recklessly abandoned

During my few weeks of summer at home we drove hours up and down the roads through mountains and fields and forests and endless miles of construction zones, to visit friends and family and go to work and drop others off at the airport.  Chipper K-Love radio music followed us up and up until it finally faded to North Country Public Radio and French talk shows, then found the car as we headed south again back down to the airport a few days later. 

It was on one of these road trips that I first heard the song, playing softly under the chatter of catching up on life after a year away, in the background of discussions on plans and hopes and dreams.

“Recklessly abandoned, never holding back.” 

The lyrics wormed into my thoughts and refused to leave.  Reckless abandonment, with its negative connotations of gambling and bad parenting, could also be a desirable goal.  Wait...what?

I began to question what it would look like to live like that.  I had the sudden image of hang gliding off of a tall ocean cliff - there is no safety in faltering during the launch.  Reckless abandonment is the rush of the free-fall after a jump before the harness jerks you back to reality.   It’s the sure pursuit of a dream despite failure, the swift cut of a surgeon’s knife, and speeding up to lean into a sharp turn on a motorcycle.  It’s giving away water to the thirsty until I don’t have any left for myself.

It’s living my life as if it wasn’t mine, making the most of every moment without a thought for potential failure.  There is freedom in this.

We're halfway through another sail back to Africa, with the gentle rise and fall of endless blue outside my window and the sun swallowed up in haze every night.  Life moves more slowly - not because there is less to do, but because no matter what I do we aren't getting to land any sooner.  My world has temporarily shrunk to 499 feet and 8 decks of steel.

Like a New Year's resolution, it's a moment to stop and think what the last year has been, and what the next year will be.  It will be amazing and challenging and hard and wonderful, but the point is not what I will see or how it makes me feel.

What matters is how I respond.

I wanna live like that


And give it all I have


So that everything

I say and do


Points to You


If love is who I am


Then this is where I’ll stand


Recklessly abandoned


Never holding back


I wanna live like that    ~ Sidewalk Prophets

This idea has challenged me, gripping my heart until I’ve joyfully agreed.  This is where I stand.  My goals for Guinea start with reckless abandonment, until everything I say and do points to Christ…

I wanna live like that.

Drink deep

All of us are wounded, bruised and bleeding
Some put on an elaborate mask and pretend they are whole, carefully avoiding eye contact so they don't give away a secret that everyone already knows.
I don't display my injuries openly, neither are they hidden as if I am ashamed...they are a part of me.
I clean my lacerations and wrap them neatly in gauze and colorful cobaan,
Steristrips and benzoin to hold together wounds deeper than skin
And an old fracture, perhaps splinted too late,
Knowing if I cover my pain it won't disappear, no matter how many happy-face stickers I wear.

Sometimes loss seems almost too much to bear:
Young mothers suffering, slipped away before their time,
Bony brown babies struggling for breath in my arms
The unloved orphans living on the street, with stick-thin arms and worm-filled taut bellies and eyes unshuttered to wounded souls.
Abused, outcast, unwanted and homeless, does anyone remember their names?

They tell us in school to guard against your patients' pain
As if only the weak nurses recognize and share in loss.
But I leave myself unguarded with arms open to embrace.
I can't risk the callouses on my soul.

So I take my 5-gallon plastic jug with it's motorcycle-tire rope
Drop it deep into the community well to fill it full with sorrow
Drinking until it spills out the holes and the top and soaks my grimy shirt
Sharing with the mamas and papas and toothless grandmas
The baby with the broken face tied in a lappa and drooling down my back
And the children that clamor to hold my hand and call me Auntie.
Can I do any less?

Drinking until I am saturated, until all I know is that
Jesus is the pillar that holds my life.
Until all I know is that God is sovereign, and he will keep holding me when no one else can.

And I soak in the little things
Wrapped in strong arms and a blanket of sunshine and brilliant stars,
Rocking in gale-force winds that whisper comfort and strength
While dolphins play in the spray outside my porthole.
I breathe deep the scent of manure that lingers in the air and the back of my throat as I bike past silos and green fields
Wave to the bold raspberries peeking invitingly around the "No Trespassing" signs
Drain out the warm dishwater while wildflowers watch from their canning jar in the windowsill.

I steri-strip a cut finger and firmly wrap a bruised ankle and offer a reassuring smile as I think of my own wounds bandaged tight.
Offer a cool and gentle hand to smooth a hot forehead
or slip in IV after IV with a promise of fluids and morphine to come
And I grab scarred brown hands and spin around and around to the beat of the djembe,
A shouted and joyous prayer echoed in my heart
In celebration of hope and a new chance at life.
My cup overflows, again and again and again.

