Christmas adventures in Accra

Noel and Justin point out the goudge our tro-tro
left in the road

 We had initially planned to go somewhere else entirely.  It was meant to be a leisurely lunch with friends, followed up with a traipsing adventure through downtown Accra, hitting up all the interesting cultural and historical landmarks we could manage in an afternoon. 

Instead of following the original plan, we ended up skipping lunch at the mall and embarking instead on a lively outing involving a palace, a broken axel, plenty of yummy Ghanian snacks, and Colin Powell. 

I started out with a rather large group of Mercyshippers, enjoying the fresh(er) air and relative cleanliness of Tema port as we hiked out from our slip to the nearest taxi station.  It was my first time in Ghana, and I felt like I had walked out into my own world.  The architecture, traffic patterns and weather...everything down to the painted curbs along the sidewalk and brightly lit advertisements for Indomie...it all reminded me of Indonesia in a rather African way. 

 

Our tro-tro, shortly before we started walking


Surreal...to the point I almost started speaking Indonesian multiple times.  But it also meant I felt totally at home when our taxi went a different way from the other taxis and left five of us on the brink of adventure.  We flagged down a tro-tro (strangely reminiscent of the angkots and tok-toks of my childhood, and the bush taxis and poda-podas of more recent African adventures) and crammed in with twenty strangers, only to find ourselves on the curb two hours later after a loud noise and grinding sideways halt.  Thankfully, the wheel and axel decided to come off while we were turning rather than while driving fast.



Jamestown Palace



When we found out we had gone well past the intended stop because our tro-tro had taken an entirely different route, we set off walking instead, following a rather battered and damp sketch of the Accra waterfront.  We passed Independence Arch and Kwame Nkrumah's grave, two forts and a palace on our way down to the Jamestown lighthouse.  Lively haggling got us a tour of the "palace" - a concrete building with cultural murals along the walls - and a trip to the top of the lighthouse.  Through the haze we could see an old slave castle a few miles away (to be visited another time).  The view was also filled with fishing boats along the waterline and anchored just off shore; inland there were concrete offices and tiny huts and children playing in the streets.

 

Fishing boats, with Osu castle in the
distance



Heather, Noel, Michelle and I...with Colin Powell



Later that afternoon we stopped at a local craft market (mainly to look at fabric), and as we were waiting for one last friend to finish, we met a man who proudly named the capitols of our respective countries and states, and then delivered quite a lot of commentary on the development of Canadian territories.  I'm not sure if Colin Powell was his real name or just one he's chosen to adopt, but along with significant potential as a future geography teacher, Colin does some excellent woodcarving.

We made it back to ship just after dark - tired, dirty, and full of fun, and were greeted at the gangway by lights and wreaths and a ship-style Christmas decor.  It's not snow and hot chocolate and pepperment and pine, but somehow it's starting to feel a lot like Christmas. :-)





A go se yu bak

From the inside, my home looks the same.  Sparse crew members are scattered around the couches this afternoon, checking email and napping.  There are Christmas trees up around the ship, a Nativity scene is starting to take shape, and it's been a little while now since the hospital closed so we could pack it all away.

It's the little things that hint at the fact that life is slightly different today.  The bins to sort out biodegradable trash. The view of sparkling deep blue water stretching out as far as the eye can see...where there used to just be containers and concrete.  The deck isn't quite always where your foot expects it to be, and a constant rumble fills the air.  A walk in town is no longer a viable option.  Instead, we practice our life jacket technique just in case.

As the field service came to a close our leaders discussed all that had been accomplished in Sierra Leone.  Almost 3,000 surgeries of various types, 34,000 dental procedures, health and agricultural education and eye care and mental health and all kinds of different methods of outreach that have touched thousands on thousands of West Africans here over the last 10 months.  Reflecting back over what God has done and claiming promises of what He will continue to do, I saw so much more than numbers there.

Instead of numbers and lists my mind is filled with faces and snapshots of moments.  Sierra Leone is Naamah and Ismael and Finda and Mariama and Hardy and Christophe...all the individuals you've met through my blog and more besides.  It is the incredulous smile on the face of Josi's papa and his wholehearted declarations of praise to God.  It is Jon and Tambo demanding a dance party to the tune of "Jizos go do am for me" (Jesus has done it for me).  It is the heavy weight of Joseph in my lap during a water break at Yams Farm, as he drowsily declares dis na me mama (here is my mother).   It is the look on Isata's face reflecting back out of the mirror during her first dressing change, as she realizes that the tumor truly is gone.  It is getting mobbed by piles of orthopedic kids that remembered me from 6 months ago, scrubs covered in warm drool, roads that look like riverbeds, beaches straight out of a Caribbean postcard.  It is the Krio phrases and songs and humorous comments still here with me, tucked away in the nooks and crannies and corners of my heart.

I didn't save my goodbyes for when we pulled out of the dock.  It was earlier, in the soft haze of a sunrise, and with the insistent call to prayer from the minarets drowned out by the overwhelming Krio praise songs in my heart.  I think back over my time here and realize that I have given months of my life and poured out my heart here, and I have been given back so much more than I ever gave.


