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