Faces

Here are only a small fraction of faces that have been imprinted on my heart over the past 7 months.

Psalm 146

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,

whose hope is in the Lord his God,

The Maker of heaven and earth

the sea and everything in them

The Lord, who remains faithful forever.

He upholds the cause of the oppressed

and gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free

the Lord gieves sight to the blind

The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down

The Lord loves the righteous.

The Lord watches over the alien

and sustains the fatherless and the widow,

but He frustrates the ways of the wicked.

The Lord reigns forever,

your God, O Zion, for all generations.

Well, we're down to 3 patients which means most of the nurses are being turned into the "Mercy Ship's Moving Company." We've all had our share of scrubbing, moving, stacking, and more cleaning. It's quite depressing to walk down the ward hall and not see patients milling about. Things are too quiet at times. I haven't let the sadness set in yet because if I think about it too much tears threaten to come; it seems like they have been too close to the surface as of late.

The End Drawing Near

The end of the outreach in Liberia is drawing to a close. You can tell this most by the amount of people leaving to go back home. I've had to say goodbye to more friends this week than any other. Friends that have been here since I've arrived have gone and I feel slightly disoriented; like at any moment I will pass them in the hall or they will be there on the ward as I go to work. I've met many lovely people during my time here and I think that is one of the highlights here. You meet people with a similar desire or pull to serve those who need it and there seems to be an instant kinship. But one of the things that I don't think I would ever get used to is the constant turn over. I'm used to the mission trips where you arrive at the destination as a group, you go through the phases (honeymoon phase, homesickness, hostility, etc) as a group, and then you leave as a group. But here you arrive on your own and leave before the others do. That's the main reason I decided to extend my stay until the end of the outreach. I feel there's more of a closure. I get to be involved in the cleaning and the start of the packing up the ship. I get to see the patients through to the end.

Anyway, needless to say, there are many "going away parties" happening on the ship. The most recent one was a night of pizza and a movie. The common past time here on the ship. It was fun to order pizza, sit in the lecture room in our socks and blankets, and watch a DVD on the projector.

Sacrifice

One of my favorite patients and her mom is back on the ship. I had a long talk with Lovetee this afternoon and she shared some of her story with me. She lives about 6 hours north of Monrovia in Ganta with her only daughter who is around 3 years old. Her daughter had contracted Malaria; which is a very common occurrence but had to be treated. She took her daughter to the clinic to receive treatment. The daughter needed IV fluids, which she received, but the IV ended up shifting and the fluid infused into the surrounding tissue. Oh, and the IV was in her scalp; she must have been so dehydrated that it was hard to find a vein anywhere else. For some reason, the tissue became necrotic and a large ulcer developed, exposing the bone.
She had to seek special medical care and was recommended to come and find that in Monrovia. How was a single mom supposed to carry her toddler to a town 6 hours from her home when she doesn't have a car? She said she had to beg and finally was able to gather enough money and food to make the journey. They arrived at the hospital in town and luckily her brother lived nearby and she was able to stay with him.
The daughter stayed at this hospital for months to receive dressing changes in hopes the skin will begin to heal and cover the gaping wound on her head. At this point, Lovetee says "Uh, Jodi. How much we suffered." But she then heard of Mercy Ships and made her way here. She then says, "I remember I had tears running down my face. I was so desperate for my girl to get help." I happened to be her nurse before her surgery and was able to walk them both down the hall to pre-op and pray with them. "I still have the picture you made of us together. You were my first white friend."
The daughter's skin graft is healing well, although they had to return to keep getting daily dressing changes, there's only a small area that is not completely dry yet.
She gives God the glory and is thankful for His perfect timing. If she would have waited she may have missed the ship altogether. To me she is a picture, among many, of a mother working hard and giving all she had to save her daughter.

Visiting with friends

Last Thursday 2 nurse friends and I visited one of our former patients. Joanna has a way of telling her story; and although what happened was harmful, she turns it into praising God. She had fallen onto her cook fire that was in the dark, communal hallway outside of her family's one room apartment. She received burns to almost the entire right side of her body, contracting her hand in the flexed position, unable to use it. She had come to mercy ships last year to receive surgery to release that scar and also to graft the ulcers on her right leg. After around three failed skin grafts it was decided that she had poor circulation in her legs. But as she tells this story, every other sentence is giving praise to God for bring her through this. She tells of how at one point she had struggled with Him, asking Him "why" after the skin grafts failed. But she talks of how Job never cursed God but kept believing Him and he was blessed by Him in receiving double of what he lost. She's believing that too. Today all of her wounds are healed except for a quarter sized area on her ankle, which is almost healed. She's a beautiful woman.
We had a lovely time with her and her family. She had cooked the traditional Liberian meal of "foo-foo" with "slippery soup." Foo-foo in one bowl and the soup in the other. We all sat down around the small table, washed our hands, and everyone dug in! Grabbing a pinch of the foo-foo and dipping it into the soup. Don't chew, just gulp it down! The foo-foo is a root that is grown here (called cassava); it's ground-up and boiled. It has this sticky no taste quality to it, kinda reminds me of very thick mashed potatoes (the instant kind). The soup is the cassava leaves chopped into small bits with oil, pepper (she didn't put too much;), and fish with the fish eggs still intact.
We had a great time!