I learned early on in my childhood overseas that saying goodbye is just too hard.  People and friends, homes and countries will all come and go...some more quickly than others.  Who is to say when I may see a person or place again, where I will be next year, or who I will see in the multitudes of worship at the heavenly throne.  It is easier just to say A go se yu bak (I will see you later) - not a promise, necessarily, but as a sincere hope.

Only God can know what the true impact is from the ship's field service here and my own time in Sierra Leone.  I can't bring myself to tally numbers or count the years until I may be back again.  All I can say is that God has done amazing things this year in Sierra Leone, and I look forward to seeing what God will do there in the future.  Until then, I'll continue to pray for God to glorify Himself in the hearts and lives of my people there, and that they will continue to proclaim with exuberant joy in celebration of what He has done for them.

Packing the PACU

Post-Anesthesia Care Unit

Walking by our PACU on ship, you might think that this is not only the name of the unit, it's also a strong suggestion for events that should go on inside.  Because quite a lot of the hospital is now stowed away in PACU; packed in a three-dimensional spatial relations tetris challenge held together with rope and ratchet straps.  The patients have left, the nurses are leaving, and those of us who are still here bleach and pack, strip and wax, and attempt to fit into very small spaces.

My pager went off, and I answered the phone only to hear "do you want to be a monkey?"  Apparently I have been making a name for myself in the last week by clambering around the top of carts and pallets, army-crawling across packed stretchers, and diving through large piles of bed frames and hospital equipment to find secure points to hook more little straps to so that things will stay put when we sail.  Later this week I'll get to climb back over it all again, searching for anything out of place, as we finish preparing the ship to sail.  My truckers hitch knot I remember from a backcountry medicine class in school has served me well, as we rope chairs and chairs and more chairs together in some semblance of stability.

It was standing on top of the beginnings of our pile when it hit me.  Stowing away the hospital isn't like boxing up your winter clothes in a garage, or even like packing a moving van.  Generally (we hope), both the garage and van will remain upright for as long as your items stay there.  The same is not really true here.  It's a bigger playing field, with bigger consequences; our storage place moves.  A bad packing job could mean broken equipment or a hole in the wall.  A bad cleaning job could mean infection for future patients.  


And yet, even in the seriousness of the tasks there is still plenty of opportunity to have fun with it.  

I've done things this week I honestly never thought I would say.  I mean, let's be honest, how many of you have saran-wrapped an ICU bed full of orthopedic equipment?  Danced to Beyonce's "All the Single Ladies" to the rhythm of a panic strobe light while bleaching?  Tied mattresses to laundry room shelves?  Accidentally attempted to be a stowaway?  Ice skated in socks to "The Sound of Music?"  Rearranged cupboards while standing on your head?  All this and more have brought the idea of "secure for sail" to a whole new level for me.  

As we met for praise and prayer each morning, we found the acoustics of an empty ward could make 30 nurses worshipping sound like a beautiful choir performance.  We've discovered hidden talents, and who we are as a team when we're not actively taking care of patients.  We went crazy this week in worshipping our King, even through the small and lowly jobs in life.


Who knew the incense of worship could smell like bleach and floor stripper and sweat?!

.

Yu de pillar

Working aboard a hospital ship in West Africa isn’t the most secure and predictable job I’ve ever had.  There are so many things that we don’t always know, that we can’t know.   Things we think we know and then find out that actually we didn’t after all.  Questions come up that I never really thought about at when I lived in the States: 

Will the frozen food container come through so we’ll have meat to eat, or will it be stuck on the dock for the next 3 weeks?

Will I be woken up for an emergency in the middle of the night tonight?

Will I get malaria tomorrow?

Has one of the mischievous children on A ward escaped down the hallway?

Will the water truck show up so we’ll be able to continue showering regularly?

Who will move in this week when my roommate moves out…and who will be moving in next month?

Is the floor sideways (or in nautical terms…are we listing)?

Realities are true here that weren’t my reality before.  Like the fact that in less than a week my hospital temporarily won’t be a hospital any more.   Or in two weeks I’ve been reassigned to the hospitality department for the duration of the sail.   Or that I don’t actually know what date I’m leaving the country, even though it’s only 2 or 3 weeks away, because we won’t know until a day or two  ahead of time for security reasons (and you all won’t know until after we’ve sailed).

There is a truth that holds firm in my life when everything else changes.  I hear it in the streets, in the wards, in a soft chant that soothes my heart in the busy office and in the silent hum of the engines through the night.   It’s in the songs we sing at church and in ward worship, that we murmur as we rock children to sleep.

Yu are de pillar that holds my life

Yu are de pillar that holds my life

Masta Jesus, yu are de pillar that holds my life

Masta Jesus, yu are de pillar that holds my life

It's only on the truth of my master Jesus that I can stand, tall and strong and confident.  He is my rock, my strength, my constant.  It is only He that holds my life.

