The Calm Before the Storm

Juste - one of our cute general patients, with his momma.

Due to some scheduling changes and cancellations, Tiffany and I have found ourselves without teams to host for a few weeks. Not that there isn’t always plenty to do – hosting day visitors and media, helping with tours, working on cleaning up processes for whoever comes next, helping with odd jobs as needed, and for myself, working on advance stuff. But not hosting visitors means that the pace is a lot slower, that I have more flexibility for when I want to do my work and how I want to do it, that I have a lot more time to think about things. This also means that I have a lot more time to talk to people and hear all the amazing things that are going on. A few examples of awesome stories I heard:

The dental team hits its 4000th patient and Don makes a
surprise appearance.

Last week our dental team went up to Abomey where they set up in an orphanage and provided dental services to the kids and the people in the surrounding area. They served over 300 people with minimal tools (no water, no electricity) and from what I heard, did many, many extractions. Imagine seeing 15-20 patients a day and pulling multiple teeth from each – that’s hard work! I love how our dental team really reaches out to the community and impacts so many people. A few weeks ago they hit their 4000^th patient.

The next eye surgeon that is arriving is a man from Togo who was trained by the ship when it was previously there. He now has his own practice and travels back to the ship to volunteer. What a lasting impact. This is the core of what our Medical Capacity Building (MCB) team does – training nurses, surgeons, anesthetists, and others, to be able to serve their own (and other) people, so that we don’t need to! Stories like this get me really excited.

Dr.Odry - Benin's first plastic surgeon.

Another touching MCB story is that of Benin’s first and only plastic surgeon – Dr.Odry. Our Comms team wrote a bit of her story: “When I was twelve, I saw a woman on TV…her husband had burned her with acid - her face had become fused to her neck, so she could never look a person in the eye. There was not one plastic surgeon to help her in Benin. That’s when I chose my profession…” What a remarkable woman! She spent the last few weeks aboard the ship being mentored by our very own plastic surgeon, Dr.Tertius, learning new techniques and honing her skills to better serve her country.

My friend Michelle also shared a story with me recently, demonstrating the servant heart of this community and how easy it is to bless others if we are willing to stop for a moment and really see people and think about how we can serve them: https://milesformercy.wordpress.com/2017/02/19/urgent-vs-important/. 

It's not a celebration unless there's lots of dancing!

I also had the privilege of witnessing our first Celebration of Sight. This is essentially a big dance party for those who now have sight. The blind see! What a celebration of life and sight. The people here love to dance, and they especially love to worship in dance. After the dancing, some of the patients were asked if they wanted to share their testimonies. It turns out everyone wanted to. We heard stories of people who had been blind for 42 years; young people who had developed cataracts due to diabetes and now couldn’t go to school; others who hadn’t been able to leave their homes in many years without assistance. I made me think about how God gave me spiritual sight, how he tore the veil and allowed me to truly see Him – how often do I celebrate that? Probably not as much as I should. How often are we jumping out of our seats to share our testimony? It was really special to see.

Many crew members don’t get to hear these stories, and may not necessarily understand how we are leaving a lasting impact in a country. Some of these questions had come up lately amongst my friends so I used this lull in hosting as an opportunity to bring some of the crew to the various off site locations that we have – the dental clinic, eye clinic and Ponseti clinic. I was really moved to see how the crew at each of those locations was so welcoming to them (even though they didn’t know we were coming) and gladly gave them a tour, explained what they did, etc. It’s great the see the crew so passionate about what they do, and I think that’s what really impacts our guests when they come.

Maurinho is eager to use his new legs!

I also got to see some remarkable moments of community, truly giving glory to God in all things. Moments where someone had made a difficult decision and was struggling with that and two friends gave her very Godly advice and just asked, how can we serve you in this? And then said, first, let’s pray about this. Moments where someone was struggling, feeling under attack and just came and approached her team and asked for prayer over the situation and they surrounded her and did just that. Moments where someone was leaving and her friends organized a big dance party and celebration but at the end everyone gathered around her real tight and prayed thankfulness and blessings over her (sweatiest prayer ever!). I am always so blown away by this community. And also by how much change God has worked in me. To the point where people sharing their hurt with you, means that you hurt too, that having compassion means hurting with them, but being able to trust Him and pray in all things. God only knows why love is drenched in tears, maybe that’s what makes it love – Heaven Knows (Hillsong United).

The last few weeks have also brought lots of laughter and joy: another weekend spent up at the orphanage, getting to meet people’s parents and doing ridiculous things like running 8km in the heat and pulling up mantioc and peeling it and seeing it go through the whole process of becoming edible; a party in the pool with music and glowsticks and a football; getting to spend a whole day working with Tyler to build our new gym equipment and having a nurse ask if you are on the maintenance team and can she put in a request; going to the fabric market and finally picking out some African fabric to get made into a dress; and lots of life giving conversations about life and God and the future. There are still difficult days, days where I'm not sure how I'm called to serve that day, who I'm called to serve here in this place. I would love prayer for the days ahead as we host some very high profile guests, followed by the wrapping up of the field service, heading to Cameroon for advance and then starting another field service strong in Cameroon. Through all of this I want to keep sight of who I am here serving.

See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. ~ Exodus 23:20

So exciting to see how many lives our eye program has changed - one eye at a time! So far 311 patients have received sight.