Twas the night before screening

It was a small and huddled group we drove by on our way in to the stadium Tuesday evening.  8:30 pm, and already hopeful people were lined up in preparation for the screening tomorrow...prepared to wait all night outside the gate on the chance that they would get to see a doctor in the morning.

Maaike and I had sent over a backboard saran-wrapped full of medical supplies earlier that afternoon, named it Frank, and prayed that things would stay calm and Frank would not be needed.  Volunteer security from the ship, together with local gendarme, had been securing the gates since 2 pm and keeping people under control.  Maaike and I were the medical advance team - the two nurses on site overnight to talk to potential patients and redirect some of the people we would not be able to help.  I stashed a bottle of hand sanitizer in my back pocket along with a good flashlight, put on my headlamp, and we walked out to the group waiting outside - stopping just inside the gate to pray for a safe and secure night, for healing, for strength and wisdom.

Maaike talking with a potential patient



Dennis

I don't know how many we saw that night.  Hundreds came for information on eye and dental screenings, hundreds more hopeful for a chance at life.  One of the local gendarme volunteered to join our team, and stayed with me most of the night translating my words into Ewe.  We screened the group already there, and over a hundred with facial tumors, hernias, burn contractures, and children with cleft lips settled down to stay the night.  Around three, after a long break while our patients slept, we continued to screen as new people flooded in to fill the line and stretch it out along the wall and down the road until the end was out of sight.  Dennis, one of the mechanics from ship, was one of my guardian angels through the night - an intimidatingly solid wall of man who reassured me "I've got your back," and who stayed with me during the long hours of screening.

Waezooonh, you are welcome. My smile and quiet introduction were answered with a shy yooooo and story after story of heartache, inability to work, rejection. I looked at CT and Xray films by flashlight, and examined lumps and bumps and contractures and hernias and wounds by headlamp. I forgot how badly I needed to pee, and wished with all my heart I could speak enough Ewe or French to personally encourage them with a yes, please stay in line, this is a surgery we can do! or to voice my own regret beyond a simple Je suis désolé, monsieur as the translator explained my words. There were too many we could not help...we had no orthopedic surgeon or neurologist or urologist or facilities for purely medical care. We cannot remove a brain tumor or fix sciatica and infertility. And there are limited spots for the hernias that seem so prevalent here in Togo. Conditions that could be treatable almost anywhere else in the world can instead be a life sentence...or a death sentence. Life is not fair.

Lines of people waiting to be seen

Even as I examined these people and loved them regardless of their surgical status, so much more I know Jesus was there with me, walking among the crowds and loving them.  Jesus is not limited by surgery slots or what doctors and facilities we have available.  For some, maybe healing started that night with a kind word, a welcome, a handshake...or maybe healing came with a miraculous release from pain and deformity.  I may never know the end of their story, but I pray that night they saw the heart of God.


Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.  When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.' - Matthew 9: 35-38


By the time the screening ended the following afternoon, at least 4,000 people had been initially screened, with 1,600 passed through to the medical pre-screeners inside, and almost 500 scheduled for surgery or further testing.  Praise God for a safe and successful screening!


Below are a few still shots and some video footage from screening day...a few of the patients featured are already recovering from surgery or home and healed!

to keep a quiet heart

It's been a busy busy two weeks, and it promises to continue as we gear up for our first day of surgery for this outreach, tomorrow.  Our nursing team has moved from orientation to putting on a wildly fun hospital open house for the crew; from a full-blown mock hospital evacuation to screening thousands of patients at a sports stadium, all in a week.  Amazing...successful...utterly exhausting.  Each time I sit down to start a blog post I end up closing the computer, taking my headphones out of my ears, and falling asleep long before 10 pm.  After testing the evacuation stretchers to trial a few ways to secure a ventilated patient, a few thoughtful friends threatened to strap me into one and haul me down the hallways back to bed if I didn't go get some sleep.

Melisa volunteered to be our initial victim for
stretcher-testing before the evacuation drill.
Although firmly secured with a good airway
 (mock-intubated), she could not see much
of what went on.

When this involved being carried up and
down the stairs blind, we definitely
challenged how much she was willing to trust
us!  If you ever find me strapped
into an evac stretcher sleeping, I blame Melisa.

In a momentarily peaceful moment last weekend, I spent time in the warm sun looking out over the water from deck 8 and reflecting on life.  The view is the same as when we were here in 2010, with the whole of the navy on one side and the bustling port on the other.  The ship is mostly the same, but with constantly new and different crew finding their way around with life and excitement and vision.  To them the wards are empty, full of promise and potential.

As I look into the ward, I don't always see the smoothly tucked blankets over the empty beds or the beautifully clean floor sparkling in the light.  I don't see the new ventilators and monitors by the ICU bedside, or my own hands full of freshly revised paperwork.

Instead there are still faces and memories everywhere - some filled with wonder and reflection on the goodness of God, many with laughter and dancing and incredible stories of healing.  And some, as I uncover them, are still a little raw and tender with sorrow.

Here in Togo I first saw things happen that weren't medically possible and watched in wonder as we prayed and an arterial bleed stopped underneath my hands.  It was here that I realized physical healing was useless unless the soul healed as well and began to hope again.  Here I saw people who owned nothing and still had everything.  Here I helplessly cuddled a dying baby as he began to slip away in my arms, and I asked God why.  It was here I realized that I can't have all the answers and, as difficult as it was, resolved to surrender.

I'm excited for this outreach in Togo.  Tomorrow the wards will start to fill with patients again, scared and full of an unfamiliar hope.  Tomorrow our nurses get to be nurses again, and we get to be a small part of God at work in healing lives and faces and bodies and souls.  God is already at work, and I can't wait to see what he is going to do!

My prayer for this outreach reflects that of George Dawson, who begged for heavenly vision and a heart full of trust.  I, too would ask to see through God's eyes - to see more than just the physical deformity and need, and to see more than the pain and difficulties of this life.  I would ask for a quiet heart, constantly trusting in the Lord who promises to carry me, even when I can't see.

O Lord our governor, we beseech Thee, of Thy mercy,

That we may have the heavenly vision,

And behold things as they seem unto Thee.

That the turmoil of this world may be seen by us

To be bringing forth the sweet peace of the eternal years,

And that in all the troubles and sorrows or our own hearts

We may behold good, and so, with quiet mind

And inward peace, careless of outward storm,

We may do the duty of life which brings to us

A quiet heart, ever trusting in Thee.

~ George Dawson