Glady boku-boku

Thursday was the end of surgery for this outreach.  There is one more week for faces to mend and graft sites close over, for little stomachs to start digesting food again.  The ward is full of bewhiskered cleft lip babies and the leftovers from the plastic surgery rotation waiting for wound healing.

We gathered in A ward to celebrate and tel God tenki (give thanks to God) - patients and parents and nurses and doctors and day volunteers and OR sterilizers and physical therapists....and the odd stray we pulled in from the hallway.  We lifted our hands in praise for successful surgeries, lifted our voices to the deckheads and up the stairwell, and danced as the ship gently rocked.  Nurse after nurse was pulled into the dance circle as well, as Abu spun wildly and yelled, "shake you bodi and dance like an African!!"  Later on as patient after patient shared testimonies of God's goodness in their lives, a small voice in my lap murmured through steristrips and sutures, "Amen, amen, He has turned my life around.  A--MEN!"  

I have wished a thousand times that I could bring you here with more than words; that you could experience the wonder of a ward worship service with me and join us in being glady boku-boku (very happy) for what the Lord has done.  Deb, one of our nurse-turned-photographers, captured a few moments of worship from our Thursday.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, maybe the clip below will finally give you a window into our lives.  Come and join us, just for a few moments, in telling Papa God tenki :-) 

Home again, home again, jiggety jig

For a week I’ve been learning my new job of nurse educator, planning ahead for next year, organizing the desk that will soon be mine.  The piles of paperwork have slowly diminished and the ever-growing to-do list I’ve been compiling is already half crossed-out.  The rest of the list will take a bit more time, I think.  I’ll be dividing my time between nurse educator and working on the wards, and so for now it’s time to learn the job I haven’t done yet.

Throughout the week it was a bit of a strange feeling to walk by the wards and look in from the outside.  I didn’t know the nurses in blue that bent over the beds to assess and medicate, to try out Krio and Mende with the patients and be a part of healing.  I didn’t know the woman who waved to me from the bed as she nursed her baby, her pressure garment tight on her head above burn scars that streaked down her neck.  I didn’t know the mischievous escapee from the plastic surgery ward that came to my office to visit again and again, hand outstretched in a continual wave from a hand brace, begging me to come and play with him.  The translators remembered me by name, welcomed me home, and eagerly asked when I would be coming back to the ward.  I told them, honestly, that I wasn't sure but I promised to work with them again as soon as I could.

This weekend the wards became mine again.  I was called in to work as a nurse on D ward - land of nasogastric tubes and steri-strip-whiskered lips and suction and dressings, the ward I worked in during the first few months of our time in Sierra Leone.  Life on the ward puts all the paperwork and planning into perspective and gives it a fresh purpose.  

I'm not sure exactly when it was that I realized I was home.

It might have been the smile on Isata's face when she looked in the mirror to see her new jaw after I took the bulky dressing off.  It might have been the guilty look from 5-year-old Kadi when I discovered her once-sterile thigh dressing half pulled off, or the pleading in Temne for her papa's rice when I chased her around her bed with an NG feed.  It might have been the toddler popo securely on my back with a sheet, drowsily drooling down my scrubs as I went from bed to bed to finish my daily vital signs.  It might have been the mama who patted me in church the next morning, as I danced past with Kadi on my back, who attempted to claim my skirt for her own and told me I dressed like "fine African woman."

I don't know when it happened exactly.  There's not a specific moment I can define and pin down.  All I know is that I'm right back where I belong.

Journey to a different world

Two+ weeks ago:

Thirty hours on land, air, and sea.  It seems an endlessly long and turbulent ride, but in reality such a short trip to a wildly different world.  Let me take you with me here – riding along in my backpack from plane to plane with our group of 21, past the smooth punctuality of Brussels and the welcoming grins of Salone immigration and health officials – through to outside the Freetown airport where men throw our luggage high on top of a waiting poda-poda and tie it down securely with only a tarp to cover from the rain.  I stand guard like a watchdog over the two bags full of fragile surgical supplies as I repeat over and over, “this one is medical supply; it needs to go in the car.”

Let me take you past the lush tropical greenery and bare concrete buildings with bold-patterned cloth doors fluttering in the wind.  Look with me through the sea-salty breeze as our ferry draws closer across the bay to a large blue-and-white hospital ship.  Can you see the light shining out from your cabin window?  Veer with me through the erratic traffic, and don’t forget to duck your head and hang on as we bump down the half-paved road after a brief ship visit.  There is less chance of whiplash and head injuries if you just go limp and disjointed, flopping aimlessly with the jolts like a rag doll in the clothes dryer.

This place is familiar to me.  The sellers call in the streets, the sticky heat presses down like an electric blanket; the dusty breeze is reminiscent of salt air and chickens and frying plantain chips and humanity.  A fruit seller dressed in a lappa and lit up only by a single flame from roasting peanuts looks up to wave and smile a welcome.  Well Come, Massey Sheep (welcome, Mercyshippers), welcome home.

