Surgeon Screenings, Partners Reception & Off Road Adventures

This morning they talked about how we’ve been here for a little over three weeks now, but really it feels like months, and it’s true! It feels like we have been in Benin for a long, long while and yet last night we had our first patients arrive onboard. Today is the first day of surgeries. It blows my mind to think that as I sit here and write this, two decks below me, lives are being transformed. Medical marvels, magical transformations, lives restored, hope given. What a unique place to call home. During last night’s service, we all went out across the ship to pray for different areas and departments, and especially for our patients and the surgeons, nurses and anesthetists who would be involved in their operations. Everything we do is done as a community.

Julien (who I mentioned in my newsletter), came to the ship
for his surgical screening, hiding his tumour with a pink scarf.

This week we had surgeon screenings on the dock, where the surgeon sees if they can operate on the patient. The admissions team also runs tests on the patients if necessary. They had surgeon screenings for plastics, general and maxfax this week, as all three of those surgeons are here. They also had surgical evaluations, which was where patients that we treated in 2009 (when we were last here), came back to visit us. It helps the surgeons to see how the patients look 6 years later, if they could improve their methods, how various treatments lasted as the patient grew up, etc. I love that we are able to have this kind of follow up and to show our patients that we truly care about them and how they are doing. On top of all this, screening was still going on at our offsite location. It seems like our radio advertisements must have worked at least a little because we seemed to get more plastics patients, which is what we were looking for. We typically only perform plastic surgery to help with mobility (ie. To be able to move all their fingers, or bend their arm properly), rather than appearance, and a lot of the patients we were seeing had very good mobility. It seems that their burns were treated fairly well, which is encouraging to know that the burn unit at the local hospital is doing a good job. Dr.Gary mentioned in his speech at the partners reception that he has seen a huge improvement, which is very encouraging. 

The Minister of Health shaking hands with our Managing
Director - he came to visit our screening centre.

The comms team has been busy keeping up with the patients they want to follow and identifying everyone they met at screening. We were also in charge of all the name tags, videos and banners for the partners reception that occurred on Thursday – the ship invites all its partners in the country, to welcome them aboard the ship. It was a very formal affair, with several ministers, and many partners from NGOs, businesses, embassies, and hospitals. The comms ladies were dressed all in black at the bottom of the gangway and got to be the first smiling faces to greet them and welcome them aboard. I also helped to host a tour of some of the officials in French (hopefully i’m getting better with all this practice!). Nat Geo has also been very busy, following many, many patients, doing home visits, and filming the hospital getting ready. 

Never a dull moment with these beauties!

Some of the best moments have been the random, unexpected ones. Tuesday was one of those nights. A group of us had a crossfit session led by ‘Coach Mike’, where I remembered how fun it is to train as a team. We then had an improv lesson from Anna, which I wasn’t even planning on doing, but then participated in last minute and actually really enjoyed! She is an awesome teacher and it was hilarious. We then headed over to our boss’s office and proceeded to fill it with balloons and have a dance party in there as we decorated it for her birthday. It was a wonderful, unplanned evening that led to all kind of team bonding and laughs. Saturday we got to attend a wedding - two crew members who are from West Africa were getting married and they invited most of the ship. We attended the civil service in the morning, which was proceeded over by the mayor and started an hour late, and then headed to the church service. It was nice to see them get married, and definitely an interesting experience.

On the back roads of Benin.

On Sunday, we had a slightly more planned adventure, which ended up being so much fun. I have been wanting to go for a drive up north and explore, so I found a forest about 2 hours north of Cotonou and decided that was where we would go. Thankfully, I am surrounded by the best people and found 8 people willing to trust me and come along! So we all crammed in a car and headed off, eventually finding the bumpy dirt road that I had highlighted on my black and white satellite map of the area (Kat thought this was hilarious). The road didn’t even show up on Google Maps, and when I saw it I understood why – it was more of a path, barely enough room for the car. But we made it! We proceeded to wander around the forest, no path, no destination, just wandering, until we finally did intersect with a path. We all took turns pretending we were the tour guide and knew things about the forest. We followed the path until we found a village, where we had a very interesting experience. One of their men approached the tallest guy in our group (Michael) and proceeded to try and convince him to marry off the girls in our group. It was hilarious (especially since I was the only one who spoke French), but soon a large crowd started to form so we decided we should go. One person mentioned, it’s like walking into an area where no Western rules exist – they have their own cultural rules and we have no idea what those are, and due to the language barrier, it makes it hard to find out, which is why we are so uncomfortable at times. Our car rides were filled with laughter and loud singing to the randomest songs (Avril Lavigne anyone?). It was one of those perfect days where you can’t help but marvel at creation; be thankful for blessings like landcruisers and cookies; be struck by how differently we live from the people we met; be in awe at how music transcends countries and languages; and realize how much you love every single one of the people you are with.

Someone had these for sale -
A little taste of home!

There have been times this week that I have been overwhelmed with the amount of work to be done, and way too focused on the little things, and I think God has an amazing way of bringing us back to those things that are truly important. He refreshes us constantly. In one of Pastor Tim’s sermons recently, he talks about the Holy Spirit, and that he isn’t there just to give us an extra push when we are struggling to open the jar of peanut butter. The Holy Spirit is there to help us do the things we could never do on our own. That really stuck with me. All of the things that this ship does, all of the things that I do, they aren’t things I could accomplish on my own – but with His help, we are able to do amazing, life giving things. On Sunday, one of our chaplains, Diana, shared a quote with us that said we don’t pray to impress or inform God, but rather to invite Him in. I had to really think about that. How often do I stop and invite God into what I am doing? Not often. I am so focused on just doing it. Most likely, the reason I am getting overwhelmed with the little things is because I am trying to do it all on my own strength, rather than on His. I think that’s what makes this place so unique, is that we live in a community filled with people who are inviting God into everything they do. This morning, before he went down to perform the first surgery, Dr.Gary went on the overhead speaker and asked us to pray with him. He knows that if we invite the Holy Spirit in, if we allow God to work through us, we will bring His kingdom to earth. I pray that I would learn to invite God into everything I do and that as a community we would proclaim that He is welcome in this place.

This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. ~ Romans 3:22-24 

[NIV notes: glory of God=what God intended humans to be]

Our nurses are ready for the patients to arrive!