Life With A Mission

Adult Truths

2011-11-16T10:49:00.000-06:00

1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.
3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

6. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

7. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

8. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

9. Bad decisions make good stories.

10. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

11. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

12. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.

13. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

14. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

15. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lite than Kay.

16. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

17. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said? .

18. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!

19. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever..

20. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

21. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time.

22. People who forward e-mail without deleting the tons of previous recipients should be shot and then tarred and feathered.

23. The first testicular guard, the "Cup," was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important. (Ladies, quit laughing!)

A Day In The Life..... of the operating room

2011-08-31T18:29:00.000-05:00

In 6500 B.C., some guy looked at his sick friend and said, “I have an idea. Why don’t I drill a hole in your skull? It’ll make you feel better.”
Thus, surgery was born.

It takes a certain brand of crazy to come up with an idea like drilling into somebody’s skull, but surgery staff (I'm sure) have always been a confident bunch. We usually know what we’re doing. And when we don’t, we still act like we do.

We walk boldly into undiscovered country, plant a flag, and start ordering people around. It’s invigorating, and terrifying.

We like to think we’re fearless, eager to explore unknown lands and soak up new experiences. But the fact is, we’re always terrified.

Maybe the terror is part of the attraction.

Some people go to horror movies, we cut things open, dive into dark water. And at the end of the day, isn’t that what you’d rather hear about?

If you’ve got one drink, and one friend, and forty-five minutes… smooth rides make for boring stories. A little calamity, that’s worth talking about.

Background

2011-08-21T18:57:00.000-05:00

It's evident You run the show,
So let me back down.
You take the leading role,
And I'll play the background.
I know I miss my cues,
Know I forget my lines.
I'm sticking to Your script,
And I'm reading all Your signs.
I don't need my name in lights.
I don't need a starring role.
Why gain the whole wide world,
If I'm just going to loose my soul.
My ways aren't purified,
I'll live according to Your Word.
I can't endure this life,
Without Your wisdom being heard.
Listen up all you dancers
For the pop stars,
Because we all play the background,
But mine's a Rock Star.
So if you need me,
I'll be stage right.
Praying the whole world,
Will start embracing stage fright.
So let me fall back,
And stop giving my suggestions.
Because when I follow my obsessions
I end up confessing,
That I'm not that impressive,
Matter of fact I'm who I are,
A trail of star dust
Leading to the Superstar.
I had a dream that
I was captain of my soul,
I was master of my fate,
Lost control, and then I sank.
So I don't want to take the lead,
Because I'm prone to make mistakes.
All these folks that follow me,
Going end up in the wrong place.
So, just let me shadow You,
And just let me trace Your lines.
Matter of fact just take my pen,
Here, You create my rhymes.
Because if I do this by myself,
I'm scared that I'll succeed.
And no longer trust in You,
Because I only trust in me.
And see, that's how you end up
Headed to destruction,
Paving a road to nowhere,
Pour your life out for nothing.
You pulled my card, I'm bluffing,
You know what's in my hand.
Me, I just roll to trust You,
You cause the dice to land.
I'm in control of nothing,
Follow You at any cost.
Some call it sovereign will,
All I know is You are the boss.
I'm so at ease. I'm so content.
I play the background like it's an instrument.
I know I'm safest when,
I'm in Your will and trust Your word.
And I know I'm dangerous when,
I trust myself, my vision blurred.
And I don't have time,
To play life's foolish games.
I have plenty of aims,
But do they really glorify Your name?
And it's a shame the way
I want to do these things for You, yet,
Don't even cling to You.
Take time to sit and glean from You.
It seems that You were patient
In my ignorance.
If ignorance is bliss,
Its because they've never heard of this.
I could play the background.
Because I know sometimes I get in the way.
So won't You take the lead.
And I can play the background.
And You can take the lead.

"Blessings"

2011-06-05T06:47:00.000-05:00

We pray for blessings, We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things
We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plead
And long that we'd have faith to believe

When friends betray us, When darkness seems to win
We know the pain reminds this heart that this is not our home

What if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life: The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise

Fairy Tales < Reality

2011-06-01T13:27:00.001-05:00

We all remember the bedtime stories of our childhoods.

The shoe fits Cinderella... The frog turns into a prince... Sleeping Beauty is awakened with a kiss.... Once upon a time.... And then they lived happily every after.

Fairy tales. The stuff of dreams. The problem is, fairy tales don’t come true.

It’s the other stories. The ones that begin with dark and stormy nights and end in the unspeakable. It’s the nightmares that always seem to become reality.

The person that invented the phrase “Happily ever after,” should have his ass kicked – so hard.

Once upon a time... Happily ever after....

The stories we tell are the stuff of dreams. Fairy tales don’t come true. Reality is much stormier, much murkier, much scarier.

Reality. It’s so much more interesting than living happily ever after.

Mission Statement

2011-05-17T18:32:00.002-05:00

I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which came to me as a seed goes to the next as a blossom and that which came to me as a blossom, goes on as a fruit.

Re-run.... On Call

2011-01-21T22:40:00.002-06:00

Most medical professionals grow up being freaks.

While other kids play outside, we hole up in our rooms memorizing the periodic table, huddling for hours over our junior microscopes, dissecting our first frogs.

Imagine how surprised and relieved we were when we grew up and found out there were others out there just as freaky as we were.

Same microscopes, same dead frogs, same inexplicable urge to take human beings apart.

Nobody chooses to be a freak.

Most people don't even realize they're a freak until it's way too late to change it. No matter how much of a freak you end up being, chances are there's still someone out there for you, unless, of course, they've already moved on.

Because when it comes to love, even freaks can't wait forever.

Chapter 3

2010-07-24T11:24:00.007-05:00

Saving for later the argument about whether God exists at all (no-here's a better idea: let's skip that argument completely), let me first explain why I use the word God, when I could just as easily use the words Jehovah, Allah, Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu or Zues. Alternatively, I could call God "That," which is how the ancient Sanskrit scriptures say it, and which I think comes close to the all-inclusive and unspeakable entity I have sometimes experienced. But that "That" feels impersonal to me - a thing, not a being - and I myself can not pray to a That. I need a proper name, in order to fully sense a personal attendance. For this same reason, when I pray, I do not address my prayers to The Universe, The Great Void, The Force, The Supreme Self, The Whole, The Creator, The Light, The Higher Power, or even the most poetic manifestations of God's name, taken, I believe, from the Gnostic gospels: "The Shadow of the Turning."
I have nothing against any of these terms. I feel they are all equal because they are all equally adequate and inadequate descriptions of the indescribable. But we each do need a functional name for this indescribability, and "God" is the name that feels the most warm to me, so that is what I use. I should also confess that I generally refer to God as a "Him," which doesn't bother me because, to my mind, it's just a convenient personalizing pronoun, not a precise anatomical description or a cause for revolution. Of course, I don't mind calling God a "Her," and I understand the urge to do so. Again - to me, these are both terms, equally adequate and inadequate. Though I do think the capitalization of either pronoun is a nice touch, a small politeness in the presence of the divine.
Culturally, though not theologically, I'm a Christian. I was born a Protestant of the white Anglo-Saxon persuasion. And while I do love that great teacher of the peace who was called Jesus, and while I do reserve the right to ask myself in certain trying situations what indeed He would do, I can't swallow that one fixed rule of Christianity insisting that Christ is the only path to God. Strictly speaking, then, I cannot call myself a Christian. Most of the Christians I know accept my feelings on this with grace and open-mindedness. Then again, most of the Christians I know don't speak very strictly. To those who do speak (and think) strictly, all I can do here is offer my regrets for any hurt feelings and now excuse myself from their business.
Traditionally, I have responded to the transcendent mystics of all regions. I have always responded with breathless excitement to anyone who has ever said that God does not live in a dogmatic scripture or in a distant throne in the sky, but instead abides very close to us indeed - much closer than we can imagine, breathing right through our own hearts. I respond with gratitude to anyone who has ever voyaged to the center of that heart, and who has then returned to the world with a report for the rest of us that God is an experience of supreme love. In every religious tradition on earth, there have always been mystical saints and transcendents who report exactly this experience. Unfortunately many of them have ended up arrested and killed. Still, I think very highly of them.
In the end, what I have come to believe about God is simple. It's like this - I used to have this really great dog. She came from the pound. She was a mixture of about ten different breeds, but seemed to have inherited the finest features of them all. She was brown. When people asked me, "What kind of dog is that?" I would always give the same answer: "She's a brown dog." Similarly, when the questions is raised, "What kind of God do you believe in?" my answer is easy: "I believe in a magnificent God."

In The Known

2010-05-23T12:32:00.001-05:00

It's a common belief that positive thinking leads to a happier healthier life. As children we are told to smile, be cheerful, and put on a happy face. As adults we are told to look on the bright side, to make lemonade, and see glasses as half full.

Sometimes reality can get in the way of our ability to act the happy part though. Your hope can fail, boyfriends can cheat, friends can disappoint.

It's in these moments, when you just want to get real, drop the act, and be your true scared unhappy self.

Ask most people what they want out of life and the answer is simple - to be happy.

Maybe it's this expectation though of wanting to be happy that just keeps us from ever getting there.

Maybe the more we try to will ourselves to state's of bliss, the more confused we get - to the point where we don't recognize ourselves.

Instead we just keep smiling - trying to be the happy people we wish we were. Until it eventually hits us, it's been there all along.

Not in our dreams or our hopes but in the known, the comfortable, the familiar.

Its Worth The Pain

2010-05-17T18:35:00.007-05:00

We live in a world of constant progress and emotion. Stand still for a second and you’ll be left behind. But as hard as we try to move forward, as tempting as it is to never look back, the past always comes back to bite us in the ass. And as history shows us again, and again, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

Sometimes the past is something you can’t let go of.

Sometimes the past is something we’ll do anything to forget.

And sometimes we learn something new about the past that changes everything we know about the present.

Medical professionals... we aren’t complacent people. We don’t put our feet up. We don’t sit still. Whatever the game is, we like to win. And once we win, we get a new game. We push ourselves, residents, attendings... it doesn’t matter how much we achieve. If you’re a climber, there’s always another mountain.

All the pictures you ever see of mountain climbers are from the top of the mountain. They are smiling, ecstatic, triumphant. They don’t take pictures along the way because... who wants to remember that?!?!

We push ourselves because we have to, not because we like it. The relentless climb, the pain and anguish of taking it to the next level – nobody takes pictures of that, nobody wants to remember. We just want to remember the view from the top, the breathtaking moment at the edge of the world.

That’s what keeps us climbing and it’s worth the pain, that’s the crazy part.

It’s worth anything.

Have a fabulous time, friend. Travel safe, stay well.

Benin 2009

2010-01-26T16:32:00.004-06:00

Amid All The Crap

2009-12-31T11:40:00.002-06:00

Fresh starts.

Thanks to the calendar, they happen every year, just set your watch to January.

Our reward for surviving the holiday season is a new year, bringing on the great tradition of New Year’s resolutions. Put your past behind you and start over.

It’s hard to resist the chance at a new beginning. A chance to put the problems of last year to bed.

But, who get’s to determine when the old ends and the new begins. It’s not a day on a calendar, not a birthday, not a new year. It’s an event. Big or small. Something that changes us. Ideally, it gives us hope. A new way of living and looking at the world.

Letting go of old habits, old memories.

What's important is that we never stop believing we can have a new beginning.

But its also important to remember, that amid all the crap are a few things really worth holding on to.

My Own Tribe

2009-12-24T22:15:00.005-06:00

It is an urban myth that suicide rates spike at the holidays. Turns out... they actually go down. Experts think its becuase people are less likely to "off" themselves around family.

Ironically, that same "family togetherness" is thought to be the reason that depressions rates actually do spike at the holidays.

There's an old proverb that says, "you can't choose your family", you take what fate hands you. And like them or not, love them or not, understand them or not... you cope.

Then there's the school of thought that says the family you are born into is simply a starting point. They feed you, they clothe you, and they take care of you... until you are ready to go out into the world... and find your own tribe.

Happy Holidays.

Sandra, Suey, and I
Roommate Christmas Photo
Africa Mercy 2009

Numb - Last Day At Sea

2009-12-18T09:19:00.001-06:00

A patient’s history is as important as their symptoms. Its what helps us decide if heartburn is a heart attack, if a headache is a tumor.

Sometimes, patients will try to re-write their own history: they will claim that they don’t smoke, or forget to mentions certain drugs… which, to some, can be the kiss of death.

We can ignore it all we want, but our history eventually comes back to haunt us. Some people think that without history: our lives would amount to nothing.

At some point, we all have to choose…

Do we fall back on what we know?

Or, do we step forward to something new?

Its hard not to be haunted by our past. Our history is what shapes us, what guides us. Our history resurfaces time after time after time, so, we have to remember that sometimes, the most important history is the history we are making today.

Physically, I am ready to go home – I have been packed for days!

But emotionally… well… I have a whirlwind of emotions right now. It is so much of a cluster that I can’t even put my thoughts and feelings into words.

The developed world is nearly upon me and so much anticipated, yet it is also a cut so deep that it doesn’t even bleed. It’s a cut so deep that it doesn’t even catch me off guard. So, I guess, one could say that, currently, I’m numb.

And.... The Numbers Are In!

2009-12-17T09:16:00.002-06:00

Lives were started...

Lives were changed...

Lives were improved...

Lives were touched... including the 400 crew members that work onboard the Africa Mercy. So much time, effort, and dedication went in to the 10 month field service in Benin. Here is what we accomplished...

996 reconstructive and plastic surgeries;
185 cleft lip and palate repairs;
1161 general surgeries;
2 local surgeons trained;
3,521 cataracts removed;
570 other eye surgeries (pterygia and stabismus);
2 local eye surgeons trained;
33,851 eye evaluations and other treatments;
7,083 pairs of sunglasses distributed;
5,689 pairs of reading glasses distributed;
18 community eye field workers trained;
154 obstetric fistulas repaired;
4 local surgeons trained in fistula repair;
231 orthopedic operations;
10,175 dental patients seen;
794 dental hygiene patients;
13,174 oral health education;
25 oral health teachers trained;
2 dental assistants trained;
28 patients received palliative home care;
6 Burkitt's Lymphoma patients received palliative support;
19 families trained in wound care;
10 agricultural staff trained;
23 local agricultural trainees;
1 hostel constructed for agricultural college;
19 mental health workers trained;
119 church & community leaders trained in mental health;
50 prison officers and workers trained in mental health;
2 church leaders conferences attended by 602 attendants;
and 12,000 people watched the Jesus Film and many made a commitment to Christ.

Nearly 80,000 directly reached!

The O.R.s

2009-12-13T09:23:00.003-06:00

For thousands, the 60-second walk down the long hallway which runs through the Africa Mercy has been the final leg in a long quest for physical, emotional, and spiritual restoration. At the hallway's end is a pair of sealed doors which lead to a state-of-the-art operating suite, filled with teams of nurses and surgeons. Every day patients walk through the sealed doors, crossing a threshold of transformation, to receive life-changing free surgery. Over five thousand surgical procedures have already been performed on the Africa Mercy during the 2009 Field Service in Benin. Surgeries performed onboard include orthopedics, maxillofacial, plastics, general, vesico-vaginal fistula repair (VVF), and cataract removal.

The Africa Mercy has six operating theaters, predominately staffed by short-term crew who come from around the world to share their expertise with the forgotten poor. "Everyone stays for a very short period of time. Our entire operating room team consists of 50 people, and only five of us are long-term staff," said Operating Room Supervisor Alison Brieseman. "We bring in people who know what they are doing, so we can have a higher turnover. Short-term people come in, they scrub up, we point them towards a table, and they are fine. If you can work in the OR in one country, you can work in the OR anywhere else. "The Africa Mercy operating suite is a diverse and dynamic environment which Alison Brieseman thoroughly understands. She has served with Mercy Ships for five years. She first worked as an operating room nurse and has held the position of Operating Room Supervisor since the inauguration of the Africa Mercy in June 2007."Somehow it (the OR) work when it really shouldn't. People come from everywhere, and they all know different things. They speak different languages and do things different ways. The staff is constantly changing; everyone is new all the time. You would think there would be a really high stress level and that people disagree about everything. But it's just not like that. It's a fun place to be. It's a real testimony to the grace of God," said Brieseman.

