The Sail & Such...
We are sailing today, in two hours!!! I just realized that if I didn't write you now the rocking of the boat may prevent me from looking at the computer for the next week, so here goes...
So, yes, I will be back in the old US of A December 13th! It will be so good. It's amazing to see no places but there is still no place like home. My plans as of today are to spend the holidays with my family and then hopefully take a travel nursing contract somewhere in the US, (preferably somewhere where the compensation is best & not having to shovel snow this winter would definitely be a plus:) for a couple of months to prepare to do more charity work in the future. I am prayerfully considering coming back to Liberia but am not certain yet.
Today we are setting sail towards the Canary Islands off the coast of Spain where the ship will be "drydocked," and have it's annual maintenance performed through January. I prayed long and hard about exactly when to come home, and it just seemed right to stay through the sail. It allowed me to finish the entire outreach here and to spend more time with my kids at the orphanage up until the bitter end. And because Teneriffe is a much higher traffic tourist destination than Liberia (what isn't, really??), my flight home from there was much much cheaper, so it just made sense.
It’s funny, when I vacationed on a cruise ship I never saw any implications of the hard work that goes into sailing, probably for the same reasons that Mickey Mouse gets changed in an underground dressing room in the Magic Kingdom. Well I can assure you that this is no Disney World. The ship has been bustling with men in hard hats and abandoning ship drills [even one in the middle of the night!] and stowaway searches for the past few weeks. Should we end up with a stowaway, not only will we have to turn around and return him but we’ll be fined $10,000. Lots of ships, especially in Asia and India, throw stowaways overboard to get out of this! Somehow I don’t think that’s really our style on the Mercy Ship. The Africa Mercy was originally designed not to be a cruiseliner transporting people [before being converted into a hospital ship], but to be a ferry to transport cars. There are no guarantees of a smooth sail! Everybody has been working hard all week to tie down all the heavy objects in preparation. Everything from the trash cans to the soda machine to the photocopier have ropes or chains or bungees around them. Will try to keep you posted on the sail.
The Orphanage.
Thank you for the prayers you offered up about my meeting with Amelia. Our time together was better than I expected. In theory, Amelia seemed to share many of my beliefs about disciplining in love, more so than I expected. We came up with a plan of action so that discipline can be consistent between all the caretakers and children. Now we can only pray that this plan can become a reality. This place is so broken.
A few weeks ago we had an amazing Tuesday afternoon with the girls at the orphanage. Rachel asked the girls to share what they've been learning on Tuesday afternoons. There are times when I have wondered whether they can even understand what we're saying with the language barrier, much less if they are really listening or internalizing what they hear. But their responses blew us away. All ten of them said something different - and they brought up things we'd taught them months ago! They all recited, in unison, two Bible verses that we'd memorized together back in September. I was recently reminded by a dear friend to be prepared that we don't always sew and reap in the same season, and honestly, I was okay with that. I was prepared to give my all to these girls and leave without ever truly knowing whether or not I had made a difference. But God allowed us to see the fruits of our labor, and how amazing it was!
[My beautiful girls...]
Wednesday was my last visit to the orphanage. We've been preparing the orphans for our departure all along, but that doesn't mean it will be easy on them. I am praying for a smooth transition for them, and that their strength will be found in God not in looking to us. So easy for me to say, I know. They sent me off with an amazing prayer. There were a lot of tears. Somehow God gave me the grace to hold back my own until the kids were out of sight!
The good news is that there is a couple named Ilne and Carl who have been working with the orphanage for awhile also, and plan to come back to Liberia in February to live on the land with the people and to build a new home for the children at the orphanage. Their current building is structurally sound but overcrowded, and most of the yard is used as sewage. The new orphanage will be in the bush, the rural outskirts of Monrovia. There will be endless room for the kids to run and play. The kids’ eyes light up when we talk about their new home, and when some of the boys went to see the property they just laid in the grass. The plan is to build a cluster of five smaller homes around a courtyard area. The hope is to staff each home with a “parent” or set of parents, creating a family dynamic. We are praying for God to provide staff who will raise the children in love. Take a look at Carl and Ilne’s website. They are clearly faithful and brave people, and I have learned so much serving alongside them.
In the Hospital.
