A Happy Heart

I’m sitting here writing this with a cold and a happy heart. I mention the cold because it’s possible none of this will make sense, and that would be why. The happy heart comes from having an old friend come back to the Ship for a few weeks. God always knows exactly what we need, even if we don’t. Some outside perspective, some laughter and reminiscing, some amazing teamwork, some new experiences and even some Dutch chocolate! 

Hanging out & trying out VR for the first time.
[Model: Ally Jones - PC: Jared Chacon]

Last week, there was one particularly memorable evening where a whole mixed group of us sat in a cabin laughing and talking. We had people visiting from the head office in Texas, from the UK, from the Netherlands, just a whole bunch of old friends coming back to the Ship, or people coming to the Ship for the first time. I got to try virtual reality technology for the first time – Ruben is here shooting a project for Facebook – Oculus Virtual Reality for Good. We are one of the ten NGO’s who get to make a virtual reality video. Let me tell you, it’s AMAZING! I honestly can’t say that I’ve ever seen technology used in such an incredible way. The first thing I watched was about a young Syrian refugee living in a refugee camp in Jordan. It’s as if you are there. You can look all around you. It’s incredibly powerful and touching. After everyone else got a turn, I proceeded to watch the rest of the videos that were loaded on the phone. I can see where this could potentially get dangerous. You forget where you are. You get lost in the new world. But you can also visit places that you would never get to see in person. You can see the world from someone else’s viewpoint. It’s an immersive experience, and I can’t wait for people to be able to experience the Ship from wherever they are. 

This project has just started and I’ve already seen God work in so many amazing ways. The team had their heart set on a specific patient that they found by working with the screening team. Except when the government called two weeks in advance to tell them when/where to be, the call wouldn’t go through. This patient couldn’t be found. So I decided I would go find them myself. I found someone who would take me to the village where she was screened. The screening team told me this wasn’t a good idea, for a variety of reasons, they asked me to let them try to get their contacts to find the patient. Looking back, I’m glad they stepped in because it turns out the village listed in their file, isn’t actually where they live. So I would have gone on a wild goose chase, all because I was too impatient to do the one thing I needed to do – pray. I thought I could take care of this myself. So on that day, that I had been planning on going driving through Cameroon, I had lunch with Michele (my boss) & Kate, and Michele wisely suggested that we go into the office and pray for this patient. A few minutes after everyone had gone back to work, I happened to be scrolling through the recent pictures that our photographers had put up, and I saw some from the home visit the Comms team had done last week, to visit a patient who had just had a large tumour removed.

The Oculus team all ready to go into the OR. 

In one of the pictures, she is with a young girl who also has a facial tumour. I asked our writer, who is this?? It was the patients’ daughter. She was also scheduled to come the same day as this patient I was looking for. Why don’t we follow this patient?! I ran down to screening and they looked through the whole database and could not find this patient. So I went up and had our translator call the patient they had visited to find out more information on her daughter. Turns out we had her name and age wrong. This was the same patient we had been looking for all this time. Here she was! I ran down to screening and they had figured it out at about the same time, realizing that one of the phone numbers on the forms was a match. I can’t tell you how excited I was. The media team had planned their whole trip around this patient and I honestly didn’t know how we were going to make this happen, I had exhausted all my human options, and then I finally (with some prodding) was able to step back and lay it at God’s feet. And now it’s turned into an even better story than we could have ever planned. I’m pretty sure God has been in it all along, from the moment this patient was first selected this summer. 

I got to meet our lovely patient for the first time last week and it was such a surreal moment. She’s had so many people praying for her and thinking about her. So far the tests have gone well, and if everything is good at tomorrow’s surgeon screening then she will get her surgery date. I am so excited for her! [Note: Our patient has now successfully had surgery! I'll give a further update next week].

Since I never take pictures of myself, here's a
picture I took of Ruben & Coach Hugo Broos.

Other than all that excitement, we got to host the coach of the Cameroonian national football team, which was pretty amusing because everyone recognized him and wanted pictures with him everywhere we went. For the most part the Crew had no idea who he was, but the Day Crew all knew him and wanted pictures. He seemed really moved by what he saw on board, and he really blessed us by talking to the Day Crew and answering questions about how to achieve your dreams, and doing a press conference to tell the media about the amazing work that Mercy Ships is doing. It’s great to know that people from all different walks of life are invested and touched by what we do. 

In terms of fun, we had our first volleyball tournament of the field service which was great (we were 2/4), but also made me realized how many people I don’t know on the Ship! There were whole teams out there who I had never seen before. At the same time, I feel like I have been developing some stronger friendships, being more open with people about what I need in a friendship, but also making more of an effort to spend time with a wide group of people. We had another fun Karaoke night and a one day trip to the beach with lots of driving in traffic. Cameroon is a beautiful country and I’m thankful that we are able to see lots of different parts of it. I’ve recently realized that I need to do a better job of loving people well, all the time, not expecting certain things or reactions from others, not hoping that the outcome will be that they change their behaviour. I can only control myself and how I respond to things, not how others respond. That I need to make my response love every time, that I need to take the focus off myself and put the focus on Him.  

One of chaplains, Andrea, shared a video with us last week about a man who has planted a tree EVERY SINGLE DAY for forty years, in this one area in India, to help preserve the land, and it has grown into a huge forest. The point was that we can achieve great things by being consistent, by loving people well, every single day. When we look back in 10 + years, will we see the fruit of what we’ve done over that time. That most times, it isn’t about the few big things we do well but rather the daily, little things that we do well. I’m still figuring out what that looks like in my life. 

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. ~ 1 Corinthians 15:58