For most of the 2009 Field Service in Benin, the OR has run at full capacity, utilizing all six operating rooms and maximizing the number of patients served. “Recently, I was going over the statistics from this field service. Compared to last year, by week 21, we had doubled the amount of procedures performed. So, many more people have received surgery. It's been a really exciting outreach," said Brieseman. She attributes this increase to better staffing and a more efficient use of resources. A major accomplishment of the OR during this field service has been the successful training of three Benin nurses in operating room procedures. "At the beginning of the year, they were registered nurses but had never worked in the operating room. One of our long-term OR nurses, Glenys Gillingham, has been working with them throughout the field service," said Brieseman. "Now, they all scrub, circulate, and inject anesthetic into the eye. They are now teaching the short-term staff what to do. When new staff comes, the Benin nurses are saying, 'This is what you do,' and 'Come here; I'll show you. It's really great to see. We've never trained local nurses, and it's been one of our coolest achievements."

For many years to come, the OR suite on the Africa Mercy will continue to be a place of healing and transformation for thousands of individuals. As the OR staff continues to grow in statistics and achievements, the focus of their work is still to impact the lives of individuals. Brieseman saw a poignant example of this principle earlier this year. "During our last round of VVF surgeries there was a debate about whether we should perform surgery on the last patient of the day. It was already 4 p.m. and if we did the case, we knew we wouldn't finish until 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. Everyone had just worked the past three days and three nights and was exhausted. As we stood around discussing it, someone just went, 'All right, that's it; we are doing it. I remember standing at the door, watching this patient waddle down through the hallway holding her gown. I saw her back, and it was all wet. We could have ended on time and had our dinner, but she would have stayed wet in her bed. Instead, her life was going to be transformed. There were three or four of us standing there saying, 'I'm really glad we made that decision.

Betrayals Is Inevitable

2009-12-11T10:43:00.000-06:00

As medical professionals, we know everybody’s secrets…

Their medical history…

Their sexual history…

Confidential information that is as essential to a medical professional as a 10 blade, and, every bit as dangerous.

We keep secrets… we have to. But not all secrets can be kept. In some ways, betrayal is inevitable. When our bodies betray us, surgery is often the key to recovery. But when we betray each other… the path to recovery is less clear.

We will do whatever it takes to rebuild the trust that was lost.

And then, there are some betrayals that are so deep, so profound, that there is no way to repair what was lost.

When that happens, there is nothing left to do but wait…

Trying Like Hell To Heal

2009-12-06T22:40:00.001-06:00

Communication

It’s the first thing we really learn in life.

Funny thing is, once we grow up, learn our words, and really start talking – the harder it becomes to know what to say, or to ask for what we really need.

Some things we just don’t want to hear.

Some things we say because we just can’t be silent anymore.

Some things are more than what you say, they’re what you do.

Some things you say because there’s no other choice.

And some things… you keep to yourself.

As a medical professional, I am trained to look for disease. Sometimes, the problem is easily detected. Most of the time, you need to go step-by-step: first, probing the surface looking for any sign of trouble – a mole, a lesion, or an unwelcome lump. Most of the time, you can’t tell what’s wrong with somebody just by looking at them… after all, they can look perfectly fine on the outside, while their insides tell you a whole other story.

Not all wounds are superficial; most wounds run deeper than we can imagine, you can’t see them with the naked eye.

And then, there are the wounds that take us by surprise.

The trick with any kind of wound or disease is to dig down and find the real source of injury… and once you’ve found it – try like hell to heal that sucker, and say what you need to say.

Blind Spot

2009-12-04T04:41:00.004-06:00

Many people don’t know that the human eye has a blind spot in it’s field vision. There is a part of the world that we are literally blind to.

The problem with this is: the blind spot sometimes shields us from things that shouldn't be ignored.

Sometimes, our blind spots keep our lives bright and shiny.

When it comes to our blind spots: maybe our brains aren’t compensating… maybe they’re protecting us.

A new blind spot has been revealed to me lately.

At 13h00 my time, the ship needs to do another blackout. This is something you are required to do twice a year by Maritime law... and we have already completed our two this outreach. Problem: every time the big white Jesus ship comes to Benin (the voodoo (Satan) capital) we have "technical" issues upon both arrival and departure. (Its fine if you do not acknowledge that spiritual warfare exist - but, I live IN it... and there is a big spiritual battle happening onboard right now.)

We have to do another blackout (turn everything off) so that we can attempt to fix our problems that have all of sudden arose... things that are checked on weekly basis - will not turn on - example: the radar! There are many issues, apparently, all being ship related (and therefore, I have no idea what people are saying when they talk to me...) that need to be fixed.

Ok, so getting to the point. A scheduled blackout is for 8-12 hours. This blackout is NOT "scheduled"... it has to be done so that maybe we can get the heck out of this country! We will be without power until the problem is solved. This has the possibility to make us go without power AND TOLIETS is 36 hours.

Welcome to my recently discovered blind spot.

"Got On A Plane"

2009-12-01T03:23:00.003-06:00

My friend, Nadine, wrote this song awhile back. I feel as though it is requiring me to share it with you all. I believe it entirely holds the understanding of; the departure that takes place for Africa, existing in Africa, and the exit of Africa that happens when one decides to return home.

I will arrive home in 22 days, and until then, 10 days will be spent at sea sailing. Home is within sight… its bittersweet. Emotions are high onboard this large white vessel, yet emotions are unable to be put into words. The people I have grown to love, the people who accept me for me – genuinely… we will all part, heading off into the world in our own directions.

Its been a heck of a 22 month ride with Mercy Ships. As the song states, “life will never be the same.” Enjoy.

"Got On A Plane"
It’s a long way
From me to you
It’s been a long time
Since I saw your face
And I cry
Knowing that I can’t be with you

Please understand,
God told me to take a stand
It’s tough sometimes for me to understand
So please, don’t try to take my hand

Cause I, got on a plane
And flew away
Never knowing that
Life would never be the same
And I, wasn’t running away
On that day
I was just taking a chance
And testing my aim

Now it’s been a long time
Since I said goodbye
Living here
Sometimes I ask why
But I’ll be alright
If you’re on my side

Please understand,
I needed to take a stand
It’s tough sometimes for me to understand
So please, don’t try to take my hand

Cause I, got on a plane
And flew away
Never knowing that
Life would never be the same
And I, wasn’t running away
On that day
I was just taking a chance
And testing my aim

At how far I could go
Even if the world said no
Even if everything was against me
I didn’t know how high I could fly
But I’ve made it so far
I’m on my way home now

And I’ll, get on a plane
And fly away
Knowing full well that
Life will never ever be the same
And I’m, coming home
On my own
I’ve taken a chance
Taken my stance

- Nadine Schroeder

To Simply Be Human

2009-11-26T02:02:00.002-06:00

Gratitude.

Appreciation.

Giving thanks.

No matter what words you use, it all means the same thing: happy.

We are supposed to be happy… grateful… for friends, and family. Happy to just be alive, whether we like it or not.

But, maybe we’re not supposed to be happy. Maybe gratitude has nothing to do with joy.

Maybe being grateful is recognizing what you have for what it is. Appreciating the small victories. Admiring the struggle it takes to simply be human.

Maybe we are thankful for the familiar things that we know, and maybe we are thankful for the things we will never know.

At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still be standing, I think, is reason enough to celebrate.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Clouds Over Josué Are Lifted

2009-11-18T10:37:00.003-06:00

For Cécile, a 26-year-old tailor, the birth of her second son, Josué, was a momentous occasion. The tragic memory of the death of her first-born child was slightly alleviated by the arrival of a second, joyful baby boy. Yet, after only six weeks, Josué’s health, too, deteriorated, and Cécile became fearful of losing another child.

A milky layer began to form over both of Josué’s eyes, affecting his vision. Cécile did not understand what was happening to her newborn son. Her husband and family were also baffled. Her in-laws decided that the only possible explanation was that Cécile was cursed. Because this was the second of Cécile’s children to experience health problems, her in-laws were convinced that she had brought evil into their house. So, they told Cécile to leave and return to her own parents.

Distraught and confused, Cécile left the house with Josué. “I became very anxious and felt completely helpless and depressed,” she said. “My in-laws accused me, but never did they question that, if this was a curse, could it possibly come from their own son – my husband?”

But Cécile did not return to the house of her parents. Instead, she remembered an advertisement she had seen on the television about an organization called Mercy Ships. Deep down, she believed that somebody onboard the “big ship” in Cotonou could help her. And she was right!

After a four-hour journey in a taxi to the busy streets of Cotonou, Cécile and Josué ventured onboard the Africa Mercy where Dr. Glenn Strauss, Senior Vice President of Health Care Initiatives and a renowned ophthalmic surgeon, assessed Josué’s tiny, clouded eyes. The conclusion was that Josué had bilateral congenital cataracts and would require surgery in order to save his sight. “The cataracts were not grossly obvious, but they were certainly there from birth,” said Dr. Strauss.

Josué is the youngest patient to receive cataract surgery in the history of Mercy Ships. At only three months old, there were certain risks in attempting the surgery. “Children under one year of age have an increased risk in eye surgery, particularly relating to the cornea and the inflammation of the eye,” Dr. Strauss explained. “It’s a microsurgical procedure, and an eye that is half the size of an adult eye increases the challenge of surgical manipulation.” He continued, “But it’s better to do this surgery sooner rather than later to decrease the chance of amblyopia (lazy eye).”

A few days later, Cécile sat with Josué in her lap as Dr. Strauss examined the results of the delicate procedure he had performed to remove the cataracts. The outcome was extremely positive. “Josué was in very good health, which is important because congenital cataracts are often associated with many other congenital complications – such as heart, lung, and neurological problems,” said Dr. Strauss. “His eyes were properly aligned, and there was no involuntary movement. It looked like he would gain good vision during recovery.”

Now that Josué’s cataracts have been removed, Cécile says the family is happy again, adding, “This situation has surprised them and made them realise that it was not definitely a curse.”

The clouds that covered Josué’s eyes have lifted. The work of Mercy Ships has given a young boy a bright future and has restored his mother’s hope. “My heart is refreshed and calm,” Cécile said with a smile. “I pray that this child will become a great man and care for me in my old age.”

“I’m very thankful for Mercy Ships. What the enemy said about my baby was stopped. God changed things. He used a specialist to help my baby. May God be glorified, and may this work continue and be a blessing to many people. I believe that this ship is the glory of God,” Cécile concluded.

Damage, Harm, Guilt

2009-11-14T02:05:00.005-06:00

We all go through life like bulls in a china shop: a chip here, a crack there… doing damage to ourselves, to other people.

The problem is trying to figure out how to control the damage that’s been done, or the damage that’s been done to us.

Sometimes the damage catches us by surprise...

Sometimes we think we can fix the damage...

And sometimes, the damage is something we can’t even see.

We’re all damaged it seems, some of us more than others. We carry the damage with us from childhood, then, as grown-ups: we give as good as we get.

Ultimately, we all do damage, and then, we set about the business of fixing it... whatever we can, because “First, do no harm.”

Doctors pledge by this oath. But the truth is, harm happens, and not only from doctors, from everyone. Harm is then followed by guilt, and when guilt happens – there’s no oath on how to deal with that.

Guilt never goes anywhere on its own, it brings its friends: doubt and insecurity. “First, do no harm”, easier said than done.

We can take all the oaths in the world, but the fact is – most of us do harm all the time. Sometimes, even when we’re trying to help, we do more harm than good. And then... guilt rears it’s ugly head.

What you do with that guilt is up to you.

We are left with a choice: with can let the guilt throw us back into the behavior that got us into trouble in the first place, or… learn from the guilt – and do our best to move on.

To Write Love On Her Arms

2009-11-09T03:59:00.003-06:00

November 13th is worldwide "To Write Love On Her Arms" day. Its a day to remember that Hope and Healing ARE real. This Friday, worldwide, people will be writing the word "Love" on their arms. Join me in participating in this great event. But first, here is the story, the reason behing TWLOHA was founded.

"Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers, and the city waits just outside our open windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and Pedro is her favorite. It hits me that she won't see this skyline for several weeks, and we will be without her. I lean forward, knowing this will be written, and I ask what she'd say if her story had an audience. She smiles. "Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars."

I would rather write her a song, because songs don't wait to resolve, and because songs mean so much to her. Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness. These words, like most words, will be written next to midnight, between hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her.

Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn't slept in 36 hours and she won't for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she'll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn't ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her.

She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of "friends" offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write "FUCK UP" large across her left forearm.

The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life. It is unspoken and there are only a few of us, but we will be her church, the body of Christ coming alive to meet her needs, to write love on her arms.

She is full of contrast, more alive and closer to death than anyone I've known, like a Johnny Cash song or some theatre star. She owns attitude and humor beyond her 19 years, and when she tells me her story, she is humble and quiet and kind, shaped by the pain of a hundred lifetimes. I sit privileged but breaking as she shares. Her life has been so dark yet there is some soft hope in her words, and on consecutive evenings, I watch the prettiest girls in the room tell her that she's beautiful. I think it's God reminding her.

I've never walked this road, but I decide that if we're going to run a five-day rehab, it is going to be the coolest in the country. It is going to be rock and roll. We start with the basics; lots of fun, too much Starbucks and way too many cigarettes

more
Thursday night she is in the balcony for Band Marino, Orlando's finest. They are indie-folk-fabulous, a movement disguised as a circus. She loves them and she smiles when I point out the A&R man from Atlantic Europe, in town from London just to catch this show.

She is in good seats when the Magic beat the Sonics the next night, screaming like a lifelong fan with every Dwight Howard dunk. On the way home, we stop for more coffee and books, Blue Like Jazz and (Anne Lamott's) Travelling Mercies.

On Saturday, the Taste of Chaos tour is in town and I'm not even sure we can get in, but doors do open and minutes after parking, we are on stage for Thrice, one of her favorite bands. She stands ten feet from the drummer, smiling constantly. It is a bright moment there in the music, as light and rain collide above the stage. It feels like healing. It is certainly hope.

Sunday night is church and many gather after the service to pray for Renee, this her last night before entering rehab. Some are strangers but all are friends tonight. The prayers move from broken to bold, all encouraging. We're talking to God but I think as much, we're talking to her, telling her she's loved, saying she does not go alone. One among us knows her best. Ryan sits in the corner strumming an acoustic guitar, singing songs she's inspired.

After church our house fills with friends, there for a few more moments before goodbye. Everyone has some gift for her, some note or hug or piece of encouragement. She pulls me aside and tells me she would like to give me something. I smile surprised, wondering what it could be. We walk through the crowded living room, to the garage and her stuff.

She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She's had it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night and she shouldn't have it. I hold it carefully, thank her and know instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me. It hits me to wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our broken hearts, when we trade death for life.

As we arrive at the treatment center, she finishes: "The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."

I have watched life come back to her, and it has been a privilege. When our time with her began, someone suggested shifts but that is the language of business. Love is something better. I have been challenged and changed, reminded that love is that simple answer to so many of our hardest questions. Don Miller says we're called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding. I agree so greatly.

We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her something true when all she's known are lies. Tell her God loves her. Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true.

We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we're called home.

I have learned so much in one week with one brave girl. She is alive now, in the patience and safety of rehab, covered in marks of madness but choosing to believe that God makes things new, that He meant hope and healing in the stars. She would ask you to remember."

http://www.twloha.com/index.php

Angels Amongst the Sons of Men

2009-11-08T10:58:00.001-06:00

This has made its way around the ship for about 2 months now... wanted to send it to all of you, so that you could be included in being angels. Without you, I would not be here... thank you for your support, and for being "angels".

The following poem was written by Prince Eddie Daniels from Ghana, a patient aboard having skin grafts on his hands. I is a descriptive of how he see’s Mercy Ship’s work here.

Angels Amongst the Sons of Men

The day the Big White Whale landed on the black shores of Africa was a blessed day to the Sons of Men.
It came with Angels to walk amongst the Sons of Men.
Why do I call them Angels? Let me tell you of my time with them.

I came on board the White Whale with rooms filled with
the lame
the maimed
the formed
the deformed
the wrong
and the rough.
And deep into the darkest part of the night, I saw men and brethren,
maidens and ladies, though flesh as us, yet with hearts as Angels.

Sleeplessly and tirelessly they toiled through the night,
through the pains and aches of men;
they with hands to heal and mend,
bringing from above the Father's love to the Sons of Men.

Some they cut. Some they tie.
Some they seal, and yet others
they fix with tools untold.

Like messengers of the Most High they came.
Not thinking of their own, they risked their lives
and sailed the seas to lands beyond the endless world,
to shores of Men afflicted and in pain.
Their hearts and lives they came to share,
as Angels walking amongst the Sons of Men.
Some in this life are born to pass,
and some are born in life to live,
yet these Angels are born to preserve humanity.

Though some may see lives as waste,
yet with speed they move to save.
With words of love and touch of peace,
they endlessly toil to make right the wrong.

You were born as Men to your lands,
and yet as Angels you served the earth.
Gold is digged from earth beneath.
Treasures are hunted on high seas.
But love so pure and true
can only in hearts like yours be found.
Your labor in the Lord shall not be in vain.
For every life you touch and every soul you save,
For every bone you mend and every face you straight,
The Lord of Life and Light will light your path and guide your life.

