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.

Learning to Succeed in Ways That Matter

I’ll start off with a Bob Goff quote for you: I used to be afraid of failing at something that really mattered to me, but now I’m more afraid of succeeding at things that don’t matter. I really recommend his book Love Does, full of examples of being present, living life with whimsy and how love is about action. That quote has really resonated with me lately because of the hosting I’ve been doing. I’ve hosted two vision teams in the last three weeks and I often find that when I get to the end of a hosting week, I get lots of congratulations and encouragement, but it all feels empty and hollow. I feel nothing at the end, no sense of accomplishment. And that’s because all week I’ve been so busy running around and doing stuff that I forgot to include God in it. I’ll do my quiet time in the morning, but then 12 hours of work will go by and I won’t have gone back to God in all that time. I really do need that constant reminder to praise Him and thank Him for all He does. And so I will the reach the end of the week, and all the praise will feel empty because I didn’t include God in every minute, in every word that was said. I want to make sure I’m succeeding at things that matter, in ways that matter. I want to host trips, not in a Renée way, but in a God way, so that at the end of the week, all the praise goes to God for everything He accomplished, for the hearts He changed, for the smiles and moments He created. It’s a work in progress.

One of our Swedish guests, the CEO of Stena Line, who is
helping us to build the new ship, playing with one of the patients.

Even though I’ve been on the ship for a year now, I've experienced quite a few 'firsts' over the last few weeks. I had my first dental cleaning on board (perks of being long term crew!), although it is a bit strange being treated by people you know – imagine living in a village of 400 people! The person you share a room with is the person who bakes the bread; your boss is also your mentor and giver of all wisdom and fellow adventure taker; the carpenter fixing the doors is your close friend; when you’re giving tours to your guests and all the nurses who are explaining their departments are your friends; the run you went on is witnessed by all the gurkhas and the hospital director and anyone else who happens to look outside…you get the idea! It’s unique and crazy but somehow it all works (basically because everyone is full of love and grace).

Somehow in the midst of living on a hospital ship in Africa, we happen to have pretty ‘normal’ moments, full of laughter and community, just doing life together. One night we were playing Frisbee on the dock and then that turned into a bit of rugby and then suddenly the rugby ball was on top of a giant warehouse and we were devising plans to get it down. After a few failed attempts, someone came up with a type of javelin which was a piece of wood tied to a rope and that actually worked, except the javelin got stuck on the roof with the rope hanging down, so we tried to get that down and ended up making an even bigger mess of it. But hey, I got my rugby ball down and we had an evening full of laughter and whimsy! One Sunday morning, about 30 of us gathered round the TV to watch the Australian Open (tennis) final, complete with lots of yelling and cheering. One evening, Jill from Arbre de Vie, came to pick up a few of us girls and we went to dinner. She told us lots hilarious stories and we had a great time talking about life in rural Benin.

Our murder mystery group - Hollywood themed this time.

We did another murder mystery but this time with 36 people (which is insane) and it involved getting cast in a movie and ‘acting’ out a scene from it at the end. I got cast as the dead body, which was quite amusing, although the one person who I thought was innocent, turned out to be the killer. During one community meeting, my boss and I were sharing about a generous donation of gym equipment (which has finally arrived!!) so we dressed up in gym clothes and ran up all pumped up before sharing the news. On the ship holiday I went to the beach with some of families and got pretty sunburnt, although I guess that’s not really new.

I had the opportunity to watch a Beninese rugby game (they’re actually pretty good) because one of our crew members, Denny, has been playing with them. It brought back lots of memories of watching my sister play rugby. There’s something very life giving about watching sports and cheering on a team/player together – it translates across cultures. People get so excited and it’s fun to see your friends do well. It was also a cool opportunity to get to meet a segment of the population that we would normally never interact with through Mercy Ships. This group of young, confident, athletic men. It’s neat to see this other side of Beninese society, a group that doesn’t need any of the services we provide, a group that has dreams and goals, a group that is the future of this country.

I also had another very ‘American’ experience – a Sunday afternoon drive with the windows down and the country music blasting, surrounded by 5 amazing people. I think it’s one of my absolute favourite moments from Benin, one of those moments you wish wouldn’t end. To think I had to come all the way to Africa to meet such lovely people from my own continent. Another semi-normal experience was seeing my Swedish guests pull out gifts from home for various crew members. One of the guests had been to the Netherlands and gotten some Dutch chocolate and magazines and a variety of other things for one of the Dutch families onboard. It was so cute to see him get their son to open the bag and start pulling stuff out. They were genuinely surprised and touched. I love that my job allows me to see these kinds of special moments. I get to be a fly on the wall as crew members share their heart for this place and their dreams for the future, in a way they wouldn’t necessarily tell other crew members. It’s great to see people get excited to meet guests.

Visiting the historical capital of Benin - Abomey.

Now for a not so normal experience, actually a very African experience – having lunch with the King. We were invited by the King of Abomey (turns out he’s actually a prince) to come have lunch. After a 3 hour drive we arrived and were warmly greeted. They showed us some of the big historical areas and explained the history of this place which used to be the capital of the whole region, a kingdom named Dahomey, which made up current day Benin, Togo and Nigeria. They invited us to tour a local museum as well. Afterwards we were brought to the kings place where we were treated to ‘dinner and a show’. They fed us local food and had dancers and music going the whole time. At the end the king invited some crew members to come up and dance with him (never sit in the front row!). It was pretty hilarious. Before leaving, the king generously offered to do an interview with one of our academy kids. Well, at the same time, a whole group of us had to go to the washroom and we were led to the washroom attached to the King’s bedroom. As we were in there waiting, they started the interview, and we were told to hide in the corners to not be in the shot. You had about 20 women standing awkwardly in the corner of the King’s bedroom – it was quite amusing.

Dancing with the King of Abomey.

And finally for a few unique Mercy Ships moments - I was down in the wards with my guests one day and this little baby named David came up to me and asked me to pick him up. Both his hands and feet had been webbed and he just had surgery on all four to separate the digits, so his hands and feet were all wrapped up. He was a cutie and I took him with us for the rest of the tour, with all the nurses heckling me for stealing him away from them. That same day, I walked by a ward and saw that another David, the ortho patient who I’ve mentioned before, had just had his casts cut off and was going to walk for the first time without them. I was so EXCITED for him! Afterwards I found him on the dock and he said everything went well, so we celebrated together. I was so happy for him. I’ve been going to the HOPE Center and helping him practice speaking and reading in English and he’s getting so good! We were reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar which I remember reading in school, and I was trying to remember what caterpillar was in French when he pulled out a French-english dictionary. One of the nurses had given it to him. I thought that was so sweet! Every day I’m so amazed at this community. If you were wondering, the word for caterpillar is chenille.

And so, I guess I’ll wrap up all this rambling just by saying that 1 year later I am still experiencing many new things; a mixture of ‘normal’ (whatever normal is), African and Mercy Ships unique moments. Even when things get momentarily harder, there is so much to be thankful for, so many special experiences from the big crazy things to the small encouraging smiles in the hallway. In Exodus, Moses is telling his father in law, Jethro, about everything that happened and I love his reaction. I pray that we would all be delighted to hear about the good things that God is doing in each other's lives, and that our reaction would be to praise Him!

Jethro was delighted to hear about all the good things the Lord had done for Israel in rescuing them from the hand of the Egyptians. He said, “Praise be to the Lord, who rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians and of Pharaoh, and who rescued the people from the hand of the Egyptians. ~ Exodus 18:9-10

We had 8 amazing surgeons onboard last week, covering many different specialities, representing Canada, USA, Ethiopia, Australia, South Africa and the UK.