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

Gud Nyus

Have you ever noticed that when you look at things from a different perspective you can learn something new?  That in learning a language, the hidden secrets of people and culture are suddenly more accessible and more visible?

I’ve been learning Krio…and more now than just the songs and greetings and basic medical evaluation.  About a week before I left Sierra Leone I obtained a Krio New Testament.  I was holding it in my hand, about to leave work, when one of our translators asked me skeptically if I “can read that.”  I sounded out the cover…Gud Nyus fɔ ɔlman.

Good news for all men

It’s a fitting title, and one that very much reflects the content in its entirety.  After a surprised nod and approving “fine job, Laura Koroma” from the translator, I realized that this might be a great way to get to know more Krio, and a wide open window to so much more.

Since then, the Gud Nyus has been a part of my daily quiet time.  I started out with the Lord’s Prayer, and I’ve enjoyed the refreshing perspective and blatant honesty.  It's an insightful puzzle just waiting to be cracked!

Mek a tɛl una aw una fɔ pre, una fɔ se:

‘Papa Gɔd we de na ɛvin:

Na yu wan gren na Gɔd, mek ɔlman pre to yu ɛn ɔna yu;

Wi de pre mek yu rul wi; mek wetin yu want, bi na dis wɔl, lɛkɛ aw I de bi na ɛvin.

Gi wi wetin wi fɔ it tide.

Padin wi  fɔ di bad tin dɛn we wi dɔn do, lɛkɛ  aw wisɛf de padin dɛn pipul we de do wi bad.

Mek we nɔ lɛf fɔ biliv pan yu ɛnitɛm we Setan tray wi; nɔ mek Setan ebul wi.

Na yu de rul di wɔl, na yu gɛt pawa, ɛn na yu gɛt prez ɛn ɔna, fɔ ɛva ɛn ɛva. Emɛn.”

Matyu 6: 9-13   

I’ll admit though, sometimes I miss that challenge of simplicity in my everyday life.  Sometimes I almost give in to the overwhelming urge to ask my next patient, “You feel bad?  You got pain?” or to reduce a lengthy discussion of upcoming activities to “We de go na waka waka yonda.”  And at some incredible times I find myself bursting out in song that’s clearly unintelligible to most Americans.  The language of my soul is no longer just a simple swirl of Bahasa and Sunda and English - it's well seasoned now with bits and pieces of Krio and Mende and Ewe and French and Zulu, with ever-expanding space for more :-)

I’d like to leave you with a thought from my quiet time yesterday; a clear challenge on priorities in the Christian life, and word for word the prayer of my heart:

Mek Gɔd de insay una gud gud, so dat ples nɔ lɛf fɔ ɔda tin…(Lɛta Fɔ ɛfisɔs 3:19b)