The Forgotten

Patients that often come to Mercy Ships have similar stories. They've been to multiple hospitals and talked to many a doctor.  Usually doctors that want to charge them exorbitant amounts of money that these Africans don't have, nor will they ever see that much money in their lifetime.  So they live with their sickness - often seen as a curse, and are cast out of everyday society.  They lack education because they are too ashamed to go to school.  Or worse, they aren't welcomed at school.  They often lack love because they fear no one will accept them or talk to them with their "curse" of a disease.  

This was the case with Blessing.  At 21 years old, she has endured much in her life.  You would never know her hardships if you spoke with her now.  She is a joy to be around and her name exemplifies her personality.  She is from Nigeria and speaks beautiful English.  I got to know her at our off ship clinic, the hospitality center, where she stayed for a while post operatively.  She, too, had a similar story. 

She'd been to multiple doctors who wanted to charge her hundreds of dollars to get surgery.  Her father was a pastor and she loved her family deeply.  She quit attending school, not by choice, but because of the stares and pressure when the tumor inside her mouth enlarged.   So she studied at home with her mother.  She wants to be a teacher or a nurse, and was so excited to return to Nigeria and finish her education. 
After multiple doctors visits her hope was lacking.  Then she ran into Emmanuel, another patient of Mercy Ships who'd had his facial tumor removed.  Emmanuel saw Blessing on the side of the road, and told her to come to the ship for screening.  (You can read his story in my previous newsletter here.) So she went to screening, got her surgery, and is now tumor free.  

Blessing and I got to talking.  She spoke with me about how God has been to good to her.  Since her dad was a pastor, she said she loved to read Psalm 31 and it gave her much comfort.  I left the hospitality center that day thinking that Blessing was going to go far in life.  She was so optimistic and motivated to do good in this world and help others.  Now that her tumor was gone she could go on and live in society once again. 

It wasn't until a few weeks later that I went back and actually read Psalm 31 - her favorite:

9 Be merciful to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief.  My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak. Because of all my enemies, I am the utter contempt of my neighbors; I am a dread to my friends— those who see me on the street flee from me.

12 I am forgotten by them as though I were dead; I have become like broken pottery. For I hear the slander of many; there is terror on every side; they conspire against me and plot to take my life.

14 But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, "You are my God." My times are in your hands; deliver me from my enemies and from those who pursue me. Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love....

21 Praise be to the LORD, for he showed his wonderful love to me when I was in a besieged city. 22 In my alarm I said, "I am cut off from your sight!" Yet you heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help. Love the LORD, all his saints! The LORD preserves the faithful, but the proud he pays back in full. Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD.

I was humbled.  Blessing could relate and loved this Psalm because she was the out-cast and God did see her through. I cannot even begin to imagine what life would be like, living for years with a deformity that defines you every where you go. A physical condition that disrupts the course of your life and alters your plans and dreams and hopes.  The Psalmist says "I am forgotten by them as though I were dead."  Can you imagine thinking that you were forgotten in life?  As though you had died? 

I read a statistic this week that said the number of people that die in this world from starvation is like having six September 11th's every single day.  Forever.  It's pretty humbling when you think about the thousands of people that die every day just because they don't have the means to eat. 

This year has taught me so much, but I think one of the biggest lessons is that while I have been so blessed in my short lifetime, so much of this world is not.  Luckily for Blessing, she was cured of her physical deformity and has a new chance at life.  But sadly so many others don't.  At Mercy Ships screening this year (photo above) I sat at the door on the way out of the screening and offered to pray with all those people that we couldn't help.  So many could not hold back the tears as we were talking to them, and you just wanted to be the answer for them and tell them "yes you will be helped!"  But in reality, I don't know what will happen to those we were not able to help.  

I often say I don't know why God allows so much suffering to occur, but the more I think about it, the more I see that we are not doing enough ("we" meaning those who have enough to help others).  It's not about how much you give away, but how much you have left. 