We then met up with one of our translators, Emmanuel, as we were driving down the narrow dirt road through the small village. He works as a registered nurse at this private clinic when he's not going to class or working on the Ship. He took time to show us around the clinic that currently has an Egyptian doctor, a couple of physician assistants and some nurses. It's always a busy day here. They have a range of services; emergency, vaccinations, labor/delivery, IV treatment, administering medication, and small surgeries on the weekends. Like every place here, the patient needs to first buy the medication/supplies before being seen and treated.

It's good to know that there are places like this that are scattered around the area.

In all, a good day! I love getting off the ship and spending time with Liberian friends. And it just happened to be Liberia's Thanksgiving Day. What better way to celebrate.

Victorious Faith Children's Refugee Home

You might have remembered me mention this place and these children in previous blogs but I love them and want to talk more about them.
I’ve been going pretty regularly with Ines, who works in Mercy Ministries. And in retro-spec I’m so thankful for that. Going once to play with the kids is fun but as you keep visiting you’re able to remember their names and start seeing their personality and recognizing their different gifts. You’re able to recognize who are the leaders, who are the more sensitive, who are the singers and artists, etc.
Anyway, I think these kids are really special. They absolutely love to do skits, sing and dance. We had “children’s service” one Sunday a few weeks ago and a group of them came to the ship. They came to the front and sang and dance in front of everyone and did so well. I was so proud of them! And today when we went for our weekly visit, we sang as a group while Ousman (one of the older boys) played the drum like usual and then a few of the older boys did a dance. And the joy on they’re faces was contagious, they were obviously having so much fun.
It’s a common practice when we go that if someone, who has been going regularly, is leaving for home the kids will gather around this person and sing a departing song and pray for them. Well, today was such a day. After they sang their song all 30 little voices rose high in prayer, asking the Lord to bless and protect this person. Ousman would say something like “Lets pray that God will fill her with His Spirit and bless her for coming here and showing us love when we have nothing to give to her” and then they would all collectively pray their individual prayers out loud. This always brings tears to my eyes and I don’t really know how I will get through it when my turn comes up. Little do they know how much they really do give to us.

30 years old

Happy 30th Birthday, Mercy Ships!
It was the typical birthday party yesterday to celebrate Mercy Ship’s 30 years of ministry. Games, rely races, BBQ and picnic, and worship with a presentation commemorating the past 30 years. Ok, maybe it’s not a typical birthday party when you have 400 people running around the ship and dock scurrying to get to the finish line first. But we did have chocolate cake at the end of the day.Our patients even joined in the festivities by playing “pin the tail on the donkey” Everyone had fun.
It was encouraging and inspiring to hear of God’s faithfulness. How He took Mercy Ships from being a very small ship with 85 crew and doing mainly eye surgeries and simple procedures to being this huge ship of 400 crew and doing around 7,000 surgeries per year, very complicated and life changing surgeries I might add. Amazing. God is so good and faithful. I’m in awe.

Just taking a walk on the beach

A group of us had gone out to dinner one evening to say "goodbye" to one of our nurses who was returning home the next day. We had gone to one of the restaurants situated on the beach and was having a fun time playing around, taking pictures, and buying beaded necklaces from one of the local citizens when we spotted a young guy strolling the beach alone with one crutch. Ummm...I wonder if we know this person...it turned out to be none other than one of our favorite former patients, Gaye! I'm still joyfully surprised when I'm out in town and come across one of our patients...and it's always a joy to greet them and see them doing well!

Anyway, Gaye is a young man of 17 who had spent quite a lot of time on the ship waiting for his broken leg and ulcer on his foot to heal. During that time we were able to get to know somethings about him. Like how smart he is...he was reading Shakespeare and having no difficulty understanding the Old English...and how he is trying to finish high school so that he can go on to college to become a Lawyer....and once when he came back to the ship for a dressing change, he stopped by the ward to give scripture verses he had written out on colored paper to all of the patients to encourage them.