Our hostel is tile and concrete, reminiscent of my Indonesian childhood home.  It is beautiful here, with the mountains surrounding and a view of the ocean in the distance.  The evenings are peaceful and dark (at least until the electricity comes on again), and the cool of the trickling showers is briefly refreshing, a reprieve from the continual sweat and stickiness. We live a few minutes drive and a thousand friendly greetings away from the village we will be working in, Yams Farm Wharf.  Yams Farm is perched at the mouth of a river, with much of the livelihood gleaned from collecting wood and selling sand for construction gathered by boat from the river.  Our welcome is nothing short of wildly enthusiastic as we bounce in over the potholes - serious faces light up into broad grins from adults and children alike.  One little boy wearing only tattered overalls is jumping up and down outside his house, with both hands outstretched and opening and closing furiously in greeting.  We pull in just down the hill from the school as a roaring crowd of uniformed schoolchildren surround our poda-poda to beat on the sides and shake hands through the windows as they run alongside.  Well-come whiitaman (white man), well-come.  The chant grows louder and louder as we open the door to climb out.  I feel like an undeserving celebrity as I wade out into the crowd holding hands with twelve kids at once.

There is a school there already – a small one-room building for 270 children in 7 different grades.  On Sunday the building doubles as a church, with the school benches and desks as pews.  The décor reflects a bit of both, with a banner and lectern on the raised concrete podium and blackboards encircling the edges of the room.  The chickens attend both school and church on occasion, gleaning any bits of crumbs that have fallen from our lunch, or bugs they find in the dirt floor.  Out the window you can see our construction site less than 10 feet away.  Over the next few weeks we will be working on building another school so that the classes can spread out into both buildings as the numbers of children continue to grow.  Everywhere I look there is excitement and hope, reflected out of shining eyes and back into my own.  I am excited to see what God will do over the next two weeks!

Shrinkwrapped for sea

I almost felt like a little kid again, wriggling into my footie pajamas  and duck-walking around the poolside to jump off the diving board.  Except the suit was bright orange, with a tight-fitting hood, mittens, and a chin flap that closed over top of my nose.  It was also a lot warmer than my childhood footie pajamas, floated much better, and held at least two gallons of water...per leg.








After jumping off the diving board in my immersion suit, all the trapped air inside blew up the suit like a pillsbury doughboy.  With the top flap unzipped and feet back down in the water, the air rushed out and left my suit shrinkwrapped around my body.  Big mitten flippers made swimming floppy but effective.

Friday night's pool practical wrapped up our week of maritime Basic Safety Training, with exercises in immersion suit use and group swimming and huddling (how to stay together and move and keep warm in the ocean).  We also learned all about life jackets and life rafts, practiced hauling each other into the life rafts and streaming a sea anchor, and ended the night by taking turns flipping the life raft upright (see the video below!).  Sadly, we did not  do the last activity with anyone in the raft, even though it could have been very entertaining.  Lord willing nothing will happen while sailing, but if it does we will be well prepared.


 One more day and we'll be headed out to Sierra Leone!  We leave Wed morning for Freetown, and will be spending 2 1/2 weeks in a village outside of the city, helping to build a school.  Because we will be living in the village, we won't have internet access until we reach the ship in early November.  I look forward to updating you on our next adventures then!

When firefighting...watch out for snails!

This week has been a bit of a different tack - from theory and classes to...theory and practical!  The first two days included basic firefighting strategy, gear, and search and rescue, and a morning of practical techniques.  

After trying on all our gear the day before, we suited up for instructions and took turns extinguishing fires with hose and extinguishers, and rescuing "Buck," our 165 lb firefighter dummy.  

I have a newfound respect for firefighters - the gear is quite a bit heavier than it looks, and we had a great and very warm workout.  We successfully rescued Buck (a group effort) and extinguished our fires, and learned a lot.  We have an awesome team to work and learn with, and we definitely had a lot of fun.

 I did learn one unexpected lesson, though...when fighting fires, it is important to watch out for snails.  Yes, snails.  Halfway through fighting our Class A fire in the container, my partner Esther and I suddenly lost water pressure.  After troubleshooting for hose kinks etc and not finding the problem, we retreated and sent in another team to continue the firefighting.  It turns out our hose problems were due to snails that had climbed up into the hoses in search of water.  Sadly, although they did successfully find water, they did not survive long after that.

 The rest of the week promises to be interesting as well, with personal survival techniques and water safety.  One week from today...we'll be on our way to Sierra Leone!

Vapour

I'd like to share this video - a powerful and touching short film based on quotes from the people of Freetown and some of our Sierra Leone patients, and filmed by Mercy Ships crew.  Much of the footage was shot within Freetown, where we will be going in just two weeks!  The hospital footage is within the ward and on deck aboard the Africa Mercy, and transports you for a few moments to where I will be working again shortly.  Let Amara speak to your heart on behalf of his people.

The stories are real.  The heartbreak is real.  Please pray for unity and purpose, for healing and for hope and release from fear and guilt, and for forgiveness.  

