Snapshots

I’ve started and stopped and started again…a half-dozen messages and a thousand ways to share them.  The gentle rocking of the porch swing and a large spider I found comfortably lounging in my hair know more of my thoughts than you do; my radio sits silent and heavy on my belt this afternoon, with the students gone home and more arriving tomorrow.  Quiet Adirondack woods and the sun in patches on the white birches should inspire a proliferation of words, and instead I’ve found myself strangely mute, a victim of writer’s block in the heart of a writer’s paradise.

I've been sorting through hundreds of photos, taking myself back to a reality I left only three weeks ago, and replaying again the incredible transformations of body and spirit in generous answer to our prayers for life and hope.  

It’s impossible to share all the stories.  The immense heartache and fears and outcast lives…and the incredible hope and joy that can only be known when one has been utterly hopeless.  My brain is a jumble of before-and-after photos, Krio greetings giggled in little voices, the smell of bleach and Whiteheads packs and Ensure, wholehearted joyous dance parties to the beat of an enthusiastic two-year-old drummer, the weight of a small sweaty child drooling down my back as they sleep snuggled in tight...a series of still shots.

If I wrote ten thousand words I could not take you there completely.  If I post these photos will you turn away in horror and disgust at the marred faces and bodies of social rejects, the bare scars of poverty?  Will I only be trivializing the struggles of these precious hearts and putting their hidden shame on display?  


Blink, and look at them again through different eyes, as souls that hunger for transformed life and a renewed spirit, that long to be seen as someone of worth. 

Emmanuel

Eyes open wide a window to the soul for those who are prepared to look and ask...

Five-year-old Emmanuel loves football (soccer), Ninja turtles, playing games with his buddies and all the other things little boys like to do. He is also a member of the children’s choir at his church. “He’s a boy who likes to sing,” said his father, Daniel, with obvious pride.

Three years ago, Emmanuel’s face suddenly swelled. He was taken to Children’s Hospital, but after three weeks they still had no idea what his problem was. The doctor prescribed several kinds of medicine, but Daniel had no money to pay for them.

One day, Daniel heard that Mercy Ships was on its way to Sierra Leone. He decided to do everything he could to take his son to the medical screening. When they arrived, they sat on a bench in front of the containers on the dock, waiting patiently for Emmanuel’s turn to be screened. The little boy’s beautiful face was marred by the growth on his left cheek that extended down to his neck. But when he smiled, his dimpled cheeks glowed and his big brown eyes sparkled.

Their patience was rewarded when Emmanuel received the coveted appointment card for a surgery.

When the anxiously awaited day arrived, Emmanuel was admitted to the onboard hospital. Even though he was scared, he was very brave as he was wheeled into the operating room. His father was also nervous. He waited in tears outside the operating room’s door, with a nurse holding his hand. “I have never experienced anything like that,” he confessed. “I prayed all night. I thought my son would never come out of the surgery.”

But Emmanuel did come out – with a bandage on his head and a smile on his face. Daniel heaved a sign of relief.

Both father and son were delighted with the results of the surgery. “There will be no more taunting now,” Daniel said. Emmanuel’s friends would no longer be able to laugh at him because of the growth. The little boy could start school with all the confidence a five-year-old should have.

In a few days, the dressing was removed and replaced by thin adhesive strips. “I’m glad they took off the bandage,” said Emmanuel. But he wanted to stay on the ship because he was enjoying all the attention from the nurses.

But when Emmanuel was discharged, he left with a brilliant smile. “I thank God to have the operation,” said Emmanuel with an impish grin. “Now, I can play ball!”


Story by Elaine B. Winn
Edited by Nancy Predaina
Photos by Liz Cantu and Tom Bradley

change

The wind bites through my jacket in sharp reminder that I am back in a place I once called home.  It's a cold and rainy spring in New York, and my golden tan staring back at me in the mirror marks me an outsider.  Everything is different, down to the freedom to steam up the mirror in a hot shower, the taste of milk on my cereal, the spacious room with windows that I wake up to alone, the skin color and language of my patients. 