For you are truly Angels amongst the Sons of Men.

Alba's Tears

2009-11-05T03:17:00.003-06:00

Ankosua was outside carefully mixing herbs and water to create a concoction prescribed by a traditional doctor in her village. It was mid-afternoon, and her daughter, eight-year-old Alba, was sitting alone in their home. “She should be at school right now,” she thought. Struggling to hold back tears, she poured boiling water over the crushed herbs and sieved the mixture into a cup.

Two years earlier, an outgoing and vivacious Alba was attending school with her friends. Now, she spent her days hiding in a dark room, too insecure to look people in the eyes.

When the drink had cooled, Ankosua walked inside the home and handed Alba the cup. Taking the cup, Alba tilted her head back, creating a small gap between her cheek and the large tumor that filled her mouth. Slowly, she poured the liquid into the small gap and swallowed in intervals.

While she watched her daughter struggle, Ankosua thought back to the day she first spotted the small bulge on Alba’s gum line. Never could she have imagined the fear and discouragement it would cause her heart.

After Alba had drunk the entire cup, she began crying.

Ankosua couldn’t bear looking into the tear-stained eyes of her daughter. Slowly, she wrapped her arm around Alba, who then buried her head on Ankosua’s chest. As Alba’s tears collected on her shirt, Ankosua did her best to be strong.

But Ankosua was depressed. Alba had performed this routine hundreds of times, but the tumor hadn’t gone away. In fact, it was growing. At times, it felt like it was shooting out of her mouth, causing her great pain. Ankosua realized the traditional herbs were not working. There were no other options. All she could do was keep trying and pray the herbs would begin to work.

***********

“When the tumor first appeared, my husband and I took Alba to the hospital, but we didn’t have money to pay for it, so they wouldn’t treat her. We had to use traditional medicine,” said Ankosua. Alba was taken out of school so her mother could give her the traditional medicine daily.

When asked how the community treated Alba, Ankosua stared at the floor and remained silent. After a 10-second pause, she looked up, her eyes filled with tears, and she painfully replied, “Some people received Alba with good hands. They prayed for her and encouraged me. But others shunned her. They said, ‘Go away, we don’t want to see you.’”

Whenever it was time to eat or drink, Alba hid herself from other people. If she went out in public, she kept the tumor covered with a rag. It served as a disguise and caught the foul-smelling and constant drainage.

After two years of watching her daughter struggle, a woman in her village told Ankosua of a hospital in Benin that was performing free surgery. Finally – a glimmer of hope! They scrounged to get enough money for transportation and traveled to the hospital, which was hours away.

However, Ankosua’s new-found hope quickly morphed into deep disappointment.

“We were there for two days, and nobody attended to us. I asked a woman who worked there why we weren’t being helped. She said, ‘They don’t do surgery for free, you have to deposit money.’ I trembled when she told me that. I had come with nothing,” said Ankosua sadly.

After Ankosua explained that she had no money for treatment, the woman told her about Mercy Ships. “This woman had heard Mercy Ships was in town, helping people and healing people for free. She gave me directions to the Africa Mercy, and I immediately went,” Ankosua added.

****
Still attached to noisy monitors and IV fluids, Alba had been dozing in and out of sleep since returning to the Africa Mercy ward. Finally, a few hours after surgery, she opened her eyes and sat up. Seeing she was awake, Becca, her nurse, came to Alba’s bedside and handed her a small mirror.

Alba looked down, paused in a state of bewilderment, and began touching the empty space on her mouth. The tumor was gone. After 20 seconds of staring, a single tear rolled down her cheek. With great determination, she tried not to cry. But another and then another tear soon followed. Finally, she gave up trying to hold them back and cried freely. Alba’s tears were earned through years of heartache and rejection. They were mature and raw – heavy tears for an eight-year-old to cry.

Ankosua stood next to her bed the entire time, carefully observing her daughter. When Alba began crying, she turned away. Ankosua couldn’t bear looking into her tear-stained eyes. After two hopeless years of discouragement and depression, healing had finally come. The mixture of joy and pain in that moment expressed itself in tears.

When Alba regained her composure, Ankosua returned to the bedside. Carefully, she wrapped her arm around Alba, who then buried her head on Ankosua’s chest. As Alba’s tears collected on her shirt, Ankosua did her best to be strong. But her heart was too overwhelmed with joy. Tears of relief and joy flooded her eyes as well.

They sat and cried together, each tear serving as a testimony to the transforming power of God’s mercy.

The Final Countdown (insert 80's music)

2009-11-02T07:14:00.006-06:00

15 More Operating Days18 Days Until PACU Closes
25 Days Left With The Translators
36 Days Until The Sail
46 Days Until Tenerife
50 Days Until I Fly Home
51 Days Until I Arrive Home
52 Days Until Christmas Eve
53 Days Until Christmas
59 Days Until New Year's Eve
60 Days Until New Year's

Too Much?

2009-10-31T06:36:00.002-05:00

As medical professionals, we usually fantasize about wild and improbable situations: someone collapses in a restaurant – we splice them open with a butter knife, replace a valve with a hollowed our stick of carrot.

Most of our fantasies dissolve when we wake, banished to the back of our mind. But sometimes, we’re sure, if we try hard enough – we can live the dream.

The fantasy is simple, pleasure is good, and twice as much pleasure is better. That pain is bad, and no pain is better.

When you were a kid, it was Halloween candy. You hid it from your parents and ate it until you got sick.

In college, it was the heady combo of you, tequila, and… well… you know.

But the reality is different, the reality is that pain is there to tell us something. And there’s only so much pleasure we can take without getting a stomachache… and that’s ok. Maybe some fantasies are only supposed to live in our dreams.

As a medical professional, you take as much of the good as you can get, because it doesn’t come around nearly as often as it should. Because good things aren’t always what they seem. Too much of anything, even love, is not always a good thing.

How do you know how much is too much?

Too much too soon?

Too much information?

Too much fun?

Too much love?

Too much to ask?

And when is it all just too much to bear?

Crossing The Line

2009-10-27T02:47:00.003-05:00

As medical professionals, we are trained to be skeptical – because our patients lie to us all the time. The rule is: every patient is a liar, until proven honest.

Lying is bad, or so we’re told, constantly, from birth. Honesty is the best policy, “I chopped down the cherry tree”… whatever.

The fact is: lying is a necessity. We lie to ourselves because the truth… well… the truth freaking hurts. No matter how hard we try to ignore it, or deny it, eventually the lies fall away – whether we like it, or not.

But, here’s the truth about the truth… it hurts. So, we lie.

In surgery, there is a red line on the floor that marks the point where the hospital goes from being accessible to being “off limits” to all but a special few. Crossing the line is not tolerated.

In general, lines are there for a reason; for safety, for security, for clarity. If you choose to cross the line, you pretty much do so at your own risk.

So why is it that the bigger the line, the greater the temptation to cross it?

We can’t help ourselves, we see a line – we want to cross it. Maybe it’s the thrill of trading the familiar with the unfamiliar, a sort of personal dare. Only problem is – once you’ve crossed, its almost impossible to go back.

But, if you do manage to make it back across that line, you find safety in numbers.

Benin - 161

2009-10-23T03:16:00.005-05:00

Human Development is a development paradigm that is about much more than the rise or fall of national incomes. It is about creating an environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accord with their needs and interests. People are the real wealth of nations. Development is thus about expanding the choices people have to lead lives that they value. And it is thus about much more than economic growth, which is only a means —if a very important one —of enlarging people’s choices.

Fundamental to enlarging these choices is building human capabilities —the range of things that people can do or be in life. The most basic capabilities for human development are to lead long and healthy lives, to be knowledgeable, to have access to the resources needed for a decent standard of living and to be able to participate in the life of the community. Without these, many choices are simply not available, and many opportunities in life remain inaccessible.

This way of looking at development, often forgotten in the immediate concern with accumulating commodities and financial wealth, is not new. Philosophers, economists and political leaders have long emphasized human wellbeing as the purpose, the end, of development. As Aristotle said in ancient Greece, “Wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking, for it is merely useful for the sake of something else.”

In seeking that something else, human development shares a common vision with human rights. The goal is human freedom. And in pursuing capabilities and realizing rights, this freedom is vital. People must be free to exercise their choices and to participate in decision-making that affects their lives. Human development and human rights are mutually reinforcing, helping to secure the well-being and dignity of all people, building self-respect and the respect of others.

The 2009 Human Development Report

1. Norway
2. Australia
3. Iceland
4. Canada
5. Ireland
6. Netherlands
7. Sweden
8. France
9. Switzerland
10. Japan
11. Luxembourg
12. Finland
13. United States
14. Austria
15. Spain
16. Denmark
17. Belgium
18. Italy
19. Liechtenstein
20. New Zealand
21. United Kingdom
22. Germany
23. Singapore
24. Hong Kong, China (SAR)
25. Greece
26. Korea (Republic of)
27. Israel
28. Andorra
29. Slovenia
30. Brunei Darussalam
31. Kuwait
32. Cyprus
33. Qatar
34. Portugal
35. United Arab Emirates
36. Czech Republic
37. Barbados
38. Malta
39. Bahrain
40. Estonia
41. Poland
42. Slovakia
43. Hungary
44. Chile
45. Croatia
46. Lithuania
47. Antigua and Barbuda
48. Latvia
49. Argentina
50. Uruguay
51. Cuba
52. Bahamas
53. Mexico
54. Costa Rica
55. Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
56. Oman
57. Seychelles
58. Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)
59. Saudi Arabia
60. Panama
61. Bulgaria
62. Saint Kitts and Nevis
63. Romania
64. Trinidad and Tobago
65. Montenegro
66. Malaysia
67. Serbia
68. Belarus
69. Saint Lucia
70. Albania
71. Russian Federation
72. Macedonia (the former Yugoslav Republic of)
73. Dominica
74. Grenada
75. Brazil
76. Bosnia and Herzegovina
77. Colombia
78. Peru
79. Turkey
80. Ecuador
81. Mauritius
82. Kazakhstan
83. Lebanon
84. Armenia
85. Ukraine
86. Azerbaijan
87. Thailand
88. Iran (Islamic Republic of)
89. Georgia
90. Dominican Republic
91. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
92. China
93. Belize
94. Samoa
95. Maldives
96. Jordan
97. Suriname
98. Tunisia
99. Tonga
100. Jamaica
101. Paraguay
102. Sri Lanka
103. Gabon
104. Algeria
105. Philippines
106. El Salvador
107. Syrian Arab Republic
108. Fiji
109. Turkmenistan
110. Occupied Palestinian Territories
111. Indonesia
112. Honduras
113. Bolivia
114. Guyana
115. Mongolia
116. Viet Nam
117. Moldova
118. Equatorial Guinea
119. Uzbekistan
120. Kyrgyzstan
121. Cape Verde
122. Guatemala
123. Egypt
124. Nicaragua
125. Botswana
126. Vanuatu
127. Tajikistan
128. Namibia
129. South Africa
130. Morocco
131. São Tomé and Principe
132. Bhutan
133. Lao, People's Dem. Rep.
134. India
135. Solomon Islands
136. Congo
137. Cambodia
138. Myanmar
139. Comoros
140. Yemen
141. Pakistan
142. Swaziland
143. Angola
144. Nepal
145. Madagascar
146. Bangladesh
147. Kenya
148. Papua New Guinea
149. Haiti
150. Sudan
151. Tanzania, U. Rep. of
152. Ghana
153. Cameroon
154. Mauritania
155. Djibouti
156. Lesotho
157. Uganda
158. Nigeria
159. Togo
160. Malawi
161. Benin
162. Timor-Leste
163. Côte d'Ivoire
164. Zambia
165. Eritrea
166. Senegal
167. Rwanda
168. Gambia
169. Liberia
170. Guinea
171. Ethiopia
172. Mozambique
173. Guinea-Bissau
174. Burundi
175. Chad
176. Congo (Democratic Republic of the)
177. Burkina Faso
178. Mali
179. Central African Republic
180. Sierra Leone
181. Afghanistan
182. Niger

Mercy Ships 2009: Benin - 161

Mercy Ships 2010: Togo - 159

Mercy Ships 2011: DR Congo - 176

(or) Angola - 143

(or) Ivory Coast - 163

(The three countries listed for 2011 all being rumors... nothing is set in stone for 2011 as of yet.)

Just one more reason to be here, doing what we're doing, living the dream.

Human Development Reports. (2009, Oct 23). Human Development Report 2009, Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development. Statistics of the Human Development Report. Retrieved from http://www.hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/

There's No Where Else I'd Rather Be

2009-10-21T08:22:00.002-05:00

I was born on Friday, October 21st, 1983 at Blessing Hospital in Quincy, Illinois (with a life expectancy of 74.6 years) under the President of Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush. I assisted in making the U.S. population 233,791,994 that year, and the World population 4.690 billion. Not only was I born this day, but at the 17th General Conference on Weights and Measures, the metre is defined in terms of the speed of light as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. I know, right!

Some of the hit singles that year include – “Africa” by Toto, “1999” by Prince, “Thriller” by Micheal Jackson, “Cut Like A Knife” by Bryan Adams, “New Year’s Day” by U2, and “Sharp Dressed Man” by ZZ Top. The top 5 movies of 1983 were Return of The Jedi, Terms of Endearment, Flashdance, Trading Places, and War Games.

Price of things in 1983:
Average Cost of new house $82,600.00
Average Income per year $21,070.00
Average Monthly Rent $335.00
Dodge RAM 50 Truck $5665.00
Gallon of Gas $0.81
First Class Stamp $0.20
Dozen Eggs $0.86
Gallon of Milk $2.24

Other highlights of 1983:
Unemployment rose to 12 million, the highest figure since 1941, hurricane Alicia hit the Texas coast killing 22, the U.S Embassy was bombed in Beirut killing 63 people, a 5.2 earthquake hit Central New York, Richard Noble set a new land speed record of 633.468 mph driving Thrust 2 at the Black Rock Desert, Nevada, and Sally Ride became the first American woman in space on the Space Shuttle Challenger.

The Super Bowl was Washington vs Miami (27-17), World Series was Baltimore vs Philadelphia Phillies (4-1), NBA Championship: Philadelphia 76ers vs LA Lakers (4-0), Stanley Cup: NY Islanders vs Edmonton (4-0), Wimbledon Women: Martina Navratilova vs A. Jaeger (6-0 6-3), Wimbledon Men: John McEnroe vs C. Lewis (6-2 6-2 6-2), Kentucky Derby Champion: Sunny's Halo, NCAA Basketball Championship: N.C. State vs Houston (54-52), NCAA Football Champions: Miami-FL (11-1-0)

Crack cocaine was developed in the Bahamas, and soon appeared in the United States. The FCC authorized Motorola to begin testing cellular phone service in Chicago. The El Niño phenomenon disrupted global weather patterns. Henry Taube showed research on how electrons transfer between molecules in chemical reactions. Subrahmanyam Chandrasekhar and William A. Fowler showed complementary research on processes involved in the evolution of stars. Barbara McClintock discovered mobile genes in the chromosomes of a plant that change the future generations of plants they produce.

All of this, the day and the year I was born. In my 26 years, what have I learned? After careful consideration, immense sleepless nights, here’s what I’ve decided…. There’s no such thing as a “grown-up”. We move on, we move out, we move away from our families… and form our own. But the basic insecurities, the basic fears – all those old wounds, they just grow up with us. We get bigger, we get taller, we get older, but for the most part – we’re still a bunch of kids, running around the playground – trying to fit in. I’ve heard that its possible to grow up, I’ve just never met anyone who’s actually done it. Without parents to defy, we break the rules we make for ourselves. We throw tantrums when things don’t go our way. We whisper secrets with our best friends in the dark. We look for comfort where we can find it. And we hope – against all logic, against all experience. Like children, we never give up hope.

Hope for a great year, because right now, there's no where else I'd rather be than celebrating my 26th birthday.... on a ship.... in Africa.

To Be Someone Tomorrow

2009-10-12T15:01:00.008-05:00

Janviera can recount the afternoon with precision – it was a Thursday, the 23rd of October, 2008. She recalls how her children came home from school a little late, how they sat by lamplight with their tutor, and how the kerosene ran out.

Carole, the only girl in a family of five children, was always by her mother’s side. She helped take care of the other four children and helped clean the house. When Janviera needed things from the market, Carole would go and buy them. She helped cook – even the very difficult local cuisine, fufu. She helped with everything.

So that evening, as usual, Carole helped by refilling the lamp. She began to pour the kerosene, which they later guessed had been mixed with gasoline. Because Carole could not see very well, she called to her mother, and Janviera took over. Suddenly, the lamp exploded, and everything went black.