Hopefully through my blog, you get to see and experience alongside me some of these stories of what life is like in the third world.  When I think of the statistics on the starving children and I drive by the leaf huts in town, I wonder how many of those starving children have come and gone through this ship.  So when I ask this question to God - why are you allowing this suffering to occur?  All these people who have no access to good healthcare or food to eat or who do not have love?  The longer I am here the more I realize that God's response is this: "I have commanded you - every single one of you - to love your neighbors as yourselves.  Treat these neighbors as you would want your own children to be treated.  Literally.  I have given you skills and abilities and blessings in order to help them.  Don't let them be forgotten."  

A Clear Future

Here is a story on one of our eye patients written by the Communications team. 

Christian is nine years old, but he is not like other children his age. They can read. He cannot.  They can play football. He cannot.  Christian cannot do these things because he has cataracts. His father, Adado, explains,  “I noticed when he was three years old that Christian had a problem. We would ask him to pick things up, and he would feel around on the table or the floor until eventually identifying the item.”

Christian has attended school for only one year. He is unable to read the chalkboard, and it is hard for him to focus and to learn. But his father felt it was important that he attend school. Adado says, “He is struggling to learn things, and he is slow, but I wanted him to be around others his age. I didn't want him to miss out on an education.”

Adado spent an incredible amount of time and money taking Christian to hospitals all over Togo and even to Ghana. But none of the doctors knew how to fix the problem. Hope turned to desperation. And desperation turned to despair.

Then, a light shone through the darkness. A man who lived near Adado in Lomé had just received eye surgery for free. The man told Adado and Christian about Mercy Ships and where to go for screening.

 “Free surgery?” Adado thought. “Could this be true?” Adado and Christian went to the patient screening site and saw an eye specialist. They were then sent to the Mercy Ships Hospitality Center. An eye tech team performed an external and internal eye examination to determine the appropriateness of surgery. They confirmed that Christian had cataracts in both eyes … and he was a candidate for surgery! He was given a priceless, bright yellow appointment card with a date for surgery.

 Adado says, “I couldn't believe it. For so long we had spent all the money we had to find help for Christian. I didn't work for days on end while in hospitals waiting with him. Now, he will get help , and I am so thankful.”

 Cataracts in West Africa tend to be very dense due to the intense sunlight and the lack of adequate eye care. Dr. Glenn Strauss is an expert on African cataracts and has been working with Mercy Ships for 13 years. He has developed a team onboard the Africa Mercy that is able to perform, on average, 20 surgeries per day!

 Just one day after surgery, Christian was feeling upbeat. He was coloring a picture with his father and playing with other kids in the ward. Adado looked at his son and said, “Christian, can you see? What is the nurse wearing?”   Christian looked up at Mercy Ships Charge Nurse, Ali Chandra, and said, “Yes. I can see. She has a blue band on her head and a blue top.” Ali stood in her bright blue scrubs and blue headband, nodding her head and smiling. “Yep , he can see!” she said. “Dr. Glenn has done it again.”

 Now Christian will return home and start school again in the fall. Now he will be able to read the chalkboard and won't have trouble picking up items. He fully appreciates the gift of sight that so many people take for granted.

Thank God for Land Rovers

For this week's Friday's favorite I thought I'd share some fun driving photos out and about in town.  These pictures depict why these roads are considered 'back roads' here in Lome.  In rainy season I don't even know why you'd bother!

The first of many times that we asked, "How deep do you think this water really is?"

Of course if you have dirt and water you will always have mud....and plenty of it!

Higher priority...dry feet or a phone call?

We kept on following this guy in front of us so we knew how deep it got.

My favorite water crossing of the day: A guy on a motor bike had to stick his feet straight up in front of him here while driving to avoid getting wet while his bike was under water (at least three feet deep!) Unfortunately, no photo.   This is where he crossed.

This trip across town was to the hospitality center.  Thanks to the ongoing rain here (and perhaps lack of a good sewer system), while the drive to the hospitality center is usually a 15 minute car ride, we eventually made it to the center in a little over an hour with our water-filled detours.  Those bumpy, back roads take quite a while to get through!   

Every day in Africa provides opportunity to broaden my perspective further.  In regard to the oh-so-pleasant driving conditions here this week on our roller coaster of a car ride, as the saying goes, I guess you never fully realize what you've got until it's gone!  