Quilt blocks

Curled up on the couch mending the freshly washed quilt spread across my knees yesterday, I glanced back at the last few weeks of life.

We have been in Texas three weeks now.  Three weeks of sitting in a classroom stretching our brains to wrap around deep theological concepts of spiritual warfare and the power of prayer, of opening our hearts to the differences in culture and worldview, of creating and performing skits and summaries of everything...for the challenge and education and entertainment of our crewmates. 

After each evening run my lungs and feet are dyed burnt-orange from the clay that could be mud if there were water.  I step outside and wonder at the deep untouched blue of the sky, the constant steady sun, the green and brown of trees that (in my mind) should already be gold and orange and red.

I can’t imagine what living by myself would feel like again.  I have three roommates, and our room feels spaciously empty sometimes because of the unfilled last bunk.  I share a kitchen and living room with 19 other men and women…each of them wonderful in a unique and different way, each of them family despite different languages and countries and cultures, each of them friends.

I have been in Texas for 21 days.  I have been here forever.  I stepped off the plane yesterday.

If my life were a quilt, this block would be a patchwork log cabin, with all different colors and patterns worked together, carefully designed to make a temporary shack along the trail to adventure.  There is a mix of wild African fabrics, sedate patterns and colors, and a bit of Indonesian batik.   Worked in among the other bits are the deep orange and bright blue of this place we call not-quite-home.

It feels like we might be here forever.  We fly out in 17 days.  I watch time come almost to a standstill; as one foggy breath evaporates it will disappear, leaving me with learning, with memories and friendships, with one hand-stitched quilt block.

Be still

In a world that defines identity by job title and accomplishments, it goes against the grain to take time to just sit and...be.

This weekend we drove out to Tyler State Park and took several hours just to spend alone with God - a date, if you will.  In previous similar retreats over the last few years I had found just sitting a challenge, and walked or wrote or sang as I prayed.  Apparently that wasn't what God had in mind this time.

After a short hike partway around the lake, I put up my portable hammock and settled in to marvel at the beauty of creation.  After months of almost-constant busyness, I had an exclusive invitation for the here and now - just to soak in the goodness and creativity and presence of God.  What a refreshing delight!

My job title and travels and adventures and struggles are not what defines me....my identity is secure as a child of the King.  God is pleased with a life lived out in faith, but He is also pleased with a people who delight themselves in Him and take time just to sit at His feet to watch and listen and marvel.



He says, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."  ~ Psalm 46:10

Scorpion wranglers extraordinaire

After a thorough introduction to Mercy Ships history, philosophy, and support seminars last week, the 22 of us that remain will be learning together for the next few weeks in preparation for...Sierra Leone!

It has only been a week in Gateway so far, but already my classmates feel like family.  Nothing brings together a group of people like having classes and meals together, living together and sharing bathrooms, herding cattle and hunting scorpions.

To the right is the first unfortunate victim of our scorpion wrangling.  Little no-name showed up while many of us were hanging out in the family room, emailing or playing games.  After much excitement, he made it safely into a mens-room toilet and down the drain.






About 30 minutes later we were ALL invited to one of the ladies bedrooms for a group scorpion hunt, which was successful as well.

During our tour of the property, we stopped briefly at a farm on the property, and the cowboy invited us all to help him herd cattle.  Several of my "family" got quite excited at the opportunity, and we all enjoyed a tramp through the pasture guiding the cows while carefully avoiding fresh manure.  On a side note, please continue to pray for rain, as we are still in a significant drought.

We've done quite a lot of discussion this week on spiritual warfare and looking at attributes of the God that we serve - a great encouragement to delve deep into topics that will significantly affect how and why we serve the people of West Africa.

In between classes we've had a few Texas style adventures, and I look forward to many more as we move into the next week of personal and interpersonal development :-)

FMS

Week 1 - Packed with learning about foundational beliefs of Mercy Ships and finances...finished!  Above you can see our group (from 6 different countries), many of them I will be working with on ship and attending class with for the rest of the time in Texas!!

Flood

We stepped over a makeshift barrier – a wall of concrete blocks and weighted plastic across the sidewalk – and out onto the low bridge across the Susquehanna.  Other than occasional sirens it was eerily silent, the road lonely in the dusk and stripped bare of cars.  As we hung over the railing to watch, the river rushed by only a few feet beneath.  By the time we went to bed that night, the street perpendicular to ours was already mostly covered in water.  Life was a prayer for the floodwalls to hold.

I woke to a different world. 

"Residents of New Street, come to your doors.”  The police bullhorn instructing evacuation of the next street over continued as we began to pack for imminent evacuation.  The floodwalls held, but the river was still rising, almost to the top of the wall.  The top of a tan car was just visible above the restless brown of the street-turned-lake.  We showered in the dark as the water dripped through dark ceiling, watched as the water leaked over the floodwalls to creep up the street and cover the sidewalks, joked half-heartedly about kayaks to get across the river to the hospital, set out extra food and water for the dog, piled into the car to drive the few miles down the road to the University shelter that already housed almost 1600 people.