“I woke up on the other side of the room,” Janviera says. “I looked down and saw my arm was burned. Then I looked across the room and saw Carole. She was unconscious, and her school dress was still burning.”

She grabbed a blanket, threw it across Carole’s body, and immediately rushed her daughter to the hospital. Pictures taken there show Janviera disheveled and tired, holding her arm out stiffly. And they show Carole – lying on her back, her face swollen and blackened, her body covered in bandages and talcum powder.

“As a mother, I had to put my own pain aside,” Janviera recalls, glancing at the mottled scars on her left arm and hand. “I could only think about Carole. I was always crying, constantly asking God to save my daughter.”

It was three weeks before Carole was able to eat any food. Her mouth and eyes had been burned shut. Each day she received dressing changes, removing dead skin and applying ointment to the wounds. She was in extreme pain. Sometimes Carole’s wounds would stick to the sheets of her bed, and they would have to soak her in water and separate her from the fabric – agonizing bit by bit.

“We spent so much money for the treatment,” Janviera said. After three months of treatment, Carole’s arm was frozen, unable to extend past a right angle, with her palm turned out like a question mark. Her right cheek and arm, as well as her side, stomach, and chest were covered with raised scars of shiny, inflexible skin.

At school, her burns became an opportunity for cruelty. “If Carole did something that one of the kids didn’t like, they would say, ‘You have a burned face. You have a burned body.’” At home, she could no longer help her mother around the house because of her contracted arm.

Janviera heard about Mercy Ships through a radio advertisement, and she brought Carole to Cotonou for an operation onboard the Africa Mercy. The surgical team released contracted scar tissue and placed skin grafts at her elbow and wrist.

Kim Shankland, an occupational therapist from South Africa, worked with Carole after the surgery to help improve the range of motion in her arm and wrist. Kim says that without surgery, Carole would have struggled her whole life with basic self-care – “just eating, braiding her hair, brushing her teeth, and dressing would have been a huge problem.”

Later in life, she would have faced obstacles in supporting herself. Common jobs, like selling yams and tomatoes at the market or pursuing a trade like sewing, would have been impossible. She would have been forever dependent on family or a husband.

“As a mother, knowing what sort of difficulties your child would have – not being able to do the things you do – must be quite frustrating,” Kim says. She believes this has spurred Janviera in making sure Carole uses her injured arm and performs the rehab exercises. Janviera’s encouragement and insistence has been a major part of Carole’s successful recovery.

“I hope that she can be my helper again,” Janviera says. “But what I want most is for her to be able to use her hand, to write, to be someone tomorrow.”

While In Benin, Togo Smiles

2009-10-07T02:29:00.004-05:00

The Mercy Ships Dental Team recently travelled to Lokossa, Benin, in order to run a two-day dental clinic at a nearby refugee camp. The camp of Agame was formed in 2005 to accommodate Togolese refugees who fled neighboring Togo shortly after violence erupted during elections.

Agame became home to more than 12,000 refugees, most of whom had lost all their possessions in fleeing the escalating hostility. The population has since decreased to around 3,000, with many of the refugees either resettling in Benin or returning to Togo.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has had a prominent presence within Agame since 2005, helping with the provision of shelter, basic health, water, and sanitation, as well as facilitating the establishment of a refugee-led council to manage social issues.

Though the camp has become self-sufficient in the past four years and no longer requires aid, several organizations still assist where they can. Mercy Ships was requested by the UNHCR to visit Agame and address the need for dental care.

Jessica Campbell, Dental Team Coordinator, and her team of 22 happily agreed to travel the three-hour journey from the port of Cotonou to the camp of Agame. “We performed only extractions and saw every person that requested treatment, which was around 160 people,” she said. “Some required the extraction of frontal teeth. With the assistance of the UNHCR, they will be brought to the Africa Mercy within the coming weeks to receive dentures.”

Cooperation between Mr. Ebri Koku, Health Administrator for Agame, Mrs. Florence Fassassi, UNHCR Facilitator for Benin, and Mr. Nicaisse Satoguina, Camp Manager and Benin Government Representative, ensured that the Mercy Ships Dental Team was provided with accommodation, food, and a suitable area of operation, as well as organizing the names of refugees that required treatment.

“Everything at the camp was very organized. We had no problems,” said Campbell. “The whole team loved the experience. It was great to get back to the basics of dentistry without all the fancy equipment and to help people who are in serious need and have no other means of help,” she added.

Belinda, a refugee who fled Togo with her husband and four children, was one of many patients who had their lives improved by the free service provided by Mercy Ships. Suffering from a severe cavity in one of her molars, Belinda required a tooth extraction. “It was not too painful when they took it out, but I feel free now,” she explained. “I can laugh again. I feel free.”

Mr. Koku expressed his gratitude for the work done by the Mercy Ships Dental Team: “Since Mercy Ships has come, we have been made aware of the need for oral hygiene in our community. We are very happy about the treatment we have received. We want to thank Mercy Ships for all the work they have done here in Agame.”

This brief partnership between Mercy Ships and the UNHCR has provided 160 struggling refugees with relief from toothache and has educated hundreds more on the importance of oral hygiene. With the 2010 Field Service planned for Togo, Mercy Ships hopes to continue bringing hope and healing to the Togolese people and their country, and indeed all of West Africa.

I Want Nothing More Than To Be In Your Shoes

2009-10-04T07:26:00.005-05:00

"I turn 26 in three weeks... which really isn't a big deal... but then I realized that I'm definitely on my way to 30... and that scares me. I mean... I don't have a life. I'm single, homeless.... don't really have alot going for me (other than I'm debt free!)".

I was quoted saying this in a recent e-mail to a friend. I say this because... well, the dream is this: that we will finally be happy when we reach our goals. Find a guy, have a good job… that’s the dream. My goal has always been Africa, but its funny how much that loses meaning once reached.

He then responded by saying, "I'm sorry to hear you're feeling so unsettled. I've been thinking about your e-mail since I read it a couple of days ago, marveling at how little we appreciate what we have. I've got everything you say you want-I'm in a relationship, with a house--and I want nothing more than to be in your shoes."

Then, when we finally reach our dream, and if we’re human… we immediately start dreaming of something else. Because, if this is the dream… then we would like to wake up… NOW, PLEASE!

At some point, maybe we acknowledge that the dream has become a nightmare. We convince ourselves that reality is better. We persuade ourselves that its better that we never dream at all.

But the strongest of us, the most unwavering of us… we cling on to the dream... or we find ourselves with an unmarked dream that we in no way considered. We awake to find ourselves against all odds – feeling hopeful. And if we’re lucky, we realize – in the face of everything, in the face of life, the true dream is being able to dream at all.

My dream, my instilled desire to be here... its been renewed. Sometimes, sharing dreams... sharing struggles... sharing feelings... it can change everything.

You Can't Script October

2009-10-01T08:12:00.003-05:00

My college campus has a magic statue, it’s a long standing tradition for students to rub its nose for good luck. My friend really believed in the statue’s power and insisted on visiting it before every exam. Studying, might have been a better idea – she flunked out her sophomore year.

But the fact is, we all have little superstitious things we do. If its not believing in magic statues, its avoiding sidewalk cracks or always putting our left shoe on first.

Knock on wood

Step on a crack-break your mother’s back.

The last thing we want to do – is offend "the gods".

Superstition lies in the space between what we can control, and what we can’t.

Find a penny, pick it up, and all day long you’ll have good luck. No one wants to pass up a good chance for good luck, but is anyone listening?

And if no one is listening, why do we bother to do those strange things at all?

We rely on superstition because we are smart enough to know that we don’t have all the answers… and that life works in mysterious ways.

October is, by far, my favorite month... for countless reasons really, but mainly because all the things that I love about the month are unpredictable.

I enjoy the arbitrariness of the weather that comes with the season of fall: the warm days, crisp nights. I love Love LOVE Halloween!, and we all know how erratic that can be...

When in America, I frequent The Apple Barn where you can find unsurpassed apple cider, caramel dipped apples, pumpkins, and all the finest Halloween decorations.

And most of all - The World Series. There is nothing more fickle than The World Series... and as the saying goes, "You can't script October!"

He Holds His Head Higher

2009-09-28T07:43:00.003-05:00

Three years ago, Veronique went to visit her older brother in Abomey, the ancient capital of Benin. While she was there, she noticed her nephew Odilon had a swollen area on his jaw. Veronique asked Odilon’s parents if there was a problem with his tooth.

The mother answered, “No, Odilon has no pain.” Veronique had no way of knowing that a small cyst, easily removed in a place with adequate medical care, would overtake both his mouth and his life. So, she returned to Cotonou and her family without giving it much more thought.

Veronique returned to Abomey two years later, and when she saw how much the tumor had grown, she was stunned. She asked Odilon’s mother, “Why haven’t you done something about your son’s problem?” His mother replied, “We have taken him many places, but no one can do it.”

Ten-year-old Odilon suffered intensely from the swelling mass on his jaw. The family visited doctors who said they couldn’t help and traditional healers who prescribed herbal drinks. Sometimes it was difficult for him to eat, and he often would spit up blood.

“He was a strong boy,” his grandmother says. “But the tumor made him weak and small.”

Physically he deteriorated, and he also became withdrawn and shy. He was quiet, unsmiling, and reluctant to answer questions. He was ridiculed by others for the softball-sized tumor that pushed at his cheek, absorbed his jaw and teeth, and kept growing as weeks and months passed.

“I was ashamed when I had the tumor,” Odilon says. “Children at school used to insult me. I did not know why I had this tumor, and I wondered where it came from.” The family suffered, too. People accused the father of doing nothing to help his son and of neglecting his child.

Back in Cotonou, his Aunt Veronique heard of a Mercy Ship on its way to Benin that could help Odilon. She called and told the family, and in February, Odilon and his grandmother traveled the five hours from their village to Cotonou. There he received an appointment for a free operation with Dr. Gary Parker, who has worked with Mercy Ships for 23 years removing tumors just like Odilon’s.

“Because of the tumor, he stayed in the house,” his grandmother says, “but he would cry that he wanted to go back to school. If he is healed, he can go to school, and then, by the grace of God, he will be someone in the future.”

Odilon’s feelings about being healed were more basic, immediate, and fitting for a ten-year old who has suffered physical pain and emotional isolation. He declared, “After the surgery, I will feel better, and people will not laugh at me again.”

In March, Odilon received his first operation to remove the tumor. Then a second surgery followed, in which Dr. Parker fashioned a new jaw for him using a titanium plate and pieces of Odilon’s rib. A small scar cuts across his chin, but the tumor is gone, and Odilon smiles readily. He holds his head higher, and he’s excited for the future.

“I am fine!” Odilon says, “…and when I see my face, it is good!”

Now Odilon would like to go back to school and become a doctor. “There are so many different diseases,” Odilon says, “and I will be able to help people feel better.”

“No one believed that he could have an operation that would work. No one else believed, because the surgery was too hard,” Veronique explains. “It’s been really a wonderful thing for the surgeons to do for Odilon, for all of us.”

Do You Know How Long A Year Is?

2009-09-22T03:20:00.001-05:00

To make it, really make it as a medical missionary, it takes major commitment. You have to be willing to give surgery to a patient that may or may not do more damage than good.

Its all about being committed… because if we’re not… we have no business picking up that patient in the first place.

There are times when even the best of us have trouble with commitment.

Sometimes, we may be surprised by the commitments we are willing to let slip out of our grasps. Because, well… commitments are complicated.

I’ve learned that, as a medical missionary, the days are far too rigid, far too demanding, far too exhausting, far too taxing to not commence and conclude the day with God.

You think you have it all figured out, you know? That leaving everything behind to serve your God and show others His love by your daily example… well, that it will in return, cause you to be more like Him.

But here’s the catch – after nearly 10 months away from home and serving in the mission field, I’ve been brought close to God, pushed Him away, been forced to be like Him, and now – I desire Him.

We may also surprise ourselves by the commitments we are willing to make.

True commitment takes effort and sacrifice. Which is why sometimes… we have to learn the hard way to choose our commitments very carefully.

And this commitment, by far, has been the journey of God and I’s life!

Ummm, Can I Get A Speech Consult....

2009-09-14T12:20:00.005-05:00

“Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

The ability to communicate is powerful, allowing us to share ideas and engage in relationships. There are many mediums through which we communicate, including imagery, touch, and the written word. But our most frequent, and arguably most powerful, channel of communication is speech. Speech allows us to quickly articulate emotions, opinions, and thoughts. It’s a powerful ability.

Some patients onboard the Africa Mercy are discovering this power for the first time. Maxillofacial operations are an integral part of the surgical schedule during Mercy Ships 2009 Field Service in Benin. Many maxillofacial patients, particularly those with cleft lips/palates, have spent their lives communicating with impeded speech. Facial malformations of the oral and nasal passages, in conjunction with weakened lip muscles, make it impossible to articulate normal sounds. Impediments can range in severity from difficulty producing a few sounds to a complete inability to form understandable words.

Living with a speech impediment is embarrassing and frustrating. Often children are not sent to school because they can’t properly communicate. This lack of education stagnates their mental and relational development, causing problems that will follow them into their adult years. Restoring speech to a child can spare him or her from a lifetime of anguish.

Surgically correcting the facial anatomy is the first step to restoring speech. However, even after the facial anatomy is corrected, many still have difficulties speaking. Post-operative speech therapy is needed to retrain the mouth and throat to correctly form sounds.

“Even though the surgery is complete and successful, and they look more normal, it’s the therapy that’s going to make them sound better,” said speech therapist Sally Peet. “Just because the anatomy is corrected doesn’t mean they are able to use it to speak properly. Therapy is a huge part of making the surgery a success.”

Sally Peet of the United Kingdom has been a licensed speech therapist since 1994. Since 2004, she and her family have served with Mercy Ships. Currently, she provides speech therapy for patients onboard the Africa Mercy.

Peet described her work: “I work with the maxillofacial patients, mainly the cleft lips and the cleft palates. However, any surgery that’s interrupted the facial muscles may have a need for therapy. For example, when a patient has a large facial tumor removed, their skin and lips become flaccid, affecting their speech and their ability to control saliva. I work with them, as well as the cleft lip patients, to make sure their lips are strong.”

Patients with speech difficulties are referred to Peet post-operatively by the Africa Mercy nursing staff. She works individually with each patient, evaluating their needs and providing exercises to strengthen weakened muscles. Also, she encourages the proper usage of restored facial anatomy. “Many patients have found a way of ineffectively talking around huge malformations and have spoken incorrectly for years. The initial goal is to ensure the anatomy where the surgery has taken place will now be functional,” said Peet.

Peet works with patients throughout their time on the ward. When they leave the hospital, they come back to the Africa Mercy for outpatient appointments – sometimes for several months after their surgery. “I can achieve more with the ones who live closer, because I can see them for a longer period of time,” said Peet.

Peet describes a memorable patient she worked with for over three months during the 2008 Field Service in Liberia: “There was a beautiful little girl with a cleft lip and palate. She spoke without using any constants sounds, and you could not understand her when she talked. She and her mom worked incredibly hard in therapy. By the time we finished, she was totally intelligible and making every sound correctly. Her mother said all her aunties in her village were dancing because now, not only does she look beautiful, she sounds beautiful.”

Providing speech therapy is just one example of Mercy Ships commitment to holistic care for patients through the partnership of various professional skills. Sally Peet is thrilled to be partnering with the Africa Mercy’s surgical and nursing staff to provide hope and healing to the world’s forgotten poor. “I love providing speech therapy. It’s great to be working in my profession onboard the Africa Mercy,” she concluded.

A Medical Twist On Reflection Of 9/11

2009-09-11T04:21:00.002-05:00

As medical professionals, patients are always telling us how they would do our jobs.

"Just stitch me up, slap a band-aid on it, and send me home."

Its easy to suggest a quick solution when you don’t know much about the problem, when you don’t understand the underlying cause, or just how deep the wound really is.

The first step toward a real cure is to know exactly what the disease is to begin with… but that’s not what people want to hear.

We are supposed to forget the past that landed us here, ignore the future complications that might arise, and go for the quick fix.

As medical professionals, as friends, as human beings, we all try to do the best we can.

But the world is full of unexpected twist and turns.

And just when you’re gotten the lay of the land – the world shifts, and knocks you off your feet. If you’re lucky, you end up with nothing more than a flesh wound – something a band-aid will cover.

But, some wounds are deeper than they first appear, and require more than just a quick fix. With some wounds, you have to rip off the band-aid, let them breathe, and give them time to heal.

Fate In Your Own Hands

2009-09-07T17:53:00.002-05:00

In the eighth grade, my class had to read Romeo and Juliet. Then, for extra credit, we had to act out all the parts. As fate would have it, I was Juliet.