Our Trans Togo Trek

What do you get when you cross eight Mercy Shippers, one car and the national highway of Togo? A trans-Togo trek! Togo is roughly the same size as West Virginia. However, unlike West Virginia it’s very long and thin when viewed on a map. So we thought it would be fun to say we walked across Togo in a day. Could we do it? Others had tried before and failed, but we set out bright-eyed and excited for our 36 mile adventure at 4:45 in the morning one fine Saturday about a month ago.  (Just slightly behind in the blogging here)…
P.S. The umbrella was for the sun...when it eventually came out. 

It was a quick car ride in the wee hours of the morning to the Ghana border across town. Here we are starting our adventure in the dark.

Murray was our trusty driver who stopped about every mile and a half to give us food, water and make sure we stretched. We wouldn’t have been able to do this adventure without him.  We got to walking as the sun came up. You’d be amazed at the number of Africans out running at 5am in the dark with us (many barefoot nonetheless!) Now Jen and I are definitely the shortest in the group, and we had to run to keep up for the first few miles as the pace was so quick! I guess that’s what you get for walking with some tall folks (although at five foot three I guess most people are taller than me).

We were making good time by our return to the ship about 2 hours later. It was here that Liz, Jen and Tim said goodbye as we continued onward. So the four remaining walkers (Estelle, Haley, Ben and I) and Murray continued onward on the main international highway as the day got hotter.

Here we are at our halfway point below. By this time Estelle was finished. While we didn't see too many cattle as this sign would suggest, we did see a zimi accident with bodies covered by the palm leaves (unfortunately all too common here) as well as a naked man hanging out on the side of the road.  Never a dull moment in Africa! 

A much deserved Tampico stop for Haley and Ben

Bathroom Break for us all!...where we also ran into some other Mercy Shippers enjoying a day at Lake Togo. 

We are excited to be at the 26.2 mile marathon mark and still feeling good...only ten more miles to go!



But shortly after, our day long adventure began to feel more like the Trans Togo Trudge.  With blisters on our feet and still miles to go, we were not all smiles. It was also at this point that the Adele song came on in my i-pod, asking “Should I give up, or should I just keep chasing pavement?” Very fitting, and we all had a good laugh.  Here we are emerging through the African grass, and me with my umbrella in the hot sun.

Below, this picture was where I just about gave up. The pain in my right foot was shooting up my leg with every step I took.   Nonetheless we trudged onward. I don't think I would have made it if Ben and Haley hadn't kept on going. 
  

The killing point though was when Murray said he was going to head onward to go to the border. When he didn’t come back after a good 25 minutes (mind you he was driving) we got a little worried. Ben called him on the cell. “Murray where are you? How far away is it?” Murray’s response: “I’ll tell you when I see you.” Uh oh. Not a good sign…

But eventually, after much more walking on the day we thought would never end – Aneho – the last village before the border. With a second wind we continued onward. Enjoying some nice scenery with some train tracks below.

Crossing the bridge to the border!

And victory! I have never been so excited to get into a car and rest at that point.  After 36 miles in one day....

...I can safely say this is something I will never, ever do again, nor recommend for anyone else!  But we did it.  From Ghana through Togo to Benin, we walked across the country we’ve called our home this year. And four weeks later, sadly, I’ve still got the blisters on my feet to prove it!

Reverse Yovo-Phobia

This week's Friday's favorite involves a cute little African child and an area known as the fishing village.  The fishing village is a very poor part of town, where people live in banana leaf huts in rather close living quarters.  The kids play in the ten foot high trash piles and I'm sure the food (not to mention clean water) is hard to come by. 

I happen to be doing some nutrition education in the fishing village on a day in which the people of this small community were getting free grub courtesy of Mercy Ships.  As you would expect, mass chaos ensued.  People were everywhere.   Kids running around screaming and playing while the mamas and papas stood in lines held off by crowd control tape.  The food was being sorted and taken at a local church.  I'd never seen so many people come out of the woodwork to attend. 

