An Invitation to Dance

I’ve talked before about how God often ‘speaks’ to me through images, which amuses me endlessly because I’m such a verbal person, but He’s so gracious that He’s chosen a method where I know it’s Him and not me. It’s incredibly precious to me when He communicates in this way because it’s always something I desperately need to understand. The last few months I have been fairly frustrated – God has been working things in me and I couldn’t figure out what He was doing so everything felt like failure. There are many, many lessons that have been revealed to me in the last few weeks about this, but this goes along with something Michele told me about lacking grace for myself (that’s a whole other thing that I won’t get into right now). I was frustrated and exhausted and had no mental fortitude, no ability to say no to things. And God showed me this. He showed me what I looked like right now: the rock that I am normally standing on, my foundation that is Christ, I was now hanging on to it for dear life, caught in the swiftly moving current. I was trying to do it by my own strength and it was exhausting.

One of our beautiful patients, ready for the
dress ceremony, to celebrate her new
beginning and share her testimony.

That was quite a wake up call. I knew what was needed – more time spent in prayer with God and more time in the Word, but when you aren’t feeling close to God it can be hard to convince yourself to do this. We all know that relationships require work, and this includes our relationship with God. Well a few weeks ago, my friend mentioned a website, desiringgod.org, which has a podcast with daily sermons from John Piper. So I found a moment to sit and listen to the sermon for that day. It was based off 1 John 2:15-17, and the message was essentially that we need to love God with all of our being.  No obstacle is insurmountable if we love God. And if we don’t love God with all we have right now, if we aren’t eager to spend time with Him, then what we need to do RIGHT NOW is to go before Him and ask Him to help us love Him more. There is nothing more important that we need to do. So this is what I did. God help me to love you more, not the things of this world but you alone. Help me desire to be in your presence!

Scripture expresses His response perfectly in Matthew 7:11, If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! God is a good, good father who loves to give good gifts to us if we would just ask Him. He has answered all my prayers in the most remarkable ways lately. I asked God to help me be excited to wake up every day, to be motivated and looking forward to what He has for me that day, to be ready to jump out of bed and walk with Him. And so God showed me how the world is a beautiful melody that He’s created and that every day He invites us to come dance with Him. He told me that lately, I haven’t been dancing at all, I’ve been missing His invitation. And so for the last few weeks, I have woken up every day before my alarm (5:17am this morning…), with God saying let’s go, I’ve got some amazing things for you today, let’s dance! I joke that some days we’re doing the salsa or a slow dance, and some days we’re square dancing…He’s also given me a new image of me standing on the rock that is Christ, a new picture of what He intends me to be, but that’s a whole story for another day.

Three siblings who all had successful cataract surgery! To
make sure they don't touch their eyes, they are given these
funny looking glasses for a few days.

I could ramble on like this for a while but I suppose I should probably tell you a bit of what we’ve been up to aboard the Africa Mercy (maybe not writing a blog every week was a bad idea, but I’ve been so busy that I think that’s another God blessing). Well in terms of programs, our Agriculture program wrapped up last week as the students defended their theses, graduated and now will go out into the communities to teach others what they have learned. We had representatives from 3 different countries so the knowledge will spread far and wide. Our Ponseti mentoring program is also wrapping up as we have our final dance party on Friday. This doesn’t mean that the correcting of club feet stops – rather it means Mercy Ships steps back and allows the locals that we’ve trained to run the clinic fully on their own. We have equipped them as much as we can and now they will continue to treat people on their own. In Madagascar we established a Ponseti clinic which treated 30 patients in a 10 month period as we trained the staff (two blocks of 15 patients). Since we left in June (10 months ago), they’ve treated over 70 patients! I’m very passionate about Mercy Ships as a whole but this is the stuff I get most excited about. Our celebrations of sight have also continued, with more and more patients having their vision restored. In a few weeks we will have a celebration specifically for the children who have had their eyesight restored – I can’t wait! We’ve also continued with our dress ceremonies for the fistula ladies who are now healed and excited to return to their homes. You can probably tell but we love to celebrate what God is doing here and praise Him for all the lives that have been transformed. 