I tried to tell my teacher that Juliet was an idiot. For starters, she falls for the one guy she can’t have, then, she blames fate for her own bad decision. It was explained to me that when fate comes into play, choice sometimes goes out the window.

At the ripe old age of 13, I was very clear that love, like life, was about making choices, and fate has nothing to do with it.

Everyone thinks its so romantic: Romeo and Juliet: true love… but my thought is - how sad.

If she was stupid enough to fall for the enemy, drink a bottle of poison, and fall asleep in a mausoleum. She deserved what she got. But maybe Romeo and Juliet were fated to be together, but just for awhile… and then their time passed.

If they could have known that before hand, maybe it all would have been okay. I told my teacher that when I grew up, I would take fate into my own hands, I wouldn’t let some guy drag me down.

My teacher said that I would be lucky if I ever had that kind of passion with someone, and if I did – we would be together forever. Even now, I believe, that for the most part, love is about choices. Its about putting down the poison, and the dagger, and making your own happy ending… most of the time.

But sometimes, despite all your best choices, and all your best intentions, fate wins anyway.

Negative Content

2009-09-05T04:52:00.004-05:00

After my recent post of "Life Is A Sport", I received many emails questioning whether or not I was "ok"... which is why that post was followed (hours later) by "A Man Rejuvenated".

Human beings require a lot of things to feel alive: family, love, sex… but we only need one thing to actually be alive: we need a beating heart. When our heart is endangered, we respond in one of two ways: we either run, or we attack. There’s a scientific term for this: fight or flight. Its instinct. We can’t control it.

At any given moment, the brain has 14 billion neurons firing at a speed of 450 mph. We don’t have control over most of them: when we get a chill - goosebumps, when we get excited - adrenaline. The body naturally follows its impulses, which I think is part of what makes it so hard to follow ours. Of course, sometimes, we have impulses we would rather not follow.

The body is a slave to its impulses, but the thing that makes us human is what we can control. After the storm, after the rush, after the heat of the moment has passed, we can cool off and clean up the messes we’ve made.

We can try to let go of what was.

So, this is my request for forgiveness for having articulated my thoughts in what was taken to be a negative way. I was not trying to be negative; I was trying to be real. That's what this blog is about - its an update on me in Africa. I never said it would always be happy and nice... but I can tell you that it is real.

I did, however collect one email of support about the "negative content" post, from a dear friend, Rich. He said,

"I think you are allowed some "negative content" and you certainly did not offend me! After catching up on your blogs, I can assure you that as I head out at 5:00pm, knowing I will be home in 10 minutes, that I will NOT be thinking about how "difficult" my day has been. Instead, thanks to you, I will take a few minutes to give thanks for ALL of the little things I try not to take for granted (but do anyway) everyday and say a prayer for those that are much less fortunate.

I always enjoy reading your blogs and I am still amazed at what you and the crew of the Mercy Ship have given up to help people that think they have absolutely no hope. The number of lives you guys touch every day is mind boggling. Thanks so much for caring enough to share the good and the difficult with us. I will certainly continue to read your blogs and pray for your continued strength and well being!

Take care and know that you are making a world of difference to many even if there is some "negative content" every once in a while!"

So here we go another time... the good, the bad, and the ugly: all found at Life With A Mission.

A Man Rejuvenated

2009-09-04T05:22:00.006-05:00

Nearly ten years ago, Emmanuel, a Nigerian-born father of two, went to a hospital with severe pain in his lower left molars. A tooth was removed, but the pain persisted. A check-up revealed no visible problems. After a brief teeth-cleaning and some pain medication, Emmanuel was sent home.

Then, in 2004, Emmanuel returned to the hospital. Constant pain and a noticeable swelling of his jaw were strong indications that more than just a tooth cavity was to blame. A surgeon attempted an exploratory operation to discover the cause; however, no abnormalities were found. A bewildered Emmanuel returned home to explain the confusing situation to his concerned wife.

Four years later, it was obvious that Emmanuel had a growth in his jaw. The severe protrusion on the side of his face made it difficult for him to get regular work as a mechanic. “People do not want to hire a man that looks sick,” he said. The tumor caused him to flinch with pain whenever he exerted himself. The once active man now found himself on the couch of his living room most days. He sadly said, “I used to like playing soccer. I liked to work in the gym and build my muscles. But when the sickness started, I lost my happiness and my strength. I did not even want to watch soccer on the TV. Now my arms are thin, and my legs are weak.”

Emmanuel had a friend with a vague medical background who came to him and convincingly offered to perform surgery to remove the growth. Desperate for relief, Emmanuel agreed to the risky attempt.

Unfortunately, the friend was not able to remove any of the tumor and caused more damage by aggravating the growth and leaving Emmanuel with a mass of scar tissue on his jaw line. Emmanuel’s condition worsened, and his hope and happiness were further diminished.

Though he was fortunate enough to have some financial support from his parents and his wife’s hairdressing business, Emmanuel still tried to make some money to feed his children. He regularly travelled to Cotonou, Benin, to buy goods with the intention of selling them at a profit in Nigeria.

While walking through the market one day, he had a strange feeling that someone was following him. He noticed a woman who kept looking at him with a concerned look. Eventually he confronted her. She spoke in French. The English-speaking Emmanuel did not understand. “I had a feeling that she was trying to tell me something important. She kept pointing to my tumor,” he said. Emmanuel shouted out for someone to translate for him. A young girl came along and began explaining what the woman was saying.

The woman’s name was Veronique, and her younger brother Odilon once had a growth in the same place as Emmanuel’s tumor. Thanks to an organization called Mercy Ships, Odilon received a free surgery that had removed the tumor. She explained that the ship was docked in the port, not far from where they were. She said that the people on board would be able to fix Emmanuel, give him food, and not even ask for money. “When I heard these things, I was very happy,” Emmanuel said. “My heart was beating fast. I prayed to God, ‘If this is possible, then let it happen.’”

Veronique could certainly relate to the turmoil Emmanuel was experiencing after seeing her own brother suffer with the same condition for years. She proceeded to leave her selling goods with another vendor and told Emmanuel to follow her to the ship.

Emmanuel arrived at the ship, baffled by this sudden answer to prayer. “When I walked on board, it seemed like everyone was happy to see a patient like me,” he recalled. “They took some tests and told me to return in a few weeks for my operation. But then I was scared that the ship was going to leave.”

However, when Emmanuel returned for his surgery, the Africa Mercy was still there, and he was admitted to the on board hospital. The following day, he underwent an eight-hour surgery to remove the growth from his jaw. “When I woke up, they told me how long it took. I was glad when I heard this because it made me realize that they took care to do a good job.”

Due to the work done to his jaw, Emmanuel was unable to chew. To avoid the risk of infection, a feeding tube going directly to his stomach was inserted into his nose. But despite the discomfort, Emmanuel’s spirits were uplifted, and he spoke like a man rejuvenated. “Now that the tumor is gone, I have my happiness again. Praise God!” he exclaimed. “Before, I felt separated from people, but now I see myself as a normal somebody. I phoned my wife and my parents and told them about my operation. They shouted through the telephone, ‘Praise God!’ They were very happy to hear the news.”

For the first time in nearly a decade, Emmanuel is feeling positive about the future. “When I go back to Nigeria, I am planning a lot of what to do because I am a new man now. I believe in God. He knows my heart and what I think, and He knows what is good for me so that my heart is filled with joy,” concluded Emmanuel.

The mercy shown by Veronique in the market and the free surgery provided by Mercy Ships have completely transformed Emmanuel’s life. He is now a walking testimony of the hope and healing Mercy Ships endeavors to bring.

Life Is A Sport

2009-09-03T13:10:00.002-05:00

I played a few sports in college: track and field, did some cheerleading… but for this example… let’s go with football. Let’s say you were drafted to a team that wasn’t your first pick: you don’t like the players, you despise the way they play the game, you even think the quarterback is full of crap, that the quarterback is a pain in the ass that you don’t owe a damn thing to.

But, its your team… you don’t quit.

You don’t talk to the press, you don’t bitch to the coach, you just go out there every Sunday and you make the blocks, and you take the hits, and you play to win.

You show up

You suit up

And you play

...because its your freaking team.

I've been in a place lately where I feel like I can't breathe... and no, I don't have a cold, nor do I need any Afrin.

It's just a place... a place that we all fall into from time to time... a place where everyday is the same... and your life (even though it is in Africa) feels – well… redundant, tedious, uninteresting, droning.

A good basketball game can have us all on the edge of our seats. Games are all about the glory, the pain, and the play by play.

And then, there are the solitary games, the games we play all by ourselves. The social games... the mind games. We use them to pass the time, to make life more interesting, to distract us from what’s really going on.

There are those of us who love to play games, any game.

And there are those of us who love it… a little too much. Life is not a spectator sport. Win, lose, or draw – the game is in progress, whether we want it to be of not.

So go ahead: argue with the refs, change the rules, cheat a little, take a break, and tend to your wounds.

But play, play hard, play fast, play loose and free. Play as if there’s no tomorrow.

And speaking of tomorrow... tomorrow, I'm going to start to breathe again.

Lines In The Sand

2009-08-30T12:43:00.001-05:00

I live out my life on a surgical ship. Seven days a week, 24 hours a day… I am together with these people more than we’re apart. After a while, the ways of living on a ship become the ways of life.

A few rules I’ve learned:

#1 - always keep score

#2 - do what you can to out smart the other guy

#3 - don’t make friends with the enemy

#4 - everything, EVERYTHING is a competition.

But, there’s another way to survive this life, a way that no one seems to tell you about… one you have to learn for yourself.

#5 – its not about the competition (at all!) There are no winners or losers. Victories are counted by the number of lives saved.

And once in a while… if you’re smart… the life you save… could be your own.

Its all about lines: the finish line at the end of the race, waiting in line for a chance to prove you know what you’re doing, and then… there is the most important line: the line that separates you from the people you work with.

It doesn’t help to get too familiar, to make friends. You need boundaries between you and the rest of the world.

Other people are far too messy.

Its all about lines. Drawing lines in the sand and praying like hell that no one crosses them.

But at some point, you have to make a decision. Boundaries don’t keep other people out, they fence you in. Life is messy – that’s how we’re made.

So, you can waste your life drawing lines… or, you can live your life – crossing them.

But here’s what I know: if you’re willing to take the chance to let others cross your boundaries… the view from the other side is spectacular.

Worst Case Scenario

2009-08-26T16:46:00.004-05:00

As medical professionals, we live in a world of worst case scenarios. We cut ourselves off from ever hoping for the best – because too many times, the best doesn’t happen.

But, something extraordinary occurs, and suddenly, best case scenarios seem possible. And every now and then, something amazing happens, and against our better judgment – we start to have hope.

As medical professionals, we are trained to give our patients just the facts. But what our patients really want to know is… will the pain ever go away… will I feel better… am I cured? What our patients really want to know is: is there hope?

But, inevitably, you find yourself in the worst case scenario… when the patient’s body has betrayed them, and all the science we have to offer has failed them. When the worst case scenario comes true: clinging to hope is all we’ve got left.

Don't get me wrong... there ARE medical miracles.

Being “worshippers at the alter of science”(as some might call us); we don’t like to believe that miracles exist, but they do.

Things happen.

We can’t explain them.

We can’t control them.

But they do happen.

Miracles do happen in medicine. They occur everyday… just, not when we need them to happen.

At the end of the day: when so many prayers are answered… and so many aren’t... we take our miracles where we can find them.

We reach across the gap, and sometimes… against all odds… against all logic… we touch.

I See A World In Need Of A Savior

2009-08-23T09:52:00.002-05:00

The last three months have been predominantly hard here in Africa. Without going into much detail… lets just say Satan has been aggressive from all achievable angles, and with immense force. God and I had been in… well, not a good place starting May 15th.

June, unhurriedly, was slightly improved, but not with God and I… just, life in general.

July utterly flew by with little to no God to speak of... and now its August.

23rd to be exact.

And I’m happy to say that God and I have had a hell of a week together. As earlier stated – I don’t want to give away too much of my story, but… you have nothing to worry about. I’m not unaccompanied. You see, that’s one of the things that has made these last three months manageable. I am persistently… relentlessly (and I use those words with great love) enclosed with a great, and enormous support system. I have the best of friends here who tell me that they love me… almost everyday. We share in laughs, embrace during tears, remain strong when others aren’t, and lean on them when we are weak.

The other thing that has been a complete life-line these last three months has been a song that Neal Woollard and his worship band had written. Its not a new song… but its not world famous (yet) either, so you may not know it… but the lyrics… the lyrics have allowed me to realize why I’m here.

Fill my eyes with all that You see
Let my heart feel what You feel
Fill my mind with Your compassion
Burden me with what burdens You
We seek Your heart, seek Your will, we will follow
Let my feet move where You need them
Let my words speak how You’d speak them
Let my life say, “I’ll follow you”
Let me love like You do
We seek Your heart, seek Your will, we will follow
I see a world in need of a savior
A light to the dark, Your shining glory
I won’t wait anymore
I hear you call me to something more
I will go, I will speak
Of Your name, of Your glory
I will go
And we, the church will rise
Like a sun, hope for the world
Your bride, spotless and pure
Beautiful, marvelous
And we will be Your hands, Your feet
Your love, Your hope to everyone

~ Need Of A Savior, written by Neal Woollard and The Crossing

Press Release From Norway

2009-08-20T09:06:00.003-05:00

Stavanger Norway, August 12, 2009 --- Mercy Ships Norway has announced that Kristiansaand’s Start players in the Premier League game against Fredrikstad this coming Sunday will be wearing the charity’s logo on their jerseys. The goal is to promote the charity in Norway and the promotion is donated free of charge.

This special arrangement is due to a collaboration between Mercy Ships, IK Start, and the soccer team’s main national bank sponsor, Sparebanken Sør. Board chairman for Mercy Ships Norge, Erling Natvig, is very pleased with the opportunity. In his opinion this is important in the organization’s work to help even more people.

“We are thankful that IK Start and Sparebanken Sør wish to do this for us. Having Mercy Ships promoted in this manner is very valuable. We wish to help the poorest of the poor, but to do so, we need to be better known in Norway,” said Natvig.

“Our humanitarian efforts are primarily directed to local and regional activities. However, as a central bank in connection with the annual TV fund raising action, we have also contributed beyond our national borders for many years,” says Gry Moen, Marketing Director for Sparebanken Sør, whose logo normally decorates the Start jersey.

“When local enthusiasts in Mercy Ships asked to borrow our advertising spot on the Start uniform for a game, it was easy for us to say yes. We know that Mercy Ships gives many people new opportunities for a better life. In addition, we are impressed by the volunteer effort and enthusiasm of the individuals who operate these hospital ships. We cheer on Start and Mercy Ships and wish them the best of luck in their future work,” she stated.

IK Start channels its community service through its daughter company Start Life Support AS, and supports projects both nationally and internationally.

“Start Life Support is Start Football’s community service program, and has a goal of helping those less fortunate locally, nationally, and internationally. We already have many ongoing projects, but when the request from Mercy Ships came, we thought the dedication and work was so exciting, that it was not difficult for us to promote the project. Mercy Ships efforts on behalf of the poor is unique, and for us to have the opportunity to use our own stadium to tell about this wonderful work feels very right” said Director Helge Josdal, Start Life Support AS.

Mercy Ships is an international Christian charity which utilizes hospital ships to bring medical aid to some of the world’s poorest countries. In recent years, the organization has concentrated its work in West Africa, giving free aid to the people of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Benin Togo and Ghana. The organization has the world’s largest privately owned hospital ship, Africa Mercy, and helps thousands of people each year.

Sacrifice For The Unexpected

2009-08-16T18:55:00.003-05:00

The key to being a successful medical professional is what we give up:

sleep

friends

a normal life.

We sacrifice it all for the thrill.

There are days that make the sacrifice seem worth wild. And then, there are the days when everything feels like a sacrifice. And then there are the sacrifices that YOU can’t even figure out why you’re making.

A wise man once said that you can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything for it. What he meant is… nothing comes without a price. So, before you go into battle, you better decide how much you are willing to lose.

Too often, going after what feels good means letting go of what you know is right.

And letting someone in, means abandoning the walls you spent a lifetime building.

Of course, the toughest sacrifices are the ones we don’t see coming. When we don’t have time to come up with a strategy to pick a side, or measure the potential loss – when that happens... when the battle chooses us and not the other way around… that’s when the sacrifice can turn out to be more than we can bear.

No one believes that their life will turn out just kind of ok. We all think we are going to be great, and from the day we decide to be medical professionals – we are filled with expectation.

Expectations of the trails we will blaze, the people we will help, the difference we will make, great expectations of who we will be, where we will go… and then – we get there.