After my nutrition teaching was over, I sat down for a bit with the kids, waiting for the food hand-outs to finish.  A little girl crawled on my lap while we sang for who knows how long with the other children.  When I got up to help with the food delivery, this little girl on my lap started screaming.  So I picked her up and toted her around for a bit.  After a while I needed a break so I put her back down.  The lungs of steel came out.  I couldn't let her go without people staring at me like, "why don't you just pick her up?"  We did this scenario probably three more times.  Each time I set her down to work she would follow me around and grab onto my leg and just let it out. I wondered where in the world was her mother amidst all these people?  But I had no such luck in finding her. 

I was asked to help out with food sorting so I set her down again. I was looking at this other lady next to me and her child was tucked so nicely on her back in the typical African fashion.  The lightbulb went off.  I asked to borrow her extra cloth (which the African ladies here seem to have plenty to share) and I put this little girl on my back.  For the next 30 minutes I got quite a few bickers from the African teenagers but I had found my relief from the constant screaming at last. 

Then, just as we were finishing our sorting, guess who decides to show up?....Mama!  She didn't want her back quite yet so this now hushed little girl continued to stay content on my back.  Her name was Julie I learned.  Where Mama had gone, and why had she left her child amidst such chaos for more than an hour?  Never did figure that one out. 

The name for white people here is yovo, and you often hear the term "yovo-phobia" especially on the ward where the kids want nothing to do with the white folks that prod and poke them.  But here in the fishing village, while, even if it was a nuisance, I guess it was better to have reverse yovo-phobia and get a little love from the Africans than to have no love at all!

Here are some other cuties from my day in the village

Check out these teeth!

and my favorite...

she would not stop smiling! 

It was another memorable day with these people that I've come to love!

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Finding Joy In Africa

A few of my friends have this linked to their blog, and I love these thoughts. (Not written by me, but these thoughts are said so well).  For more, check out mochaclub.org 

When I think of Africa, the following images immediately come to mind: Starvation. AIDS. Child soldiers. Genocide. Sex slaves. Orphans. From there, my thoughts naturally turn to how I can help, how I can make a difference. "I am needed here," I think. "They have so little, and I have so much." It's true, there are great tragedies playing out in Africa everyday. There is often a level of suffering here that is unimaginable until you have seen it, and even then it is difficult to believe. But what is even harder is reconciling the challenges that many Africans face with the joy I see in those same people. It's a joy that comes from somewhere I cannot fathom, not within the framework that has been my life to this day.

The images spilling out of my television showed circumstances that could seemingly only equal misery, and I was fooled. I bought into the lie that circumstance defines happiness. The truth is, in Africa I find hearts full of victory, indomitable spirits. In places where despair should thrive, instead I find adults dancing and singing, and children playing soccer with a ball crafted of tied up trash. Instead of payback, I find grace. Here, weekend getaways are not options to provide relief from the pains of daily life. Relationships and faith provide joy. Love is sovereign.

My new reality… I know now that my joy should have no regard for my circumstances. I'm ashamed by my lack of faith, but at the very same moment I am excited by my new pursuit. I'm forced to redefine the meaning of having much or having little. I'm uneasy with the prospect of change and of letting go, but just the thought of freedom is liberating. I want what I have learned to trickle down from my head into my heart - I no longer want to need the "next thing" to have joy.

I'm not saying that Africa does not need our efforts. It absolutely does need our partnership. But for me, I've come to understand that I need Africa more than Africa needs me. Why? Because it is Africa that has taught me that possessions in my hands will never be as valuable as peace in my heart. I've learned that I don't need what I have and that I have what I need. These are just a few of this continent's many lessons. I came here to serve and yet I've found that I have so much to learn, and Africa, with all its need, has much to teach me.

Many in the west think Africa is simply an object of charity. This mindset does not breed true compassion. And there's something about truth… when it becomes clear, it hits you in a way that is hard to ignore. The same is true with people. If we invest in knowing someone, love is the automatic response. We can't all make a trip across the ocean, but we can seek to have a conversation that recasts the images that force pity over partnership. Why do you need Africa more than Africa needs you?