God, family, friends...these are the only constants in my life.  And I am so thankful for them!  God has been consistently good, no matter what continent I find myself on.  Long, cramped car rides and wedding celebrations are our family reunion, and we are having such fun with the time that we do have.  I know that with these people who have known me so well I can call myself home regardless of what continent I'm on.

We've gone our separate ways for now, and I've headed north to the Adirondacks.

It is good to sit and just relax in front of a wood fire, enjoy the pristine lake ringed with green, and see old friends again.  I've temporarily traded in my ship crew for another 400+ people who love Jesus, who worship with heart and soul, and who need someone on-call for emergencies (that's me!).  I breathe the moment in deeply - enjoying the fellowship I have now and also looking ahead to the expectation of a return to West Africa in the near future.  I am so blessed by the promise of family and life found in following Jesus with abandon, and I have found it amazingly true in my own path.

I'm no longer sure which is the dream and which is the reality now...but both are exciting, wildly interesting and fulfilling, and both are oh so good.

always enough

Let me share with you my heartsong for Africa...the song I'll be singing through the long plane ride home and through the summer months: God's promise for my people

In a dry and weary land
Lord, You are the rain
In a sea of shattered ones
Your love comes rushing in

You hold the world within Your hands
And see each tear that falls
Through every fire and every storm
You're always enough, always enough

Your love is peace to the broken
Faith for the widow, hope for the orphan, strength for the weak
Your love is the anthem of nations, rings out through the ages
And You're always enough for me

You keep my heart in perfect peace
My life is in Your hands
When confusion hides my way
You're always enough, always enough

Your love is peace to the broken
Faith for the widow, hope for the orphan, strength for the weak
Your love is the anthem of nations, rings out through the ages
And You're always enough

I rejoice for my Savior reigns
I rejoice for He lives in me
God on high, He has set me free
And worthy is the Lord (x2)

Your love is peace to the broken
Faith for the widow, hope for the orphan, strength for the weak
Your love is the anthem of nations, rings out through the ages
And You're always enough for me

Your love is peace to the broken
Faith for the widow, hope for the orphan, strength for the weak
Your love is the anthem of nations, rings out through the ages
And You're always enough


I rejoice for my Savior reigns
I rejoice for He lives in me
God on high, He has set me free
And worthy is the Lord

In a dry and weary land
Lord, You are the rain

I'm claiming this promise for Salone...
Let the rainy season come!

Just visiting

Come with me to a day shift on D ward a week ago:

  I step out into the hallway and see a wheelchair scooting towards me.  The two year old on top is laughing uproariously as she sways back and forth, holding to the rigid casts sticking out from underneath her.  Gladys has tried every possible method of escape, toddling quickly down the hallway anytime the door to B ward is open, excited to make it as far as D ward to visit new faces and fun.  Today she's picked her favorite vehicle, her brother Jon.  John is just starting to walk again after a bilateral osteotomy, proud to show off his duck-waddle on the crocs-turned-cast covers that are duct taped on.  Right behind him Tambo scoots along with his wheelchair and casts, and Bintu struggles to catch up with her walker.

Jon loves to sit and color with his favorite nurses, and seems to find a good reason to visit several times a day ("Football pages, Laura!").  Tambo has decided that he is a doctor, and showed up a few days ago with a stethoscope tucked under his shirt.  Between him and Sandy, we're well staffed! 

Sandy has gone back to surgery...her tongue looks beautiful, and she loves to show it off proudly as she sticks it out at me in between practicing staff names.  She joined us for shift report again on Friday, and shyly joined in the singing.  She'll be going home to Guinea tuesday, eager to show off her new mouth, and will be coming back to us in the fall.  I wish I could be there to see her children's faces.

