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