We all think we are going to be great, and we feel a little bit robbed when our expectations aren’t met.

But sometimes our expectations sell us short.

Sometimes, the expected simply pales in comparison to the unexpected. You’ve got to wonder why we cling to our expectations... because the expected is just what keeps us steady, standing, still.

The expected is just the beginning.

The unexpected is what changes our lives.

18 Will Be A Good Year

2009-08-09T12:50:00.008-05:00

Adolescence is often an awkward and self-conscious time. During the transition into adulthood, physical appearance and peer recognition are extremely important. For 17-year-old Gyslain, teenage life was even more complicated due to a massive tumor growing on the side of his neck.

As a baby, Gyslain was quite healthy. But when he was three years old, his mother noticed a faint lump on his neck. His parents initially thought it was the result of a recent vaccination. However, when the lump began to grow, they realized it was something far more serious.

They took him to a local hospital in Benin, West Africa. The doctors were intimidated by the location of the tumor and the complex procedure that would be required to remove it. As a result, Gyslain and his parents were turned away. They tried other hospitals – with the same result. Eventually, they gave up in despair.

It was a very painful time for his mother, Leonie. She desperately wanted to help her son. To make the situation even worse, neighbours and relatives began to say that Gyslain had an evil spirit inside of him. Leonie shared her son’s shame, but her faith kept them both strong. She simply says, “If God gave Gyslain this problem, I trusted that He would take care of the problem. That was all we could do.”

The years passed. The tumor increased – and so did the harshness and humiliation of the taunts and insults Gyslain suffered from his peers. Gyslain wanted to fight back, but a fear of aggravating the tumor restrained him. He also felt vulnerable when exerting himself physically. Carrying heavy loads or even just running around caused Gyslain to feel pressure in his neck. He was scared that the tumor would grow larger or even burst.

Despite all this adversity, Gyslain developed close friendships with three boys his age. On weekends and in their spare time, they would wander the countryside and explore new places. For Gyslain, this acceptance from a few individuals was extremely important to him.

Gyslain also managed to get a job working as a mechanic’s apprentice in a garage. And his job put him in the right place at the right time for an incredible answer to prayer.

On a sweltering, humid day Gyslain’s boss asked him to fetch a broken motorbike. Gyslain set off to meet the man whose vehicle had ceased to function and found him stranded on the pavement of a busy road. When Gyslain introduced himself, the man did not respond. Instead, he stared blatantly at Gyslain’s tumor. Gyslain had dealt with such reactions for 14 years, so he simply continued to work with the bike. He was abruptly stopped when the man grabbed him by the shoulders. Wide-eyed and smiling, the man excitedly told Gyslain about an organization in Cotonou that could heal his tumor for free!

Gyslain had never heard of a Mercy Ship, and thought the man might be crazy. Besides, he could not afford the cost of travelling for eight hours to the port of Cotonou.

Once again, Gyslain took hold of the bike and began pushing it in the direction of the garage. But the man persisted. He offered to drive Gyslain to Cotonou, provided Gyslain could cover at least half the cost of fuel. “Who is this man?” Gyslain asked himself. “And why does he want to help me?”

A few weeks later, Gyslain was standing in a line with hundreds of other people, anxiously waiting to hear whether the doctors of Mercy Ships would be able to help him. The man who had been so eager to help Gyslain was standing beside him. His name was Kahou. Gyslain had eventually realised that Kahou was just a man with a loving heart.

Because of Kahou’s concern and the skillful surgeons onboard the Africa Mercy, Gyslain received a free operation to remove the hindering mass from his neck. Now the tumor – and his shame – are gone! He is a walking testimony to God’s faithfulness. “If you have your trust in God, nothing can destroy you,” Gyslain attested. “A tree can fall if the wind blows, but with trust in God, you will stand strong.”

As Gyslain nears his 18th birthday, he is enthusiastic about the future. “I want to continue training as a mechanic,” he said. “It is a good job, and when I have enough money, I am going to buy some land and build a house.” Gyslain’s newfound confidence and energy are evident in his eyes and in his voice. Thanks to Mercy Ships, his life has been transformed.

Old Wounds

2009-08-07T04:56:00.005-05:00

People have scars in all sorts of unexpected places, like secret road maps of their personal history, diagrams of all their old wounds. Most of our old wounds heal – leaving nothing behind, but a scar… but some of them don’t.

Some wounds, we carry with us everywhere, and though the cut is long gone… the pain still lingers.

So... what’s worse: new wounds, which are so horribly painful or old wounds that should have healed years ago and never did?

Maybe our old wounds teach us something: they remind us where we’ve been and what we’ve overcome. They teach us lessons about what to avoid in the future… that’s what we like to think. But that’s not the way it is, is it? Something we just have to learn over and over and over again.

In life, we are taught that there are seven deadly sins. We all know the big ones: gluttony, pride, lust.

But the sin you don’t hear much about is anger… maybe its because we think anger is not that dangerous, that we can control it. My point is, maybe we don’t give anger enough credit… maybe it can be a lot more dangerous than we think. After all, when it comes to destructive behavior – it did make the top seven.

So, what makes anger different from the six other deadly sins?

Its pretty simple really, you get into a sin like envy or pride – and you only hurt yourself. Try lust or coveting and you’ll only hurt yourself and probably one or two others. But anger, anger is the worst… the “mother” of all sins. Not only can anger drive you over the edge, when it does – you can take an awful lot of people with you.

No Solutions, No Easy Answers

2009-07-29T17:59:00.001-05:00

A couple hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin, shared with the world the secret of his success: “Never leave that until tomorrow” he said, “what you can do today.” This is the man who discovered electricity… you think more of us would listen to what he had to say. I don’t know why we put things off, but if I had to guess – I’d say it has a lot to do with fear.

Fear of failure, fear of pain, fear of rejection. Sometimes, the fear is just of making a decision, because… what if you’re wrong? What if you’re making a mistake you can’t undo?

The early bird catches the worm.

A stitch in time saves nine.

He who hesitates is lost.

We cant pretend we haven’t been told. We’ve all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to “seize the day”.

Still, sometimes, we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today’s possiblities under tomorrow’s rug – until we can’t anymore... until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin meant… that knowing is better than wondering. That waking is better than sleeping. And that even the biggest failure – the worst, most intractable mistake: beats the hell out of never trying.

Two years ago today, my friend Collin drowned in Liberia. It was one of those moments that completely changes you life, makes you think, makes you wonder - am I not invincible? Am I not indestructible?

Through Collin’s death, I have learned a few things.

First, live in the moment – forget what other people think and just live.
Second, take risks (which I understand ties into the first statement, but is also, at the same time – different.) Take risks: its not about the outcome, but more about the experience you gain from it… the friendships… the memories.

Today was hard. Today was full of manic-depressive type swings of emotion. Today was painful. Today was July 29th, 2009.

Pain comes in all forms: the small twinge, the bit of soreness, the random pain, the normal pains we live with everyday.

Then there’s the kind of pain you can’t ignore. A level of pain so great that it blocks out everything else – makes the rest of the world fade away… until all we can think about is how much we hurt.

How we manage our pain is up to us. Pain – we anesthetize, ride it out, embrace it, ignore it… and for some of us – the best way to manage pain is just push through it. Pain – you just have to hope it goes away on its own, hope the wound that caused it-heals.

There are no solutions, no easy answers. You just breathe deep and wait for it to subside. Most of the time, pain can be managed. But sometimes the pain gets you when you least expect it-hits way below the belt, and doesn’t let up. Pain. You just have to fight through it, because the truth: is you can’t outrun it, and life always makes more.

(Still miss you everyday Collin.)

Showing Love And Compassion To The Terminally Ill

2009-07-28T12:22:00.006-05:00

Even though Mercy Ships will provide free life-changing surgeries for thousands of people during this year’s outreach in Benin, there are cases where a person cannot be helped medically by Mercy Ships because of cancer or other terminal illnesses. However, there are still ways that Mercy Ships helps these suffering individuals. The Palliative Care (also known as Hospice in The States) and Outpatient Care project’s primary goal is to show love to those who are terminally ill and have little or no support from their families and community. This is achieved through the hard work of Palliative Care Coordinator June Fontes and her team – including nurse Suzanne Zickell (my roommate) and Tanguy, their translator. During the week, the team visits patients in their homes or in hospitals – talking, reading Scripture, and praying. Sometimes, because of their condition, a patient may require regular wound care to prevent infection.

Adele is one such patient that requires this care. A few years ago, a malignant tumor began to form on the right side of her face. Because of the unattractive appearance of the growth, she was abandoned by her husband. She now lives with and is cared for by her daughter, who has learned to effectively clean and dress the seeping lumps. “When I look at Adele, I am amazed that someone who has something that severe can still be singing God’s praises and laughing,” said June. Principles of basic hygiene, nutrition, pain control, and medication administration are taught to the patients and their closest family member or caregiver. Appropriate pain medication that they cannot afford is provided by Mercy Ships. Though June and her team bring physical relief, the emotional and spiritual healing that takes place is also notable.

“We’ve had numerous examples in this outreach of people telling us that they were initially hiding away, but when we came, we somehow gave them a level of value that they had not had before,” explained June. “We have watched people that were depressed become more joyful.”
Burkitt’s lymphoma is a type of cancer that occurs mainly among young children in equatorial Africa. If diagnosed and treated early on, the cancer can be completely eradicated. Seven-year-old Maurice recently began his first treatment of chemotherapy to combat this disease. June and her team visit Maurice and his mother on a weekly basis. Though he transfers between his aunt’s house and a local hospital in Cotonou to undergo nauseating chemotherapy, he manages to remain joyful, joking and laughing with June, Suzanne and Tanguy as they visit.

“The thing I enjoy most about my job is that we make difficult situations easier for each person we treat,” said June. However, the job is not without its challenges and frustrations. June explained that her team does not always get the cooperation that they would like. “Maurice’s doctor does not share information with us, so it makes things difficult because we feel more could be done if we were kept in the loop.”
When all the signs indicate that a patient is terminal, there is concern for how the patient will cope when Mercy Ships leaves at the end of an outreach. “A month before the departure, we start transitioning the patient and their caregivers” said June. “For example, if we are providing them with supplies that cannot be obtained here, we will start to teach them what other things can be used and where they can be acquired,” she elaborated.
“We also try to find a church where people are willing to come and pray for and read Scripture with the patient. It’s hard to leave, but we’ve never left anyone that wasn’t being transferred to some level of sustainable care,” June concluded.
Working in the field of palliative care, death is always present. It is an area of work that can be emotionally draining and traumatic. In the event of a patient’s passing, June and her team function as a support-base by grieving with the deceased’s family and loved ones and maintaining relationships with them.
The Palliative Care Team has shared God’s model of compassionate care and its importance with over 500 church leaders in Benin. Through the continued efforts of June and her team, Adele, Maurice, and other patients will continue to experience hope in a dignified and comfortable manner.

Ganiyou's Burns Finally Heal

2009-07-21T09:23:00.005-05:00

Though he was born and raised in Benin, 26-year-old Ganiyou traveled to Europe to pursue entrepreneurial interests. Six years later, an established and relatively successful Ganiyou was working as a salesman in an English shoe store. After some time, he decided it was time to return to Benin to visit his mother.

Two weeks after returning, Ganiyou was attending to some much needed maintenance around his mother’s house. After removing a metal obstruction, he accidentally made contact with a high voltage power cable. He was electrocuted and thrown to the ground.

Ganiyou’s mother ran out of the house to find her son unconscious and without breath, burnt black from his face to his belly, some areas bleeding and exposed. A few seconds later he regained consciousness, shouting, “Save me, save me!” before passing out again.

Four days later he was lying in an ICU in Cotonou, facing a dramatic decision. The most brutal burns were to his arms. The doctor told Ganiyou that his left arm would need to be removed because it was completely dead. He refused, saying that he would rather die than have his arm cut off. Ganiyou’s mother managed to convince him to receive the amputation, telling him that she would take care of him for as long as necessary, even if it meant his entire life. Finally he relented. Sadly, four days later he parted with his right arm for the same reasons.

The burns to his chest and abdomen were severe. The pain medication seemed ineffective as his body continually surged with a piercing pain. Dressings and ointment were applied and changed weekly – an unbearably painful process. But after five months of agony, his burns had made almost no improvement, and most of his savings had been consumed by medical bills.

“I regret coming back to Benin,” said Ganiyou. “In the hospital, people were telling me that God had a reason for allowing this to happen. But I could not believe that it was God that would allow something like this.” One night, after nearly a year in hospital, confused and without hope, Ganiyou lay in his hospital bed unable to sleep. Then something on the flickering television screen caught his attention. It was an advertisement for Mercy Ships.

A few days later, Ganiyou found himself at a screening with Mercy Ships plastics specialist, Dr. Tertius Venter of South Africa. Dr. Venter determined that his burns would need to be treated before surgery could be attempted to apply skin grafts. Ganiyou was handed over to the full-time care of the Africa Mercy nursing staff.

A daily routine of dressing changes began. The process of removing old dressings, washing him under a shower, and the application of antibiotic cream and fresh dressings took up to two hours at a time. Though Ganiyou had been through this all before, he was far from used to it. For both him and the nurses, it was a traumatic and emotional experience. As weeks passed, the dressing changes gradually became less painful. Eventually Ganiyou no longer required pain medication. It became evident that his burns were finally healing.

“I am surprised at how quickly I am healing here,” he said. “My chest is almost completely healed. For over a year at the other hospitals it did not heal. They used everything, but here – for some reason – it works. I think it is because I am smiling more and am happy here,” Ganiyou concluded.

After six weeks, Ganiyou was reassessed by Dr. Venter. The prognosis was extremely positive. The burns had healed so well that Ganiyou required no skin graft surgery. Another encouraging outcome was that no contractures had developed – a restrictive tightening of the skin which often occurs as a burn heals.

For an entire year Ganiyou struggled with burns that refused to heal, yet in a matter of weeks onboard the Africa Mercy, he experienced a nearly complete recovery. His life has been changed. “Before I knew about God, but I did not practice my beliefs. I did things to please myself.” But he has since changed his mind and now believes God has a plan for him. “Sometimes bad can be for good. In life, one must accept what happens and keep moving forward because you do not know the future. Only God knows,” Ganiyou said.

Ganiyou’s recovery is a testament to the very love in action that Mercy Ships endeavours to achieve – as demonstrated by the nurses, doctors, and crew onboard the Africa Mercy. His mother has also been a huge support to him, constantly encouraging and helping him to adjust to a new lifestyle.

Though it will take some time for him to adjust to living without arms, he is overjoyed that his damaged skin has finally healed. Mercy Ships is currently helping Ganiyou find some prosthetic arms that will enable him to have some independence again. “I hope that one day I can start doing things normally again,” he said.

Thanks to Mercy Ships, hope and healing have been brought to a man who has experienced tremendous pain and suffering.

Time...

2009-07-11T16:55:00.007-05:00

In the hospital, time loses all meaning.

In the midst of sutures, and saving lives: the clock ceases to matter.

15 minutes…

15 hours…

Inside the hospital, the best medical professionals can make time fly.

Outside the hospital, however, time takes pleasure in kicking our asses. For even the strongest of us: it seems to play tricks – slowing down, hovering, until it freezes, leaving us stuck in a moment unable to move in one direction nor the other.

Today, on the ship, we scheduled a “Blackout Day”. No running water, no toilets, no shower, no washing your hands, no lights…. Nothing! (All of this so that some electrical/engineer problem could be sorted out… don’t ask me for details – I don’t care enough to learn about it.)

In preparation for this day, many crew members had readied plans to be off ship, and I – of course – intended to be at the pool. The blackout was programmed to be from 9am-5pm. (Keep in mind, Mercy Ships is not an business that does things in a timely manor, and if any of you reading this have been involved in any way with this organization – I know you are laughing out loud right now knowing where this “9a-5p” thing is going….)

Anyways, regardless of it being a semi-overcast sky and not one the hottest of days seen here in Benin… the pool was energizing. Had an opportunity to do some chatting online and was capable of downloading some quality music and video from sites blocked via our ship’s internet manager. After having been at the pool all day (which, by the way was only me and one other family from the ship = magnificent), we, as a group, decided to head back to ship about 5:30pm with thoughts that the lights and air conditioning would be back on, and the toilets and showers would be up and running…. Riiiight….WRONG.

After gathering my dinner, in the dark… I wandered about the ship – torch in hand – looking for something to do, someone to hang out with… anything. (Most people were still off ship and in town after arriving back and noticing that the lights and everything else still were not operational.) With nothing to do, I decided to resort back to my old Liberian ways and head out onto the dock.

Megan.