Little did I know when I left Potsdam the morning before that I would be spending Thursday afternoon on my former college campus. 

“Hi.  I got evacuated this morning and I’m a Registered Nurse…do you need any help?”  The rather harried-looking resident just looked at me for a moment, startled.  And then I went to work.  A rather faded Mercy Ships badge from the rear-view mirror of my car served as identification as I joined EMS, nurses, and medical residents in treating any sick and injured among the crowds already sheltered in the Events Center.  Cots covered the floor where I had once watched basketball games, families huddled in the ticket area with their pets, uniformed military and police guarded the doors and maintained order, and in a back room we had three cots set up as makeshift exam rooms.  Another basketball court served as a special needs area and pharmacy – staffed by volunteers and nursing students, and a few instructors I recognized from my own days as a student there.

When I left 8 hours later to spend the night at a friend’s house, our shelter was already full and the river had finally crested…25.7 feet.

Now in East Texas, I find myself ironically wishing for just a few hundred gallons of that floodwater – to somehow dampen down the tinder-dry foliage and see the hills green again.

The beginning - an update on life!

After a whirlwind few months of weddings, classes, support raising, work, and packing up life….the journey has finally begun!  I’m in Texas now as I write this, planning to be here for about 5 weeks doing additional Mercy Ships training, and then fly to Sierra Leone.

Two months ago I sent an email asking for prayer and financial support.  I'm now 60% funded for the entire next two years – praise the Lord!!   Thank you to those who have committed to joining with me. If you have not already done so, please prayerfully consider joining me in this next adventure – by committing to prayer or financial support, or by coming with me!

As I have been wrapping up things and finishing my packing and goodbyes in New York, I headed down to Binghamton a few days ago and arrived just in time for the flood!  We were evacuated from my friend's apartment as the water began to come over the flood walls and up our street, and I was able to spend some time volunteering as a nurse at one of the local shelters.  In Broome County alone, at least 20,000 people have been temporarily displaced from their homes.  The Binghamton U events center is housing between 1600-1800 people, many with specific medical needs.  I joined the emergency responders at this shelter for several hours, treating any evacuees with injuries or illness, then I volunteered briefly in the makeshift "hospital" set up for evacuees with special needs.  I’ll be writing more about this as I have time to process, but praise God for safety and for good interactions with many people!

As you pray for our time in Texas preparing to serve, please also remember to pray for the people who have been significantly affected by flooding in Binghamton and across the Northeastern US...for spiritual awakening and revival as well as help for physical needs.

In His footsteps,

Laura

personal space

I took the train into Manhattan last week, and the subway, and walked the streets of midtown and Chinatown in the rain.  I may be from New York State, but this was the first time in at least 15 years that I experienced New York City on a personal level...if this could be called personal.

People everywhere - in the streets and the shops and the rain, crossing the street without even looking to notice the sea of taxis bearing down on them.  The air smells like car exhaust and people and fried food and coffee.  The people are multicolored, but still somehow I do not fit.  The practical cargo pants and rain jacket and sneakers are out of place among suits and shoes that could feed a family for a year. Cell phones and earpieces and sunglasses and coats.  No one will meet my eyes.  No one accidentally brushes against me in the crowd.  There is no friendly idle conversation.  Each person is alone.  I am alone.  I am a stranger.  I am not here.  I do not exist.

There is a homeless man in the doorway of a classy hotel, wearing all the clothing he owns, sleeping in oblivion.  The rough red rash on face and hands marks unwashed and untreated skin; the sign and upturned hat next to him mark an unwanted man.

"Help.  Homeless.  HIV positive."

There is nothing in the hat.  No one can see him.  He is alone in the crowd.  He too does not exist.

I couldn't help but step outside myself for a moment and compare this city with the one I have recently called mine, the bustle of Freetown, Sierra Leone.

It is a pressure cooker of people: hot and loud and close.  People push up against me from all directions, sellers call out and advertise their wares in 4 different languages.  There is a small hand in mine.  I look down to see an unfamiliar child grinning up at me, calling me Auntie, wanting to touch and to play and to question, joining us with five other friends as we are carried along with the people.  The men look and whistle and suggest and propose.  The ladies call and smile and ask about my health and wonder aloud where my man is.  A poda-poda (bush taxi) side mirror whizzes past, just missing my shoulder as I step off across the open sewer.  There are no cracks, no spaces, no room in the flow of traffic and people to just slip through, and everything smells of trash and goat and human body odor and cooking oil and soap.  It is a city of war refugees-turned-residents, an unexpected population explosion that stayed, a casual stream now at flood capacity.

I am different.  I am the funny colored one.  The one who smells strange and has shiny straight long hair and doesn't wear a bright-colored lappa with a baby snugly tied in back, who speaks English with an American accent and not the usual Mende or Temne or pidgin Krio.  But I am known and accepted, welcomed and protected.