Gorpue was transferred to a Mercy Ships clinic in Sierra Leone, which is one country north of us, where she had another surgery done for the leaking and will hopefully have her colostomy reversed soon. She is very well!
[Good times with Gropue!]
We finished up the outreach with a lot of minor surgeries in the past few weeks. We can't do anything too major at the end because we needed to anticipate discharging all the patients before sailing. We are not able to take patients with us. So we saw a lot of patients with smaller surgical needs. Things went pretty smoothly, and it was so good to see them go home in a better condition than they came. Of course we do not see the final product, as it takes months for swelling to go down, but we do see progress in the patients' physical appearance.
Marthlyn came back in for her third and final surgery, a minor revision. She was so brave to arrive with a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye. Knowing what she went through in her last stay here I would've thought she'd run for the hills at the sight of the ship. "You are a strong African girl," we told her over and over, I think that's a token phrase here. It put a smile on Marthlyn's face. She still is not speaking to us, although her mom tells us that she does speak when no one is around. These things take time, and we hope for more progress as her wounds heal. Another token African phrase that we hear all the time is "take time," which can mean anything from slow down to wait a minute to it will take a while to "look out - you're about to step in that massive pothole!"
[Marthlyn before]
[After second surgery]
[Returning to the ship for her third surgery - with a smile!]So we closed up the hospital last week, which means all of the nurses have been promoted to full time cleaning ladies! We are breaking down the ENTIRE hospital to prepare for sailing. This means wiping down each and every peice of equipment, furniture, the walls, ceiling, and floors with soap then bleach, taking apart and stacking all 60+ beds, and locking/tying up each and every peice of equipment and supplies to prevent it from falling all over the place and breaking while we sail. I must say that I had NO idea of the hard work that went into creating our hospital until I became a part of tearing it down myself. But we all worked together. It was actually nice to be able to just relax with my co-workers, turn up the music as we cleaned, and not have to worry about translating any liberian english for a little while! Next week I will officially join the housekeeping department which is where I'll work for the rest of my time on the ship.
[Promoted!]
[All work & no play of course :0]
It was recently decided that the ship will return to Liberia next year for another outreach here rather than going to another country, which means that Marthlyn can hopefully return for more follow up as she grows and her face grows and therefore might need some tweaking. The plan is to do more work in the community this time, particularly with local hospitals, as well as continuing with our work in the hospital and many other outreach programs onboard. I don't exactly know the ins and outs of what will happen here. Still praying about that. Here is a quote about the vision for next year from the Founder of Mercy Ships, Don Stephens. "Part of Mercy Ships goal in returning again would be to strongly support momentum for Liberia's national health policy and increase capacity for medical care by using the Africa Mercy as a platform for medical education and mentoring in administration/management infrastructure."
Roadtrip!
A few weekends ago I took a trip to a hospital a couple hours inland with the ship's biomedical team, who was requested to come out for a weekend to work on their broken medical equipment. The local hospitals are understaffed, undersupplied, and undereducated. We saw some things that were appalling to westernized medical workers, but that's just where Liberia is at right now. We were hosted by John, a Lutheran Reverend from America, who works as the administrator at the hospital. John was the only non-African person in the hospital, in his community, and in his church. Wow. He seemed quite happy to be in the company of seven westerners for a little while. His life is a very humble one, and made our lives on the ship look like vacationing in a five star resort. But he seemed at peace with his situation. We all marveled at his strength, and had many questions for him about his day to day life. He told us that he feels alone but not lonely. When the work was complete, there was an amazing waterfall in his town that we had the opportunity to venture out to and climb to the top of. Of course nothing that happens in Liberia seems to go off without a hitch. Because of some unexpected car troubles, our SUV had to be pushed on almost ten occasions on the way home. We all pitched in, even the girls. I guess we weren't helping too much - after awhile the guys told us just to wait in the car while they pushed! But once again, we returned home to the ship in one piece. Exhausted, but safe and sound. [Pictures are on the link to the right...]
And one more thing, a verse from the Bible that spoke to me this week. Although we are all working hard in the here and now it keeps things in perspective to remember that there is so much more to this life than the things we see in front of us.
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will by no mean pass away." [Luke 21:33]
It's starting to feel bumpy...I think we'll be moving soon! I thank you again for your support, love and prayers. Your words mean so much, especially when I am so far from home.
Much love,
Lindsay