The Comms team being our goofy self after karaoke.
Photo credit goes to Tyler (that's a whole story in itself).

In terms of the Comms team, we always find ways to keep things lively – this time it was a karaoke session to accompany serving ice cream after community meeting. We had lots of hilarious performances and were able to drag a lot of crew into our party. We were kept pretty busy by all the stuff that was released by Dana Perino, another hit on her show ‘The Five’, a blog post, and a millennial video that included 5 of my favourite people. I joked with my friends that when I miss them next field service I’ll just go back and watch this video which has them all laughing and sharing. March was a packed month for teams – Dana Perino, a team from Norway, a team from the UK that I hosted last week, and currently several people from the marketing agencies who work with Mercy Ships. Hosting the UK team was great fun – they were lovely, hilarious people, and God was in it with me so I didn’t feel exhausted at the end of the week.  I also had the pleasure of helping to host the U.S. Ambassador at the HOPE Center (Dana mentioned it to her), and was also involved in interviewing some candidates for the 2^nd media liaison role next year. There is one candidate that I am super excited about and I got really passionate when telling her about the job and was reminded why I have the best job. I ran around hugging people after, which is how you know I was REALLY excited. 

The Advance team, ready to go!

The first element of the Advance team left last week, which was a big tearful goodbye. We finished up all our training, took a team photo, and went out for a team dinner before they left. One really special blessing was during the community meeting before they left, they called the whole advance team up to the front and invited anyone who was close to us to come up to pray for us and send us off. What a special moment to be surrounded by people who love you and lay hands on you and send you off in Jesus’s name. It brought back memories of when Humbervale did the same thing – gathered around me and sent me off with their prayers. These are moments that will stick with me. It was also a reminder of how God knows exactly what He is doing. At first I was disappointed to not be able to be part of the 1^st element (due to work conflicts) but now I am so thankful that I have another two months until I leave. I’m not ready to say goodbye yet! 

Ready to watch the 1st Nat Geo episode. There's a joke to be
had about how I don't close my mouth, even for pictures...
Love these guys so much :)

We do also have quite a bit of fun (you don’t want to hear about that, do you?! aha). We had a ship holiday which involved adventures such as sleeping outside on deck 7 ( although I’m not sure I would call it sleeping…); hiking around another random forest and climbing trees and watching tall people fall over things; playing touch football with some of the dads and kids; going to the beach and tossing the football around with local kids; an unexpected, amazing 3 hour jam session where some of our incredibly talented crew took song requests and we sang and danced and laughed; going on one final country music drive with our group and praying over Ben before he left; having a hymn night in the café where I learned that hymns were used to pass along theology to those who were illiterate. Other notable events over the last few weeks include a weird veggie tale marathon (long story); a 6am fire drill which blocked off the main space on the ship and caused my newly arrived guests quite some confusion about how to get off the ship (don’t worry, we helped them out!); a weekend spent up at the orphanage, filled with the most hilarious conversations, intense games of mafia, gardening/weeding, loving on small children, moving conversations about God’s calling, family pictures and so much more. We also had a showing (on the ship) of the first episode of the National Geographic series The Surgery Ship that was filmed on board a few months ago. We had a packed house! I won’t spoil it, but I thought it was so honouring to the crew. They don’t have a release date for Canada yet but I will let you know when they do!