"Massy Sheep", they call us, with a light in their brown eyes that maybe wasn't there before.  "Massy Sheepa!  Sista! Come, please, is ma yay (eye)...ma leg...ma pikin (child)."  Even just walking to the market, in civilian clothes, we are still known.  There are so many who need help and good food and clean water and medical care.  Too many who have lived for years waiting for a miracle.  For the outcast and the hopeless, too often we are their last hope.

Two cities, two continents, two worlds.  One impersonal and individual and alone, the other personal and noisy and filled with life.  Both still have the outcast who call the streets home, the needy who call out to be heard.

Do you hear them?  Can you see the value of a person behind the filth and the mask and the deformity and the smells?  Will you see enough to come close and touch, to meet the hopeless when they need it the most?

    “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

    “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

   “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’  Matt 25:34-40

Binghamton...babies and blueberry picking

It's nice but a little strange to be back in Binghamton, albeit a little temporarily.  I've been seeing friends I haven't seen in a year (or years) and got an exclusive tour of the ED I started at 5 years ago - the beautiful new beds and spacious rooms completely different, and a staff I have dearly missed.
I'm at peace back, knowing that my place is no longer here, and so I'm able to simply enjoy things one moment at a time.  The last few days have been a simpler life: homemade pizza and a movie, blueberry picking with friends in the sunshine surrounded by the rolling greenness and cut-grass smells of the Southern Tier, singing 7-month-old Shawn to sleep as he fretfully chews on my thumb, curling up with a good book in between studying for ACLS, time to rest and enjoy God and his blessings.
It's a refreshingly peaceful pause in the middle of a wildly intense summer.  All I need now is a good place to put up the hammock...

We Will Stay.

In my camp nurse adventures this spring I had the distinct pleasure of hearing this spoken word presentation - written by InterVarsity staff and good friend of mine, Jonathan Walton.  It is direct, powerful, challenging, and triumphant.  Be blessed and encouraged, as I have been!

- My name is hopelessness
But you can call me misery, despair, depression or any other term that pops up when you
Press shift F7 on your pc while writing your paper about Darfur, Gulu, Xinjiang,
Chechnya or….Haiti from your climate controlled classroom far, far away from me.

I live in the foundations of fallen buildings, in the cracks of
concrete, and just left of the air pockets under the rubble.
Reside in the front of supply trucks after all the pallets have been
removed, and the empty space under the  Parachute where the
helicopter supposedly dropped more food. I love the bottoms of
bottles of water, formula, canned and baby food and whisper
there’s not enough to families, and say to  aid workers, there’s
nothing you can do.
I love the phrases irreconcilable differences and hang out at
negotiation table in NGO’s board rooms and come up with
conflicts of interest and difference of opinion.
All you can see is me when you can’t see a way out. And if I hang
out long enough my family comes around.
My brother is poverty and my cousin is exploitation and as soon as
the sky stops raining or the earths quits shaking they are sending pimps to find sex slaves and johns to exchange services for donations. Traffickers snatch up cheap labor and victims are abducted, taken for slavery.

I inhabit that space in your brain that makes your question your
donation, the conartists are my kin because they capitalize on these
situations.

I will be here long after the Washington Post and the New York
Times. Long after I’m not mentioned in the headlines. Still here,
when NBC and CNN are gone and Anderson Cooper’s chopper has lifted off. I’ll be here until you come and chase me away but based
On history, me and my family  have no reason to be afraid.



=====
Dear Poverty, hopelessness, misery and the kin of exploitation and any
other unnamed power or principality driven apathy, distraction and our
propensity  to escape.

My name is Jonathan and my Father is God and he whispers in the
stillness of morning, noonday and nighttime that He is there and we
are coming. Those  that sing  freedom songs and write love poems with our lives for those that we can't see and those we have never met.
Seeking justice, lovin mercy and walking humbly into suffering with a steadfast peace
that screams quietly, we shall overcome.
We will not be like those before us turning people into projects and
individuals into interests, names into entries on a to-do list.
oh no, we will build roads and relationships, rebuild ruined city
streets so that children can go to school and find a path to peace
because the reality is we are coming so you must flee, we will stay so
you must leave, because where light is the darkness can never be.

I'm tired of what I see, and it's time to turn my dreams into reality so with every breath that I breathe, with every
word that I speak I'll bring a gospel of equality with my words and
strap good news to my feet -- and you best believe I'm
dangerous by myself but I'm bringing an army with me. Those who are
free from expectation, guilt and shame and past mistakes, not looking
to capitalize on capitalism and post-colonial exploitation. A people that don't lower their standards for low prices
compromise convictions for a great value and look past the price tags,
to contemplate true cost and are striving to be sure that because they have coffee, sugar, chocolate, and clothing -- not one life was lost.

We are coming from five boroughs and fifty states, from all ages and every race with our two fish and five loaves and a faith to feed and free all nations.

We are coming and when we get there, we will stay. You have good reason to be afraid.

Sincerely,

Us.