It was a great time to catch up with him...to see that yes, he is still walking with some aid of a crutch (it's hard enough for anyone to walk on sand)but that his ulcer is completely healed...and when asked what he was doing here on the beach he replied casually "I'm just taking a walk on the beach."

Below is some of Gaye's story that our Communication Dept. wrote.

****

Gaye Waylee was just a 4-year old boy in 1996 when he and his pregnant mother escaped Monrovia during the long-term Liberian civil war. The fighting became too dangerous to stay put. Gaye's father, at the time, was a soldier who was killed in the fighting. His older brother and sister were sent to another village while he and his mother escaped to the town of Ganta in the province of Nimba.

'It was a very difficult time,' he explained. It would take 9 years for Gaye to finally see his siblings again.

Once reunited, his brother bore the responsibility of taking care of the family. He guided Gaye through school so that they could share in caring for their mother and sisters.

So it was a tragic day one year ago, when a teenage Gaye at age 14 was in a horrible road traffic accident. The motorcycle he was riding became trapped under a truck as he tried to manoeuvre around on a bridge. His left, upper leg was broken and buckled in on itself. His leg became 4 inches shorter.

Gaye was in a bad physical state and forced to quit school. No one was able to set the bones in his leg properly, and the skin on his left foot which had been badly damaged refused to heal despite trips to nearby clinics. There was a large ulcer spreading over the top of the foot.

Gaye was unable to walk or even bend his left leg. His older brother, a nurse, managed to keep the infection from getting any worse, but still needed help. It was at one of the hospitals in Zao that they were told about Mercy Ships. Gaye, along with his brother, made the journey down to Monrovia, where the large white ship was docked. He was accepted as a patient for free treatment.

His month long stay on the ship began with skin grafts taken from his upper leg and placed over the open wound on his foot. His skin slowly began the miraculous process of healing.

by Michal Tkachenko

Fill 'er up

One early afternoon this large ship pulls up beside us on the other side of the dock. Soon afterward we hear a overhead announcement that we are refilling and to please refrain from doing any "hot work" today. That explains the big letters painted in red that said "No Smoking." We are still using 2 of the 6 engines even though we are not moving, which means we still need to refill on fuel from time to time. Well, because we can't just pull anchor and go to the nearest Gas Station, the gas station needs to come to us.
I found out that we need to refill about every 3 months and each time using 220,000 gallons of diesel. We all feel the dent in our pocket book when we have to gas up our cars at home, well this fuel bill is roughly $26,000 each time. Wow! I will turn my light out more often and appreciate the air conditioning a little more.
The small price of running a floating hospital.

Night of Glamour

The Valleta Awards

A night of fun on board the Africa Mercy. We had our own Film Awards night. Watched 11 short films produced by various crew members and then gathered at the "town's square" for the award ceremony. I love that we have so many creative and funny people here. And tonight brought out some of their best.

Relaxing Getaway in the middle of a war torn country

This is a ridiculously nice place on the ocean about 2 hours away in a place called Robertsport. It's owned by a South African. I can picture this "camping" place being back home. Nice tents with double beds, breakfast and dinner cooked for you, a nice quiet beach, a bon fire at dusk, the gentle roar of the waves lulling you to sleep at night...
Needless to say, what a lovely weekend of laying on the beach and playing in the waves! A much needed rest. Came back with a nice red glow to my skin;) Liberia never ceases to surprise me.

a group of boys

What a fun week I've had! And who wouldn't with cutie patients like these? Playing and hugging with a little school work and nursing thrown in. They kept me busy trying to keep them busy! Imagine being confined to a ward all day. The highlight of the day is taking them outside onto the dock to get some fresh air and sun shine in the afternoons.

Most of these little guys had surgery to release their burn contractures. Living here, for most people, is like camping for us. No electricity, no running water, living in a basic structure, cooking over a small fire. Most commonly kids, while playing, trip and fall into these fires or pull hot oil off of a shelf onto their hands and arms. Over time the scars form. Depending on where the burn was, their fingers may look like they're melted together or arm is bent at the elbow. Making it very hard to function with everyday activities, especially trying to hold a pencil for school. So the surgeries performed consist of releasing the scar by cutting it and grafting new skin taken often from the thigh.

So these kids are relatively healthy, just here for wound care and dressing changes and good nutrition to help with the healing process. So with that said, very full of energy, just typical kids:) I loved going to work this week! But definately had to schedule a nap after my shift;)

How blessed am I.