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. ~1 John 2:15-17

Here are links to some of the recent media content that's been published:

- Dana Perino Fox Hit #1: https://punditfromanotherplanet.com/2017/03/10/video-dana-perino-joins-mercy-ships-humanitarian-mission-in-africa/

-Dana Perino Fox Hit #2: http://video.foxnews.com/v/5363644605001/?#sp=show-clips

-Dana Perino Millennial Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBAZC7H8Q3E&feature=youtu.be

-Dana Perino Blog Post about her visit to the ship: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/03/16/dana-perino-how-reset-my-heart-after-brutal-election-my-visit-to-mercy-ships.html

-Nat Geo Italian Promo (because seeing people you know dubbed in other languages is hilarious): https://www.facebook.com/natgeotvitalia/videos/10154348214742124/?autoplay_reason=user_settings&video_container_type=0&video_creator_product_type=2&app_id=2392950137&live_video_guests=0

-Nat Geo Australian Promo: https://www.facebook.com/TheSurgeryShip/videos/820978718058327/?hc_ref=SEARCH
This awesome song that Nicki Rogers, one of our guests in January, wrote while she was on board, and is performing at concerts across the UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oROGOV8K3Ak

Being Infinitely Valuable

Cheering on the local rugby team!

I feel like time has really started to speed up lately. We’ve already started talking about ‘Finishing Strong’. Being on Advance means having quite a different perspective because as everyone else is winding down, we’re gearing up and I have to get ready to shift up a gear – but not yet. For now I am firmly focused on this job and everything that needs to be done. The last couple community gatherings, our speakers have been talking about value and it’s caused me to really sit back and re-evaluate some things. One of our chaplains talked about how the value of an object is determined by what someone is willing to exchange/give up for it. God was willing to give up His son’s life to have us. Think about that. That makes us infinitely valuable. It’s a crazy, incomprehensible, unconditional love. Another speaker talked about sacrificial love and this idea of being willing to give up everything, to die for others. Do I have that level of love? For friends and family, absolutely. But what about for those I’m indifferent to? Or for those whose company I don’t enjoy? While I can’t think of anyone I hate or dislike immensely, I think for me the struggle is people who I find to be incompetent. Would I be willing to sacrifice everything for them? I think that’s Jesus level love. We did a quick personality/trait test as part of our Advance preparation and my number one trait was Activator, which is basically a go-getter, the person who gets it done. On the whole list, mine was the only one who also listed negative. It said, these people are usually impatient. Well there’s some truth for you. What does it matter if the person doesn’t do something as fast as I would or the way I think it should be done? They’re pleasing God, not me. Only God knows their heart, knows how hard their trying, knows how far they’ve come. I can only see now, this one instance. He sees their lifetime, their struggles, how far they’ve walked with Him. Through them, God is revealing Himself. He’s teaching me patience for one thing. He’s teaching them to lean on Him, He’s showing how great and awesome He is, and so many more things.

Off Dana's Facebook - a quick snapshot of our Saturday.

We often hear about how God is a good father and wants to give us the very best – this week was a wonderful example of that for me, of how well He knows me. I had the pleasure of hosting Dana Perino from Fox News ‘The Five’, along with her husband and assistant. This gave me a front row seat to some very interesting conversations and interactions. I got to sit and listen to Dana and Dr. Mark Shrime have breakfast and discuss a wide variety of topics. It was like a little happy dream place for me, listening to two incredibly intelligent people discuss politics and history and the global surgical need and encouraging young people to do more and books! I love people who love to read and Dana had some great book recommendations. I also got to go to the residence of the U.S. ambassador and listen to the conversation that they had about Benin, world affairs, Mercy Ships, and much more. We also brought one of the academy students so he could interview the ambassador and he had some great questions! It was lovely to see how much Dana encouraged him. She was a big encouragement to the crew, speaking at our global community meeting and making everyone laugh, even taking questions and showing us why she was such a good press secretary to President Bush. I got to sit and ask her questions about how she started (answering phones for a congressman), and also saw how she used her large social media following to share about some critical positions that we need filled. She mentioned our need for a vehicle mechanic in her live broadcast and the next day we had several amazing candidates who had applied. We did many things while she was here and I’m grateful that I was able to be a small part of it. It was exhausting and all-consuming but a wonderful education for me. I’m incredibly grateful for the crew members who took them out in the evenings which allowed me to have a rest! 

