning to meet those we could not help. I tried to prepare for a long difficult day.

Our screening site was at a large school. The walk for these patients from where they came into contact with me was a long and hard one, up a little hill and through fairly deep sand. Mostly, we would walk with them and guide them toward the exit. The word “sortie” (exit in French) will never have the same meaning for me after that day. For some the walk was long enough that we would take a chair with us so that they could take rests along the way. There were some children that I carried. After such a long day of waiting, they were exhausted and their mamas were exhausted. They needed a break and I was glad I could provide that for them.  As I carried them, I would say a blessing over them, the same blessing I give my girls when Trace and I put them to sleep. I just didn't know what else to do for them. 

There was one girl who had cerebral palsy (I think) that I will never forget. As I carried her, she would seize up and at one point I thought she had stopped breathing.  Then she caught her breath and was coughing. I thought she was dying in my arms and it was breaking me. I brought her to the prayer station, gave her back to her mama and said a blessing over her that brought tears to my eyes. After that I had to take a break. I was emotionally drained. I was hurting and wondering what all of this meant. Why do people have to suffer like that? How does her mama cope? What if that had been Adalynn or Cora? I just needed to sit down and work through that before going back out.

Later in the day, a friend told me about this photo that she had seen of me that had moved her emotionally. I had seen photos taken of me carrying some of the children, even having the local Congolese television cameras come out of nowhere as I carried someone. All the cameras made me a little uncomfortable. One reason I am an accountant is that it is a job that doesn't get much attention and that is just fine with me, but I had no idea what kind of attention was coming. My so called 15 minutes were here.

The next morning, I checked my email and saw that someone had posted this photo of me on Facebook. It was the girl, my one. He wrote some very kind words about me with the post. Then as the day went on, lots of people here asked me about the photo. Lots of people back home re-posted it.  Then I had a call with my colleagues in Texas and they had seen it. I was growing uncomfortable with the attention, I tried to tell people what I was feeling when I was with her and it was just weird talking about it. Then someone came to let me know that Dana Perino had posted it on twitter as her favorite photo of the day. Dana Perino is part of a really popular program on Fox News and was a member of the cabinet of President Bush. She had joined us for the week and been sharing with her audience the happenings of the week. (At the screening, I was introduced to her with the line “I know he looks like he came straight out of the bush, but he is actually the finance director.”) After Dana posting it, the photo was everywhere.  Later that night, the photo showed up on her TV show. As the next week went on, the photo was in a bunch of Mercy Ships blogs. A different screening photo of me holding a little boy on my back was posted on the anniversary of Mother Theresa's death on the Mercy Ships site. To top it off, Dana Perino mentioned me by name on her show. I think my 15 minutes ended there.

I have had a lot of thoughts about that picture since all of that has gone on.

I thought about the attention itself. I just happened to be the one who had been asked to do that particular job. She needed to be carried. I just happened to be in line of the camera after walking with her a few minutes. Anyone else there would have carried her. In fact, that little girl had been carried to me by someone else. I spent the day with a sixty something nurse that made that same walk from 6:30 am until 8 pm with just a 15 minute break all day. She never stopped smiling all day. She was amazing but no attention. That whole screening took 300+ people to pull off. Yet, I felt like I was getting all of the attention. Why me?

I thought about how inspiration comes from a moment. There were thousands of moments that day, but mine was captured. I have not been comfortable with the attention, but many people were thankful for the picture and the story it told. I certainly have looked at photos like that and I am glad this photo inspired others. I hope the attention of that photo means more people care about the person in front of them whether or not the camera is around.

I thought about my family. It’s been an emotional time being here without Tracey, Adalynn and Cora and some people mentioned that maybe that moment with that little girl was why I was here without my family. Interacting with all those people we could not help was a hard day to do on my own.  I missed Tracey greatly at the end of the day. I missed holding my girls after the experiences of carrying that little girl and the other children.

I thought mostly about the girl. I thought about her face, her hair, her bony little body that could not support itself. I wish I knew more of her story. I wish I would not have needed to carry her. I wish her mama didn't have to carry her because of her condition and their lack of means to care for someone with that condition. Mostly, I wish I would have learned her name so she could have shared that attention. I was so struck by her condition and struggles that I didn't ask her mama her name.

I know that my Father knows her name. He knows her story and He knows her suffering. He knows the number of hairs on her head. I pray that He will bring peace and healing to that family. And I pray for the day when there is no more suffering and no more tears. The day when there are no more NOs.

UNEXPECTED PHONE CALL . . .

I received a phone call from our eye doctor's office yesterday - from Michelle, who is in the process of filling out her Mercy Ships application.  She wanted to ask me a couple of quick questions and to see if we could get together to talk about the good ship!  To God be the glory!  Send more!