Only God has done it

It was a desperately prayerful father that broke my heart in early May, as I sat down to write a scattered blog post and mourn our limitations.  Two-year-old Josi lay intubated in the ICU with no clear hope of recovery.  She had been transferred to us from a local hospital, and everything we tried so far had failed.  David refused to eat, fasting as he prayed aloud over his little girl, again and again claiming the blood of Jesus over her life.  Their only other child had died just a few months before.

Unlike many of our other patients on ship, Josi was just a normal toddler – happy and healthy less than two weeks before, no tumors or deformities to scar her face or twist her body, and the most beautiful bright-eyed grin you ever saw.  It was the pebble she had inhaled that threatened her life now – and after hours and hours of trying our surgeons could not get it back out.

The 5:30 am call blared into every hallway, every cabin, and woke me up out of a deep sleep, “Emergency Medical Team to the ICU STAT, Emergency Medical Team to the ICU stat.”

Josi was our only ICU patient that night.

I won’t take you through the early morning, through the CPR the previous night, or the days of wondering if a two year old be sentenced to die by slow inches as her breathing failed…just because she was born in the wrong country?  Why was this family who had already lost so much losing another? 

As David prayed and we joined in with him over those few days, impossible things happened.  A girl that by all rights should have died in a local hospital days ago was still alive.  In the middle of the night a Pediatric ICU nurse had trouble sleeping and walked down to the ICU, just in time to do CPR.  The next night Josi had breathing difficulties and so many staff responded within a few minutes that we had our very own code prayer team.  When all our transfer plans had fallen through, a pediatric thoracic surgeon who had never heard of Mercy Ships before flew in from Kenya to do the surgery and put in a chest tube, assisted by a pediatric anesthetist that left a few days later.  The funding, resources and staff were all provided, just when they were needed.

I got off the phone Monday afternoon with the OR supervisor and walked through the ICU door…”David, the Operating Room just called – they got the rock out of Josi’s lung and she’s doing fine.”
I can still see him, jumping up and down with tears streaming down his face, rejoicing for his world to hear, “Only God has done it, only the blood of Jesus has saved my Josi.”

Shipping out

It’s a bit startling sometimes to look out the window and realize that outside lies the greeny damp of an Adirondack spring, and more so, that I actually have a window!  The air blowing in is fresh and cool and damp and sweet, without the tang of salt and sweat and dust to generously paint everything in orange streaks.  It’s been a good time to relax and refresh, to hang my hammock and nap, to get reacquainted with black flies and ponder life…in between radio calls.

With my last update I hinted broadly at a return to Mercy Ships and Sierra Leone in the near future.  That hint is quickly becoming a reality. After a lot of thought and prayer, I’ve accepted a position as nurse educator for the surgical ward aboard the Africa Mercy.  This means that I’ll be in charge of orienting new nurses to working on board, and educating them about the types of surgery and related nursing care.  Together with another charge nurse, we will be training preceptors, organizing continuing education sessions, and providing follow-up evaluations for ward nurses.  I also plan to continue working on the wards as a charge nurse and pediatric nurse. It’s not so much a life choice as a driving need to go back – at least for a season.  Here’s why:

We as Westerners take so much for granted: food, clothing, and a life in pursuit of health and happiness.  This is a secret luxury…for so many people in the world it is a fairytale dream rather than a guaranteed right. 

In looking at health and healthcare alone:

 In the United States –

8 children in every 1000 die by age 5

800,000 doctors total

31 hospital beds for every 10,000 people

In Sierra Leone –

192 children in every 1000 will die by age 5

95 doctors…total

4 hospital beds for every 10,000 people

The disparities aren’t new for any of us, but they can be easy to ignore until personalized. 

Until one of those 192 children is a name and a face with a set of parents you have prayed and mourned with, until you grow angry at the social disparities and the effects of sin on the world, and are driven to search for answers.

Until you realize that a hospital you thought cramped is a great luxury to patients because they have their own bed and don’t need to share with two other patients.

Until you meet a woman who has lived almost completely devoid of human contact for ten years because of a tumor that marks her as cursed, and because there is no doctor trained to remove it and no hospital equipped enough to care for her afterwards. 

I have shared in the reality of social disparity and seen the faces of hopelessness.

This is why I’m going back…

because I have seen and know that there are people hungry for the right to be human,

because God loves these people so much,

and because I can help show them this. 

I can’t return to a comfortable life; I can’t turn my back on them now.

I’d like to invite you to partner with me in reaching these precious hearts.  I sense the Lord leading me to join the Africa Mercy (AFM) for at least two more years of ministry, starting this September.  In order to do this I need to raise about $9000 per year for crew fees and airline flights.

Contributions can be made on line at https://connect.mercyships.org/page/outreach/view/crewmates/colesl.  You can also mail donations directly to Mercy Ships, P.O. Box 2020, Garden Valley, TX 75771, with a note attached that they are for Laura Coles, Acct# 2699.  No donation is too large or too small.

I encourage you to also join with me in prayer, and I am thankful to know that as I go you will be here praying for an incredible outpouring of hope and joy and new life. 

Aiming for His footsteps,

Laura

Laura Coles