Akbe kaka

We start and end our shifts with prayer, nurses and translators huddled in a circle between beds, patient and family activity around us. So much of our prayer is thanks...for safe surgeries, for healing, for patients being discharged and for the time that we are able to spend with each one.

Akbe kaka...thank you very much...I whispered softly in Ewe. Akbe kaka...for everything.

After 4 days of crying despite all attempts at entertainment and distraction, this little guy finally found his toy of choice - a plastic balloon pump. With a good half-hour carefully spent on each small balloon, he inflated enough for the entire ward then explored static electricity via his fleece blanket.

Giggling proudly when a balloon stuck to his face or hand, he took time out to stick his finger into the oxygen probe. He responds to my Akbe kaka with a laugh and a Merci, Tank you!

Both born with cleft lip, Kosi and Kasi's parents had no way of getting the defect repaired until a few weeks ago. (Look back a few posts and you will see Kosi at screenings, pre-surgery) As I write in a patient chart, Kosi climbs up in my lap to pat my cheek and play with my nametag. Suture ends sticking out of his fat little lip and a few steristrips are the only evidence left that he was not born with a perfect face. A few feet away Kasi sings to himself, clapping his hands and dancing to some inner two-year-old African rhythm. As their nurse discharges them home and we gather to say goodbye, Kosi proudly points out his new SmileTrain backpack and gives me a energetic high five. Kasi's mother ties her son onto her back and looks at the happy group of nurses, shyly smiles at us and whispers Akbe kaka.

Blessing was discarded at birth, found in a bush with little legs bowed. Love-starved, she chattered away to any Yovo (white person) nurse that happened to be on the ward, climbing them like a monkey to touch earrings and hair. Post surgery her legs stick out straight in red-and-white striped casts as she waves to her friends on shift, calling tickle tickle (her favorite game), and pantomiming what she wants to do.

As I discharged Blessing and her brother home yesterday, their adopted mother tells me through a translator "Thank you for treating (them) like people, thank you for loving us. Tell the doctors and the nurses, Akbe kaka."

For giving me the incredible privilege of loving these kids, for allowing me to be His hands if only in a small way, my heart cries out to Jesus...Akbe kaka.