Finally, someone to talk to, to be with, to hang out around. You see, Megan and I both arrived in Liberia on the same flight in 2007. Megan is one of my core people on the ship, one of those people that know exactly where you are and what you’re thinking because they are in the exact same place in their “Mercy Ships Journey” as you are – literally. We climbed up on the wall that separates the safe zone and dry land of the dock from the crashing and roaring waves of the Atlantic Ocean. We sat and chatted for awhile, reminiscing about Liberia and the “Good Ole Days”.

Next thing you know, we are lying on this wall of separation – head to head, laughing – hysterically about Nickelodeon back when it was cool and not all cartoons like it is today. Bringing up fond memories of Family Double Dare, Wild ‘N Crazy Kids, Guts… you name it – it was talked and laughed about. (And yes, the glowing piece of the aggro crag!)

Its remarkable how even in the slowest of times… the times when life slows down, hovers, freezes, and leaves us stuck… in those very same moments – time flies. I’ve not had the amount of fun, nor the laughs that were had tonight since prior to going back to The States in May.

Time waits for no man.

Time heals all wounds.

All any of us wants is more time.

Time to stand up.

Time to grow up.

Time to let go.

No Surprises, Vanishing Acts

2009-07-08T13:25:00.005-05:00

In general, people can be categorized in one of two ways – those who love surprises, and those who don’t.

I… don’t.

I’ve never met a medical professional who enjoys a surprise because as medical professionals – we like to be “in the know”. We have to be “in the know” because when we aren’t: people die and lawsuits happen.

Ok, so, my point actually (and I do have one…) has nothing to do with surprises, death, lawsuits, or even being a medical professional….

My point is this: who ever said, “what you don’t know can’t hurt you”, was a complete and total moron. Because for most people I know: not knowing – is the worst feeling in the world.

As medical professionals, there are so many things we have to know. We have to know that we have what it takes, we have to know how to take care of our patients, and how to take care of each other. Eventually, we have to figure out how to take care of ourselves.

As medical professionals, we have to be in the know, but as human beings – sometimes its better to stay in the dark. Because in the dark-there may be fear, but there is also hope. After 11 years of steering clear of a dentist... I went to the crew dentist today - with Ativan, Paracetamol, and Ibuprofen on board of course.

Four cavities (Gross! I know, right!?!?) One filling today, three more in a month. You see, regardless of the fact that every single time I put anything in my mouth - my teeth would hurt, I had hope that one day... it would go away, resolve itself.

(Outwardly - my teeth look great. Apparently, inwardly... not so much.)

I mean, disappearances happen in science. Disease can suddenly fade away. Tumors go missing. We open someone up to discover that the cancer is gone.

Its unexplained.

Its rare.

But it happens.

We call it misdiagnoses: say “we never saw it in the first place”… any explanation but the truth.

The truth being that life is full of vanishing acts. If something that we didn’t know we had disappears: do we miss it? Disappearances happen, pains go phantom, blood stops running, and people… people, they too fade away.

Freedom From Four Walls

2009-07-04T05:52:00.009-05:00

40 years ago, The Beatles asked a simple question… they wanted to know where all the lonely people came from.

My newest theory on this is that, a great many of the lonely people come from hospitals.

As medical professionals, we disregard our own needs so that we can meet our patient’s needs, we ignore our friends and families so that we can save other people’s friends and families. Which means that, at the end of the day – all we really have is ourselves… and nothing in this world can make you feel more alone than that.

400 years ago, another English guy had an opinion about being alone, John Donne. He thought we were never alone – of course, it was fancier when he said it.

"No man is an island, entire unto himself."

Boil down that island talk, and he just meant is all anyone desires is someone to step in, and let us know we’re not alone.

Someone to play with, or run around with…. Or… just hang out with. At the end of the day, when it comes down to it, all we really want is to be close to somebody.

So, this thing where we all keep our distance, and pretend not to care about each other – its usually a load of bull.

We pick and choose who we want to remain close to. And once we’ve chosen those people, we tend to stick close by… no matter how much we hurt them, no matter how much they hurt us.

The people that are still with you at the end of the day – those are the ones worth keeping.

And sometimes: close is too close, but sometimes – that invasion of personal space: it can be exactly what you need.

Surviving is Denying, Denying: Surviving

2009-06-30T17:32:00.003-05:00

The key to surviving is denial.

I deny that I'm tired, I deny that I'm scared, I deny how badly I want to succeed, and most importantly, I deny that I am in denial. I only see what I want to see, and believe what I want to believe. And it works.

I lie to myself so much that after awhile, the lies start to seem like the truth.

I deny so much that I can’t recognize the truth-right in front of my face.

Sooner or later, I have to put aside my denial and face the world – head on, guns blazing. When they say, “Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt”, they’re right – it’s a freaking ocean!

So, how do I keep from drowning in it?

From Suffering To Joy

2009-06-29T02:58:00.004-05:00

“I was eighteen years old when this happened to me,” Rebecca says. She is speaking in her native dialect in front of dozens of people. She is wearing a new dress to denote her new life as she shares her story of anguish. “I was in labor for five days, and finally I went to the hospital. The baby was dead. And I was wounded in such a way that I thought I would never walk again.”

Rebecca, now 35 years old, traveled from neighboring Togo to the Mercy Ship in Benin. She had shouldered the burden of obstetric fistula for 17 years. This childbirth injury often occurs in areas without adequate obstetric care and leaves the mother incontinent. Frequently, the woman is abandoned by her husband, and having more children becomes difficult or impossible. At first Philip, the baby’s father, did abandon her. For the next few months, Rebecca’s family took care of her. Eventually, Philip returned. “It was God who brought him back,” Rebecca says. Otherwise, she feels she might have been alone forever.

Rebecca and Philip were married and now have five children, but she still carried the shame of her condition and tried to hide it from everyone around her. She did not leave the house, and the only person outside her family who knew of her condition was her neighbor, who saw her washing out soiled clothes and hanging them to dry. “I worried for so long,” Rebecca says. “I was very discouraged, and because I didn’t have enough money, I couldn’t go to the hospital for treatment.”

When Rebecca eventually came to the Mercy Ship, a nurse sat with her and asked her the standard questions to establish her medical history – questions that were painful for Rebecca to answer. How many children have you delivered? How many are still alive? How long ago did the injury occur? Did your husband leave you? As the nurse paused in her questions and put her hand on Rebecca’s knee, Rebecca began to cry.

Then, the night before her surgery, Rebecca lay in her hospital bed and tears formed in her eyes as she remembered the long years of suffering that lay behind her. “I just remembered the past,” Rebecca says. “For seventeen years, I have been like this.” Those years were long and hard as she fought to forget her problem so she could be a good mother, trying to find the right answers when her children asked why she needed to layer cloth beneath her before she went to bed at night.

Now, as Rebecca shares her story, there is no sadness, because her surgery was successful. Her smile is constant and sweet. She wants to sing, dance and give thanks. Rebecca goes home with her shame replaced by hope for the future. She is happy to be with her children, her husband, her family, and her neighbors. She is healed, in both her body and spirit. “I was so thirsty and I came here to the Mercy Ship and was given a drink. You have taken care of me better than a mother. You have done everything – even clothed me,” she joyfully says as she smiles and motions to her beautiful new dress.

Through The Eyes Of A Child

2009-06-26T14:26:00.004-05:00

One Friday afternoon, an elderly woman showed up at the Mercy Ship in Benin with her newborn grandson in her arms. The baby was a mere three hours old and did not yet have a name, but his need for immediate medical attention was obvious.

Conjunctivitis that began in the womb had caused the lining of the baby’s eyelids to swell. Two globular red sacs protruded from his eyes, blocking his vision and flipping his eyelids inside-out. This condition left his tiny eyes unprotected and exposed. Left untended, they would be damaged beyond repair. His mother, Janette, didn’t know what was wrong with her baby and was horrified by his appearance.

“When I saw him, I was suffering,” Janette said. “I thought my baby did not have eyelids.”

At the maternity clinic in Porto-Novo, they told Janette the baby needed to go to Cotonou, Benin’s capital, where more advanced medical care is available. So, the baby’s grandmother bundled up the yet-unnamed child and climbed onto the back of a motorcycle taxi, the primary mode of transportation in Benin.

“When the motorcycle taxi driver saw the baby’s eyes, he was afraid,” Janette said. Still, he agreed to carry them to Cotonou. The doctors at the hospital in Cotonou told the grandmother to take the baby to the Mercy Ship. Fortunately, it was a Friday – the only day of the week the ship’s operating rooms for eye surgeries are not booked full with cataract patients – so the baby was able to be seen immediately.

Dr. Jim performed a simple operation to drain the infection and turned the eyelids in the correct direction.

The baby was given antibiotics and was kept overnight. The next day, Janette was able to leave the hospital and travel to Cotonou herself to see her baby. They were released to go home soon after.

Even in such a short time, the visual transformation was dramatic. The baby, now named Desiré, returned for a post-operative appointment a week later. On the way back to the ship, Janette happened upon the same motorcycle taxi driver who had brought Desiré and his grandmother to the ship the first time. He could not believe the difference and told Janette how happy it made him to see the baby was healed. Janette certainly agreed with him. “The goodness that Mercy Ships has done makes me so happy,” Janette said. “If Mercy Ships was not around, where would I have gone?”

The Problem With All This Is....

2009-06-22T06:25:00.005-05:00

I know the sadness.

I know the empty ring finger.

I know the obsessive nature.

Regardless, I don’t waste my time and money to save somebody who doesn’t want to be saved unless I've got something, anything, that ONE thing.

The reason normal people have husbands, kids, hobbies, that’s because they don’t have that ONE thing that hits them THAT HARD and THAT TRUE.

I’ve got Africa.

Its the thing I think about all the time, its the thing that keeps me just south of normal.

Its the thing that makes me great, makes me the best at what I do.

All I miss out on... is everything else.

No husband waiting at home after work with a drink and a kiss... that isn’t going to happen for me.

(That’s why God made microwaves.)

Problem with all this?

When its over....

its over.

"I'm Not The One Who's So Far Away...."

2009-06-14T13:09:00.007-05:00

(As requested - A blog doorway to an immense amount of information pertaining to Voodoo.)

All we, in the Christian world, know about voodoo is what Hollywood has sensationalized. While exploring the roots and current practice of this ancient belief, one can find some surprising truths behind the hype. Vodun is an primeval religion practiced by some 30 million people in the West African nations of Benin, Togo and Ghana. With its countless deities, animal sacrifice and spirit possession, voodoo (as it's known to the rest of the world) is one of the most misunderstood religions on the globe. Voodoo comes from the word in the Fon language for spirit, and focuses on spirits which exist in all things. These spirits can be used for good or bad purposes by the Voodoo priests. Voodoo followers worship spirits, or fetishes, to guide them in their lives. The religion started about 400 years ago and was brought to the Caribbean, particularly Haiti, during the slave trade. Approximately 60 percent of this West African nation's people follow voodoo, which originated in the region, but the Marxist regime that came to power in 1972 discouraged its practice.

Benin has declared Jan. 10 a National, paid holiday to celebrate voodoo and the country's other traditional faiths, saying they deserved the same recognition as Christian and Muslim events. Ouidah, a town 25 miles to the west of Cotonou, is considered the center of Benin's voodoo culture. With pounding drums and pulsating rhythms, Benin celebrates the rebirth of voodoo as an officially recognized religion since 1996.

West Africa was once known as the Slave Coast, because it was at the center of the transatlantic slave trade for centuries. African slaves brought voodoo with them to plantations in Brazil, Haiti, Cuba and Louisiana. But 400 years later, the religion still remains a central part of spiritual life for millions living in West Africa. "Voodoo is older than the world," says Janvier, a tour guide in Benin and a lifelong voodoo practitioner. "They say that voodoo is like the marks or the lines which are in our hands -- we born with them. Voodoo are in the leaves, in the earth. Voodoo is everywhere."

The individual deities of voodoo have all the character of the gods of ancient Greece; some whimsical, some seductive, some full of rage. In Cotonou, the voodoo followers gather to dance and thank the god Sakpata, a powerful divinity of the Earth, for recent rains. Women dancers sway in bright dresses with a mottled pattern imitating the scars of smallpox. Sakpata can bring life-giving rain, but the god is responsible for the dreaded disease, too. Adherents to Voodoo are called upon to follow a strict set of rules. A person who breaks the rules of Voodoo annoys the spirits and the person who breaks their laws might become very ill or even end up dead.

The rituals of voodoo are as elaborate as those for any Western church -- learning secret, sacred languages, dances and diets are part of the initiation for voodoo priests. Central to the belief is offerings to the gods, in the form of animal sacrifices. (Human sacrifices in West Africa ended more than a century ago.) Another key element of the religion is veneration of the spirits of ancestors. Among voodoo worshippers, the dead are thought to walk among the living during the dance of hooded Egunguns, who spin through the village in elaborate costumes. Touching the dancer during the trance, it is believed, could kill you, such is the power of the dead brought to life again.

In the open-air markets, merchants sell the basics of life, and that includes voodoo talismans known as "fetishes." They could be elaborate statues representing voodoo gods, or even dried animal heads and other animal parts, sold for medicine and their spiritual power. There is a dark side to voodoo. Sorcerers called botono can be summoned to put a hex on an adversary using the malevolent power of a voodoo spirit. The "dark side" of voodoo is similar to the concept of heaven and hell in Western religious tradition. The whole point is to make manifest the darkness, so that the goodness can overwhelm it.

In one sense, voodoo is no different from other religions – followers appeal to divine powers to assure their success in life. Many followers of voodoo convert to Christianity and leave the cult. But over time, they return to the animal sacrifices, the veneration of fetishes, the dances with the spirits. The pull of voodoo is so powerful, it seems embedded in the earth of West Africa. The most powerful person in a district is the minister of the local king and is referred to as the “Chief De Terre.” The Chief De Terre knows the secrets of the fetishes which gives him power that state administrators might find hard to compete with.

Voodoo rituals have long been inaccessible to anyone except disciples and priests. Even though certain practices like scarification carry a high risk of HIV infection, outsiders to the voodoo community have largely been unable to penetrate the secrecy that health officials say can be deadly to its followers. More than half of Benin’s 7.5 million population identifies itself as practitioners of voodoo. We are talking about a high risk group that carries out unsafe practices, there is scarification [skin cuts], female cutting and male circumcision, and several people are using the same instruments. Another voodoo rite that leaves followers open to HIV infection is when a follower comes into contact with blood during public ceremonies, either through touch or drinking it. Benin’s national HIV infection rate is two percent as of 2007, but in high-risk groups like sex workers for which the government has data, the rate goes up to 25 percent, according to the government’s National HIV and AIDS Control Program.

(This blog was composed to cover the exterior of many Voodoo related topics. If you have unambiguous questions about certain topics, please feel free to email me and I will do my best to answer your specific questions in more depth.)

If At First You Don't Succeed.....

2009-06-07T14:14:00.008-05:00

In 2005, the Mercy Ship Anastasis docked in the port of Cotonou, Benin, to provide free operations. For 14-year-old Alfred, it was just in time. For four years, a rare facial tumor had been growing, disfiguring his face. The five-pound-tumor enveloped his lower jaw and teeth and hung down like a large melon. The pink mass protruded from his mouth, preventing him from eating. Alfred’s weight dropped to 44 pounds – five of which were the tumor. His eyes revealed the agonizing suffering.

Alfred’s father, Bessan, was a fisherman in their small village and had little money for medical treatments – but he tried to find help for his son. According to their traditional voodoo religion, Alfred's tumor was the result of witchcraft, so they visited over a dozen traditional healers. They poked holes in Alfred’s skin, applied pastes, and prescribed animal sacrifices and prayers to their ancestors. A medical doctor also examined Alfred but said he could do nothing. After all the time and money wasted on unsuccessful treatments, Alfred’s family despaired.

People in the community avoided Alfred, thinking his “sickness” was contagious or that he was cursed. Some people avoided him because seeing his condition and being unable to help was too much to stomach. Because of humiliation, the family hid Alfred away in the innermost room of their small house. Then a Christian pastor told the family about Mercy Ships, where Alfred could receive free medical treatment. Bessan, disillusioned by failure after failure, reluctantly agreed to take his son to the ship. Alfred’s tumor was removed, and doctors inserted a titanium plate and pieces of his rib to fashion a new jaw to replace the one destroyed by the tumor.

Then in January of 2009, Alfred – now 19 years old – began noticing a swelling in his upper jaw, just beside his nose. Alfred and his family knew that the new Mercy Ship, the Africa Mercy, had returned to Cotonou. They journeyed to the ship and saw Dr. Gary Parker and other long-term crew members who had treated Alfred in 2005.

