On Holiday . . .

Dr. Sherif Emil is a pediatric surgeon and Director of the Division of Pediatric General and Thoracic Surgery at the Montreal Children's Hospital. For 2 weeks, he was part of the volunteer crew of the Africa Mercy, currently docked in Tamatave, Madagascar. The Africa Mercy is the world's largest civilian hospital ship dedicated to bringing hope and healing to tens of thousands of the world's impoverished populations.  These are his brief stories that are definitely worth the read - if you don't have time, start with #5. 

Read more: 

Dispatches from the Africa Mercy # 1: The End of the Earth
Dispatches from the Africa Mercy # 2: Can it get any better?
Dispatches from the Africa Mercy #3: The Heroes of Africa
Dispatches from the Africa Mercy #4: The Power of Camaraderie
Dispatches from the Africa Mercy #5: It Takes a Mercy Ship

Dispatches from the Africa Mercy # 7: A Vision of Mercy (Final Dispatch)

Thankful Thursday!

Today I am most thankful for the son who scooped out the elderly neighbor's driveway four times as he was in the hospital, allowing his wife the opportunity to only worry about her husband.  And I am most thankful for the daughter who vacuumed the house, walked the dog, did the laundry and baked chocolate chip cookies all while I was at work today.  Wouldn't you be thankful, too? 

One less . . .

We were one student short this morning and I drew the short straw.  I got to call the house and find out why.  

The phone was answered by a woman who asked me if M.S. (missing student) had called me to tell me he was going to drop the class.  I said no because there was truly no way to call me; however, he could have called the Aquatics Department and I just hadn't received the message yet.  I thought that was the end of the phone call, but it wasn't! 

I found out that MS was living with his grandmother, whom I was talking to, and and not his grandfather because he had died two years ago.  He was an only child and used to being alone.  He was living with his grandmother because he had been abused by his birth mother (grandma's daughter-in-law) since birth.  Grandma's son, MS's dad, had died when MS was three.  Because of his abuse and the tragedies he'd endured, he has a sensory issue and all the touching we did in the pool yesterday had sent him over the edge.  He wasn't coming back.  

And that's all I wanted to know in the beginning.  Then I began to wonder - could we have done something more or different?  But the honest answer is "No".  Without any background information until after the fact, no we couldn't have.  It's hard, but sometimes life is just hard.

Eleven. Fourteen. Sixteen! Fifteen.

I'm back at Black Hawk this week teaching fourteen and fifteen year olds how to teach swimming.  Last Thursday, there were only eleven in the class.  At 8:30 this morning, we were up to fourteen.  By 8:45 a.m., it looked like sixteen students.  We started at 9:00 a.m. with fifteen - so we added a third teacher in the afternoons.  We definitely have the largest class going over there this week!  There are a few glitches and challenges - we determined Ashley's cold was worse than mine because her Kleenex box was bigger - but it should be a good week!

The Burden of Proof

I just finished reading a book about the Congo, "Congo Dawn", and I was amazed at the overwhelming corruption.  Then I read the blog "Through My Porthole" and realized my fiction book was real life today for these women. As a part of Mercy Ministries, Mercy Ships crew have the opportunity to visit the prisons on a weekly basis. 

 

The grim conditions I saw 42 women enduring in the local prison today touched me deeply, but I was really rocked by the stories the inmates told us.

 

The common thread for many prisoners here is being accused of a crime (like a theft), only to be incarcerated for months and months waiting for a trial. One woman had been waiting 8 months for a verdict, another has seen a year pass – a baby born – with no trial date in sight. The release date for yet another woman is in just a few days but she is terribly worried that she simply will not be allowed to leave. The husband of another was accused of kidnapping so his wife was imprisoned although she knew nothing. This but a glimpse of the injustices many are suffering.

The female section within the prison compound includes 4 ‘cells’, 10 women to a room. The look reminded me of something from an old western movie; walls formed from concrete blocks, a roof of rusty tin. Windows spaces  are secured with old-fashioned iron bars, and the interiors are dim and hot.

Several women were squatting in the cooking area; tending their meager, unvaried meal of cassava over naked flames.  Others pumped water from the sole spigot to wash themselves later – without privacy, or to scrub by hand the few items of clothing they own.

Their open space is small rocky, dirt courtyard with a washing line stretched across it. Someone had tended hardy plants along one side.  A scattering of Livingston Daisies in brilliant magenta brought a poignant splash of colour to their dismal world.

The stories these women told make their physical conditions fade into insignificance. Like all the prisoners in this nation’s system, the burden of proof lies with the defendant. These woman were imprisoned because they were accused of a crime, and it is up to them to prove themselves innocent. I don’t really know how they hope do that with no money or resources.

My friend Patti and other Mercy Ships women spend time encouraging these precious women every second Saturday (a male group also goes to the 1000-strong men’s section). We told stories, we sang together, we got them moving around with actions songs, we did crafts. And we shared that God knows each of us by name – and explained to the ladies how they could know Him too.