Just behind me Hardy pulls out his mirror and looks again, a long look, touching his lip and nose where the huge tumor used to hang, unable to stop smiling.  Was it just a few days ago he started reading his new Bible, just yesterday he prayed with sister Clementine to give his new life to Christ?

I looked back at what I had written and realized that although tonight the wards are full, almost all of the patients above have been discharged home.  They're showing off new faces and celebrating life and family and a place in community...and that is so exciting!

I miss them, but I still have my fill of people to serve and kids to love on.  Tambo is still here, making wheelchair rounds with the anaesthetists to make sure they behave themselves.  Isaia, a wonderfully bouncy three, rode down the hallway on my back this afternoon, trying to stick his head under my arm, making faces and yelling gitttatikagittatika  until he got tickled (his current favorite activity).  Mary showed up at the gate last week and had a large facial tumor removed the next day.  She is still working on controlling her saliva and insists on being quite cuddly - the result being a thoroughly soaked scrub top halfway through the shift, and a large amount of drool on my allocations...well worth it!

And in the ICU, surrounded by new patient faces, a family is celebrating the goodness of God.  A successful surgery we could not have done a week ago, a shyly smiling little girl who came close to death is headed home this weekend, and her jubilant father covering all in the blood of Jesus, exclaiming, "Only God could have saved my daughter."

Come down for a visit and join us in praising our amazing God...

Sovereign LORD, you have begun to show to your servant your greatness and your strong hand. For what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do the deeds and mighty works you do?  - Deut 3:24

Praise God in his sanctuary;

praise him in his mighty heavens.

Praise him for his acts of power;

praise him for his surpassing greatness.
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.

Praise the LORD.  - Psalm 150: 2, 6

Beyond recovery

I wish I could tell you that life here is all sunshine and happiness and smiles and dancing...

I can't.

I want to forget sometimes that there is more out there.  It's so easy to focus on the ones we can help.  That would be a shortsighted escape into a fantasy world, where everyone lives happily ever after.

That is not my reality.  That world, while we eagerly await it with the return of our Messiah, is not always tangible in the here and now.

This is my world, wounded and bleeding and full of pain and loss:

Inside the ICU a toddler sleeps peacefully as her parents pray desperately for a miracle.  Outside the gate a boy lies dying in the dust...faceless, nameless, burned beyond recovery even if we sent him to the best burn units in the world rather than the small hospitals here.  There are the hundreds of people with goiters who we can't safely operate on because there is no thyroid replacement hormone available in the country, the surgeries we can't do because we don't have the surgeons or the bed space.  There is four-year-old Christophe, sent back to his village with club feet because the casting didn't work, told to wait six years until he's old enough for surgery.  Each represent thousands of others with only prayer to hold to now, when we in our human fallibility recognize that there is nothing else we can do for them, when our surgical capacity is limited and our medical treatment relies heavily on local hospitals.  If I could run an emergency room out of my own cabin I would, even as it too became overrun with overwhelming need, a drop in the ocean.  How could I have thought that Africa needs me, that we can do anything with a truly lasting impact except by the grace of my God?

Gathering my tiny faith in my hands I will stand and proclaim with these hopeful masses that He is King and Lord, and there is no other.  I will stand with the fathers and mothers and nursing staff in the dim hospital lights of an early morning and pray for a miracle, even when it's not the miracle we might expect.  I will sit and laugh in delight with the mother as her son who was ventilated 2 weeks before proudly shows us how far he can stick out his tongue, and comfort the panicked man even as I feel the pulsing spray of his arterial bleeding stop beneath my hands.  I will lie prostrate in awe at what I have witnessed and say with complete assurance that God has done it.  I will cling doggedly to joy and promise, even when everything around me threatens to collapse.

Through my tears I can thank Him who deserves all the glory for everything that happens here, whether clearly miraculous or seemingly ordinary.  And I will not limit my God.