This time, Alfred had no apprehension about the outcome of his visit. X-rays showed the metal plate in his mouth, the structure that had held firm over the years – allowing Alfred to eat, smile, and grow into a healthy young man with a quiet disposition and a love of mathematics.

However, the x-ray also showed a small tumor forming where Alfred had noticed swelling, and Dr. Parker scheduled surgery for the next day. The tumor was removed quickly, and Alfred’s recovery required only a few days. Now he is home again, going back to school and playing football with his friends.

In spite of the passage of time and the happy outcome, Bessan and Alfred both still feel the past acutely. Alfred can’t bear to see the pictures of how he looked before – “It makes me want to cry,” he says. Bessan just shakes his head, saying, “People would stare and think it’s horrible. All he had was a cloth around his neck to cover it so people wouldn’t see it. Now I can go out with him proudly. ‘Let’s go out fishing,’ I’ll say. And he will do it with all joy.”

Xanax, Dramamine, Valium, and a Benadryl

2009-05-23T00:00:00.007-05:00

Meetings, work, meetings, sleep. Repeat.

Life on a ship can become hastily mundane. Complaints come effortlessly, laziness is next to avoidable, and the commonalities of developed world are coveted.

I received news last week of events that unfolded back in my hometown of Quincy. Events that caused me to need to be home, fast. Setting my whirlwind of emotions aside, I started to analyze the logistics of being able to go home. There was a seat available for me on a Sunday night flight leaving Benin which would put me home 96 hours after the news.

Could things wait that long?

Another issue was the monetary aspect of it all. I could afford the flight home and back, but after that… my crew fees could not be met.

Do I regret missing life changing events for the rest of my life?

Or do I stay where I know God has put me?

When faced with these questions, you start to realize that the things you complain about, daily, really do mean a lot to you. Not until I was faced with the decision of having to walk away from the mission field did I realize how much I was instilled with the desire to be there.

It is absolutely amazing to watch the support systems come out of the woodwork in times of trial. Regardless of PACU having been short-staffed all outreach, a nurse steps up to relieve my position. Monetary issues slowly become less of a burden. Prayers start to rebuild your faith and strength. All of these aspects allowed for me to be able to come home for two weeks.

The flights, overall, were fairly good. 36 hours of USA Today, New York Times, foreign films with subtitles, French food… all in all, I was in a slight euphoria after all listed above. Had a bit of turbulence throughout all flights – worst being Paris to Atlanta. There was a moment when I’m pretty sure we lost control of the plane. Turbulence doesn’t bother me… but this was scary. Many people were screaming( – which totally helped). It felt like it does when you land, and you sometimes do that side to side shifting thing while the wings flap up and brakes go on…. But it was when we were in the air. I had taken Xanax, Dramamine, Valium, and a Benadryl, and I was still nervous – if that tells you anything. (And no, I was not one of the crazies who was yelling.)

One week left here at home. There are days that just fly by, and there are days when its hard to get up off the floor. Nonetheless, God is good, and home has been refreshing.

A Crooked Smile Goodbye

2009-05-08T14:38:00.003-05:00

I assumed I had until next Tuesday to figure this out, I was mistaken. Today, my much loved, little foot stomping, crooked smiling, best hug provider was discharged. Initially, she was scheduled to have completed her post-operative care on Tuesday, but last night, she spiked a fever and her mother brought her back to the ship as directed. Once arriving to us… no fever… no complaints… hole in her mandible healing well – actually, it was almost completely healed. She was nothing but a little ball of cuddle and smiles – which I took full advantage of! After 30 minutes of delaying the post-op nurses from doing their jobs, I rubbed her head – she closed her eyes, I gave her a big bear hug squeeze – her arms latched around me, I bent over and kissed her puffy cheek – she had the world’s biggest smile.

I will miss the stomping coming from up the corridor. I will miss her random and not-schedule-following visits. I will miss my favorite little girl of Benin.

Leaving Their Mark

2009-05-05T19:34:00.003-05:00

In 2005, the U.S. Congress appropriated $70 million for fistula care programs throughout the world, including Africa. Engender Health was one of several partners contracted by USAID to execute this program. Engender Health funds all fistula care and training onboard the Africa Mercy. Two fistula surgeons have undergone training under the guidance and mentorship of Dr. Steve Arrowsmith, a long-time Mercy Ships volunteer and consultant to Engender Health. With more than six years experience working in Africa as a fistula surgeon, Dr. Arrowsmith recently gave up his practice back home in the USA to pursue fistula care full-time. During his time in Africa, he has founded fistula centers in both Nigeria and Ethiopia.

One doctor to be trained under the guidance of Dr. Arrowsmith is Dr. Iloegben Sunday-Adeoye. An experienced surgeon, Dr. Sunday-Adeoye has surgically repaired thousands of obstetric fistulas and directs the South East Fistula Centre in the Ebonyi state of Nigeria. Obstetric fistulas occur as a result of prolonged obstructed labor. This happens when the head of the baby cannot pass safely through the mother's birth canal. Very often, the baby dies, and the mother is left with an abnormal hole between the vagina and the bladder, referred to as Vesico-vaginal fistula (VVF). Chronic incontinence is the primary symptom.

The challenges facing pregnant African women are immense. A culture of male dominance means that women must have their husbands' consent to seek medical attention. Access to hospitals is often limited by long distances, cost, conflict, and even weather. The lack of capable surgeons means that, even if a woman does manage to get to a hospital, the necessary care may not be available. It is estimated that there is a worldwide capacity for only 6,000 fistula surgeries a year. But figures show that more than 130,000 women develop fistulas each year. That is why the training of VVF surgeons in Africa is so important. Mercy Ships, in partnership with Engender Health, is managing to achieve this vital goal. While onboard the Africa Mercy, surgeons perform surgeries, as well as learning to train and educate potential students of their own. They also learn how to address the cultural issues of ignorance and superstition surrounding cesarean sections.

A woman in labour in a first world country has a 1 in 47,000 chance of dying. A woman in West Africa has a 1 in 12 chance of death. The need is in Africa, and therefore the focus is on training African surgeons. With the Mercy Ships/ Engender Health program, African surgeons are given complete preference in the selection process. In the last month onboard the Africa Mercy, the combined efforts of Dr. Arrowsmith, Dr. Sunday-Adeoye, and other VVF trainees have resulted in nearly 50 women being successfully healed of VVF. With the knowledge gained, surgeons like Dr. Sunday-Adeoye can confidently train others to increase the number and success of obstetric fistula surgeries within West Africa.

Mercy Ships surgeon Bruce Steffes removes goiters and repairs hernias, healing the patients physically and showing Christ's love to his patients. Dr. Steffes also shares his surgical skills as CEO of the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons (PAACS). PAACS is a rural-based educational program using African mission hospitals to train national physicians. Founded in 1997, PAACS currently has eight programs that are "training and discipling African surgeons in Africa, for Africa, for a lifetime of service to God and countrymen." From the beginning of April to the end of June, Faya Yaradouno, fourth-year PAACS surgical resident at a hospital in rural Gabon, will be training onboard the Africa Mercy under the mentorship of Dr. Steffes in general surgery. Dr. Yaradouno will also be trained by the Mercy Ships orthopedic, plastic, and maxillo-facial surgeons. Dr. Yaradouno will be using the skills and ethics of surgery that he learns through PAACS and Mercy Ships to serve all types of patients for many years to come.

With over 300 million people in Africa without access to surgical care, PAACS is addressing critical needs at a critical time. "In Africa, being a general surgeon means skin and its contents," Dr. Steffes said. "You are going to be the neurosurgeon. You are going to be the orthopedic surgeon. You are going to be the maxillo-facial surgeon. The more tools we put in their toolkit here on the Mercy Ship, the better off they are going to be." Last year, 57 specialty surgeons from abroad financed their own way to the PAACS training hospitals to work with national surgeons in Kenya, Ethiopia, Gabon, and Cameroon. Generally, there is only one surgeon for every 250,000 people in Africa - and in some places, the ratio is much more dramatic. The shortage is compounded by the fact that many African physicians move to Europe or North America.

Surgery is a difficult career path. Often, students choose the better-paid specialization in infectious disease or jobs with non-governmental organizations. Working conditions for surgery are very poor, with sub-standard equipment and unreliable electricity and water. The increased risk of HIV exposure and the prospect of being overworked for a lifetime discourage medical students from pursuing surgery as a career. To overcome these obstacles, PAACS emphasizes discipleship - the idea of service to God and the people of Africa - so surgeons will remain in rural areas. In addition, Dr. Steffes hopes PAACS programs will help build a network of ethical, honest surgeons across Africa. PAACS partners with Loma Linda University in California and the Christian Medical and Dental Associations (CMDA). They have future plans for Zimbabwe, Egypt, Niger, Angola, and Togo. Currently, their most pressing need is to begin training board-certified surgeons to serve in those areas as Program Directors.

Trying To Shift, The Clutch Is Sticking

2009-04-26T17:59:00.006-05:00

I haven’t updated in quite a while, but the genuineness behind that is, not much has occurred. (Well, not much that I think has been blog-worthy) Its been the same, unchanged things, day in and day out; exertion through occupation, consume some food, hit the sheets, replicate. Therefore, since I have no extravagant adventures to share, nor any stories that are great in themselves… I’ve resolved to bring you up to date on my monotony.

I’m jammed in neutral.

No matter how you look at it, or in what facet of my life: neutral. Neutral is all I’ve got. I’m not inadvertently heading backwards, but I’m not progressing forwards either.

Work is…. Work. I’m absolutely satisfied with my position, my staff, and my role as a leader. But…. (there’s always a “but”) I am completely burned out after weeks of working five 12+ hour days. I am tired of successfully running myself (and my staff) into the ground for the sole reason of: we don’t have the “bed space” to sufficiently staff the hospital. I am above the fact that some people here think that they are far more enlightened or more spiritual (or whatever may be the case) than others. I am completely turned off by the egos that rule my daily life.

Spiritually, its not going so good either. With almost daily devotionals that are slightly undermined with the word “required”, one would think that I was getting my fill. Truth is, I’m not, I’m not even close. Its, by far, not deep enough. I’m not being challenged. I’m not being required to push further. There’s no thought provoking subjects. Don’t get me wrong, I realize this happens to all of us. There are always mountains and valleys in all areas of life. But, in turn, that’s what scares me… God and I were wholly good until about a week ago. Now, I’m starting the decent into a valley. Why is this scary? For the few of you who know me well, you know that my last valley sustained for quite some time, about a year and a half. I don’t want that again. I can’t do that again. A valley like that, while in Africa, (I feel) could do great immeasurable harm. Scary? HECK YES IT IS!

It is human nature to strive for continuity, to want routine in life, to “know” what you’re doing. I can not remember a time when this has applied to me. Regardless of being in West Africa, living with 400 people that I originally did not know, and eating foods that sometimes don’t agree with my American digestive system (all things that are NOT considered normal to the average person), all I want is some excitement – something to become alive about. This, all of this, its become the new norm. This is what I am comfortable with, and all of you dedicated/long-term people in my life… you know I don’t do well with sitting and dwelling in my comfort zone.

On the up side, there is something that keeps me going. On a bi-weekly basis, one of my favorite patients returns to the ship for post-operative check ups. This little girl’s glowing, asymmetrical face is preceded by the pounding of her running feet up the corridor to my work place. I hear the stomping of small feet come to a slow and I know to fix my eyes towards the door. Its not seconds later I see her, walking with a strong purpose towards me, and she greets me with one of the most valuable hugs I have ever received. Every time I see her, every time, I can’t help but think how scared I was for her as she was going in for her first surgery. Every time I see her, every time, I am utterly thankful that she is alive.

Tomorrow is Monday, again. I don't want to be syndicated. I want this week to be the start of an uphill climb from the valley. So, until next time....

All The Comforts Of Home

2009-04-13T16:06:00.003-05:00

Easter, comparable to birthdays, has been confirmed a holiday that must been enjoyed in another country. This Easter weekend, I had the opportunity to venture to Togo (a neighboring country to Benin) and enjoy Easter dinner with Dr. James, a Maxillo-Facial surgeon in the capital city, Lome.
The events start off at 8pm, with an assembly of two doctors, a lawyer, a United Nations Chief, their significant others, and the three nurses I arrived with. At first, this thought made me nervous, I mean, wow – a summit of the minds…. and me. Just as promptly as the nervousness came, it went. The night was filled with haphazard miscommunication due to a majority of our first languages not being English, and a variety of good, deep, non-superficial conversation…. all over wine, naturally.
Easter dinner was an exquisite array of delectable African foods. The first course was a shrimp salad with boiled eggs and avocado in a white sauce along with incredible French bread. The second course was your selection of either chicken or fish, fried plantains, rice, and a beef/tomato/pepper mix to add to the rice. The final course was a mixture of fresh cut fruits…… with a shot of Cognac.
About midnight, we determined it was probably time to go home…. We load into a Nissan Path Finder! Yes indeed, an American Car, an AUTOMATIC American Car! For those of you who haven’t been outside of the country, you have no idea what a special thrill this contains in itself. When you punch the gas, you actually GO…. was absolutely delightful to go 80 MPH down an open road!
On Monday, Dr. James gave us a tour of his hospital in Lome. The hospital contains 1,200 beds for 8 Operating Rooms. He and three other Ear/Nose/Throat doctors share one of the ORs. He had a meeting later on in the morning, so we had to entertain ourselves at the hospital. We did so by aimlessly wondering around, looking at signs we could not properly understand due to them having been in French, and sitting in one of Dr. James’ lecture rooms.

Once he was done with his meeting, we went out for lunch to a Lebanese restaurant. There we enjoyed hummus, schawarmas, and coke. Easter 2009, along with my 2007 Liberian Birthday are two holidays that I will on no account forget. God has put some amazing people into my life; people who help me make a home away from home. For them, I am truly blessed.

All The Comforts Of Home
1-Wine With Dinner
2-A Home Cooked Meal
3-Cognac With Dessert
4-Sitting Around, Talking
5-Nissan Path Finder, Automatic, 80 MPH
6-Tour Of A Hospital
7-Sitting In A Lecture Room
8-Lebanese Food! :)

"You'll Never Believe What I Have For You Next!"

2009-04-06T17:05:00.004-05:00

Upon recent conversation with a friend, I find myself left with the question…. Who has more of an effect on me here? The people I work with, or the people I serve? One would like to think that its all about Who you serve, which, in the mission field plays a huge role. But, consequently, the day to day to-do lists and roles often down play this agenda and you are left with what is in front of you, literally. So, for both sides of the argument…..
The people that I work with are astonishing people, most are intelligent beyond what they can actually perform here. We represent over 40 countries worldwide, yet all live in the same metal box – and things work out, they run unbelievably smoothly at times. As my friend put it, “Its like we have gathered all the crazy people who want to work in Africa, and we put them all together.” We are nothing but a positive feedback loop. We continue to thrive off one another in both a directly and indirectly positive way. Everyone is stressed, everyone is tired, and everyone sees the need that they can just not work hard enough to satisfy… but all of that keeps us going. We also see one surgeon performing X number of surgeries a day, which causes another surgeon to want to do X number more. Never, in the developed world, would people work as hard as they do here, never in the developed world would people follow-up on their patients like they do here, and never in the developed world would people develop relationships with patients as they do here. As he said, “Just a bunch of crazy people, all thrown together.”

On the other hand, there has to some something about the culture, something indescribable effects you। Personally, I think it goes back to the fact that you grow like the people you love. In spite of of the fact that I am a person of cold-climate, and regardless that I have been trained to not care (beyond medically important) for the patient, I have developed a love for the patients here. Never have I felt the love that I receive from a baby who’s cleft lip we corrected from a patient at home. The way that they snuggle into you, even when they can’t protect their own airway. The way that they find comfort in your arms, even through their post-surgical pain. They way that they trust you regardless of everyone having abandoning them due to their deformity. Never have I seen a women progress through a complete transformation, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually like I have with the VVF ladies. Where these women can once again become a part of society, and to herself: an actual human being. You can’t help but love on these patients. You can’t help but develop relationships. You can’t help but be changed.
God has been doing amazing, amazing things in my life. He finally hit me upside the head with a 2X4 to wake me up, but, nonetheless, I am awake, I am alive, I am here. He has brought some amazing people into my life here, people who have helped me to grow, people who have helped me trust, people who have helped me to conquer. He has also returned valuable people to me once again. People who have been good friends, through thick and thin. People who will be here in the now, and there in the future. Life here in Africa is trying at times, but fulfilling and full of adventure. So, what is my answer to this question? Africa. Its all about being here, living in the presence of God. Being where He wants me to be without questioning. Being here even though close friends and family find it hard. Being here, even though I find it hard.
God has already shown me some amazing things, and even more exciting, He is saying, “Just wait…. You’ll never believe what I have for you next!”