Hanging out with the women prisoners today was an earth-shattering experience for me. In the midst of my prayers for prisoners in so many nations suffering under the same conditions, I am truly thanking God for the impartial legal system in my own nation.

Justice is so easily taken for granted until you glimpse life without it!

Thankful Thursday!

On this very particular Thursday, I am thankful for Ana and Ashley who are taking my classes at the Y next Tuesday and Thursday respectively so I can go make almost twice as much money teaching eleven students in the Water Safety Aid Course at ISD 196 next week.  And next Thursday, I guarantee I will be thankful that I'm DONE teaching at ISD 196 until May.  Just saying . . .

Amerista

Today's post is somewhat similar to Saturday's, but with a different, equally blessing perspective.  It's been reblogged from "A Beautiful Wander" and I hope you'll read it.

Today our hearts are broken over the loss of a young patient.

The beautiful 5-year-old girl from Northern Madagascar passed away on board the Africa Mercy on Thursday 10 March, at 5.45pm. She died two days after a very unusual, rare and severe reaction to the surgical procedure in combination with general anaesthetic, during treatment to remove a complex tumour of her lower face and neck. Her mother had been at her bedside since their arrival to the Mercy Ship on 20 January and her senior uncle joined them Thursday evening.

Official formalities with the local authorities were completed Friday morning and the family and the body are flown back to their village in the afternoon to prepare for her funeral.

Our prayers and our love leave with them.

-Mercy Ships Press Release

There are times where God doesn’t make sense, where our life and beliefs collide and it just seems altogether unfair.

And that’s OK.

A five year old patient died this week from complications during her surgery. Its tragic, understandably difficult and terribly sad. Personally I didn’t have a connection to her other than she was one deck below me, but as a community we have a connection. She was a precious life that was fought for even before the complication, she was a patient our nurses looked after and gave stickers, smiles and hugs to. She was a beautiful person whom God loved dearly. And now she is no more. And that is always hard to understand. Especially when as a community we prayed and interceded and begged for her life. But God did not answer how we hoped.

And that is OK too.

I’ve given up trying to figure out how God could allow tragedies and evil. I will never understand or make sense of it, I will always see it as an injustice and unfair. I could go round in circles trying to make sense of it and justify God’s decision. But that is not my job, my job is to love God and love others. And if I really love him, and really believe he works all things together for good, than the logical manifestation is that I trust He knows what he is doing even when bad things happen… trust that in his infinite wisdom and knowledge He makes the perfect call.

But it doesn’t make it easy and I don’t think we should cover that up.

I have friends whose hearts are aching right now, friends who have come across the world to help people and have just lost one instead. How do we connect those dots?? Maybe we don’t.

And that, too, is OK.

Instead of demanding answers to the why questions, “why didn’t you heal her?” “why did you allow this?” “why didn’t you perform a miracle?”, perhaps we need to quietly ask the where question, “where were you God?”

We’re reading through Esther as a community, the one book in the Bible that never mentions the name of God yet God is everywhere in the story, He is active behind the scenes and works to bring about his will. In my own life there have been seasons where God seems absent but in reality he is active and working to bring about his will. Just because he’s quiet doesn’t mean he’s any less good. I have learned to ask where instead of why.

A friend shared that this little girl had fought already to live after a few complicated surgeries, that this wasn’t the first time she’s had a complication while in surgery. And while this knowledge doesn’t make it easier, it does paint a bigger picture as I ask God where he was in all of this.

I see that He loved this child enough to bring her to a place where she would pass into his arms with dignity. Had she passed away in a local hospital I can only imagine the lack of care and reverence her life and body would have been shown, perhaps no one would have comforted the grieving family, and with little fanfare or intention she would have become just a number on a piece of paper somewhere, another empty statistic.

But here she was more. She was Amerista and she was loved well.

Medical staff fought valiantly for her life in the OR, hospital leadership discussed and reviewed her case with hearts and eyes that desire the best and value life, nurses provided world class care and kept her alive until the last moment, and chaplains came alongside the family and entered into their grief and pain with love and compassion, and an entire crew of housekeepers, cooks, deck hands, and more set aside whatever we were doing to pray for her precious life as it hung in the balance and then to pray for her family.

Moreover, after her passing, a carpenter crafted a coffin with compassion, and not just a haphazard box but a proper and beautiful coffin with smooth corners and sanded sides. Women quietly covered cushioning to line the inside of the coffin and sent down a beautiful dress so this little girl could rest in peace as a honored life. When the time came for the family to leave the ship, the hallways were cleared and path blocked from general crew, the family was escorted by people who entered into their pain as they walked.

As I said, I will never understand or be able to explain the why, but I will accept the where… God didn’t show up how we hoped but he showed up nonetheless, he showed up in how this family experienced respect, dignity and love in what is probably one of the hardest things they will ever endure.

And its still OK to be upset, to be disappointed, or confused, or frustrated,or angry, sad, doubtful, numb… its all OK because that is the reality of living in a broken world. Its not easy and its not fair and its certainly not comfortable… but its OK to be uncomfortable, God will meet us there and sit in that space with us. And that is beautifully OK.

Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. 

-Anne Lamott