All scrubbed up and ready to go.

On Sunday we went down to the Ward service for our first Dress Ceremony of the year. You may remember me mentioning them last year, but essentially a Dress Ceremony is a time to celebrate our OBF ladies who now have a new start to life! These ladies have often been leaking urine for many years due to prolonged childbirth (one lady said it had been 19 years), and now they have had surgery and are dry. They get new dresses and jewelry and makeup put on and we have a big dance party where they share their testimonies. It is always beautiful and moving. Here in Benin, everyone loves to break out in song, with all the glory going to God.

Attempting to paddle our boats...

I’ll just mention a few of the other new things I got to experience this past two weeks. I got to see a surgery for the first time, it was intense! They were chipping off bone from a patient’s hip to graft it to a metal bar in their face so that a new jaw bone would grow to replace the one they removed to remove a facial tumour (that’s my non-medical understanding of it). Our surgeons are remarkable. I think what impacted me the most was the community and feeling in the OR. The surgeons and OR nurses were laughing and teasing each other, still taking their work seriously, but knowing when to lighten things up and find that balance. It was fun being in there. I also spent a night at the stilt village. We got to take out a boat and paddle around which was a hilarious and frustrating experience. Here we were, two Canadians with plenty of paddling experience and we couldn’t get our boat to go straight! No idea what was going on there. We went for a walk through part of the village that was on dry land and also got up very early to see the morning market, where many ladies are out in their boats with lanterns, selling food to the men who are going out to fish. The whole time we were there people were shouting yovo, yovo at us (and weirdly enough, monsieur), and saying, give me money. I’m not sure if it’s worse for me because I understand everything they're saying but it really got to me this time. It made me miss being able to walk around and be invisible, inconspicuous. It’s a good lesson in grace and patience.

A quick glance at our Agriculture program.

We had visit from Graca Machel, who is Nelson Mandela's widow and the only woman to be First Lady of two countries. If you get a chance, I would recommend looking her up - the work she's done stands on its own and she isn't overshadowed by the men she was married to. I also got to visit our Agriculture site, where a crew member (who is actually Beninois) is teaching 34 people how to do sustainable farming. The program is called Food For Life and is a Train the Trainers program, which means he is teaching them how to teach these techniques to others. The participants are split into various teams and they come together to decide what they want to grow next to each other, based on nitrogen in the soil, crop life, and a bunch of other things I don’t understand. Food is key to having healthy people and I loved the emphasis that is put on building up strong community leaders. I also finally went to the fabric market, bought fabric and had a dress and skirt made. I have an aversion to shopping so it was an in and out thing for me but I’m glad I went through the process and made myself do it. The locals love it when we wear African fabric and I got lots of compliments on it.

Anna and I showing off our African fabric.

We all know I could go on and on about all the great stuff going on here, but I will limit myself to one last thing. One night I was really struggling, with questions of identity, value, purpose, the usual overwhelming lies that we tell ourselves, when a friend knocked on my door because they needed something. They could tell something was wrong and instead of just accepting my brush off answer that everything would be okay, they persisted. It was hard, to say the things I was feeling aloud, to show that weakness and vulnerability, to overcome that lie in my head that says I’m burdening this person with my problems. But, as is often the reaction on the ship, they asked if they could pray for me. I don’t know why that still surprises me so much. It really helped me refocus and gave me a sense of peace about things. In a later discussion, they told me that it made them feel good that they were able to pray for me and help me in that instance. I sometimes forget how much of a blessing it is to be needed, to be useful, to be able to help others. It’s a good reminder to allow others to serve us, especially in our times of need. God is so tangibly present in those moments, where both people are being blessed by the interaction, by being open and vulnerable. God is good, God is here, God is faithful.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ~Romans 5:8

When one of the writers pulls out her camera, tells you all to grab a bear and pretend it's your baby, and you all listen to her... PC: Anna Psiaki