I can feel the wood grain beneath me and a warm breeze lifting my hair as I watch the sun drown
Brilliant colors perfectly reflected in the glassy lake.
And I peel off my bandages, layer after layer of bloody gauze
There should have been scars, twisted and deep and red with fresh memory
Instead I find only skin, smooth and whole, turned dark in the African sun.
I am ready again to share in the sorrow and intense joy, to love until it cuts deep again and burns like fire and I pull up another bucket hand over hand to drink...
Because my Jesus has come to the well, barefoot and bleeding and asking to share our water
It is here I've caught a glimpse of his heart.

Breathe

A cryptic trail marker

There was space to breathe there in La Orotava Valley – fresh and unrecycled air - between the steep pine-forested mountains that dropped off into sheer rock or reached up above the cloudy haze.  There was room to walk, in the sandals that clung to my feet and pulled at my toes, through marked and unmarked and cryptically marked trails, streets and patches of fern that clearly hadn’t seen a machete in a while.  Past ancient stone buildings and aqueducts and over bridges and through black raspberry bushes and pines draped with trailing green streamers of Spanish moss.  It was good to be on land again.  Away from the concrete and Terexes of the Tenerife port, without crowds of tourists to distract.

The Finger Lakes welcoming me home

 Two days later I was picking black raspberries in my own hometown, watching the squirrels chase each other, reveling in the freedom of being barefoot, enjoying the sunshine dappling in the edges of the river, and drinking real milk to my heart's content.  After 36 hours of incredulous amazement at the footwear and outfits people choose to travel in, I am able to sit back and just enjoy America again.  As we flew in low over the countryside, the Susquehanna and Finger Lakes greeted me, familiar and friendly in their twinkle against the setting sun.  I marveled at the lush green of the mountains, the open lakes and blue rivers, and looked forward to hiking and kayaking the places I call mine.  This time with my family is a gift; here there is time just to breathe.

Even the wind and waves obey...

We've been sailing for days now, and there is only water.  There are mini-rainbows in the sea-spray coming up from along the bow, the dolphins dance for us, and the fish have wings.  It's an exercise in patience in a world that usually demands instant gratification.  The distance that could be covered with just a few hours in an airplane takes 10 days of steady sailing.  There is nowhere else to go.  My world is 499 ft long, there is salt in the air, and my eyes can see nothing but blue on blue on blue endlessly stretching out into forever.
It's an instant relief from the stacks of containers on concrete of the Lome harbor, the ever-present trash of Freetown and the faint odor of raw sewage.  There is time to meditate and be still.  To feel the sun on my face and the wind teasing my hair and to just...be.  The night skies are a stretch of dark velvet lavishly scattered with glitter and the faint swirl of the Milky Way, marred only by our masthead running light.

By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.  He gathers the waters of the sea into jars; he puts the deep into storehouses.  Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the people of the world revere him.  For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm. The Lord foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.  But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations. ~ Psalm 33:6-11

Who is this Lord that I serve?  He breathed a blanket of stars...he has jars big enough for this endless ocean and the might to store it inside.

As the wind whipped along the peaks of the waves at over 40 knots yesterday, I stood on the bridge and watched our bow crash into wave after wave and spray seawater all across my favorite dolphin-watching spot.  In a fishing boat it would have been a wild ride for sure.  Was it an afternoon like this where Jesus slept while his disciples got soaked and scared?  From gale-force winds to total calm at a word?

The wind and the waves not only obey him, they exist only for His glory.

So do I.

Photos by the amazing Deb Louden - Thanks Deb!

Africa on the right, and straight on 'till morning

It’s a magic moment, hovering between light and darkness, as the sun sinks behind thick clouds, and the sea slowly fades into progressively subtle shades of grey and deep blue.  I can watch from my window, looking out on the hard white caps and the shallow swells on the haze through the glass.  It’s endless, the blue and the grey, stretching out for miles and miles to Africa somewhere to starboard.  In the morning I wake to sunlight reflected off the sea and shining in the window across my quilt.  The welcoming sun belies the cold air conditioning, and I'm looking forward to some time in the warmth out on deck.

By last night we’d been sailing for over 60 hours, with the hospital and all our cabins tied down tight.  Large piles of bedframes and chairs and trashcans in each ward saran-wrapped together and racheted to bolts in the floor.  My first few hospitals would never have dismantled so neatly.  

The staff is scattered through other departments, with just a few left in the hospital.  My first few sails I also had been loaned out - to housekeeping and hospitality, with a few-week stint as the ship seamstress and a sewing machine tied down to the table.  This time I've stayed in the hospital department, and in between writing final reports and preparing for Guinea my main job is compiling an appropriate sailing playlist of songs such as "For the moments i feel faint," "Stranded," "Rescue Me,"and "Let the waters rise."  My initial assignment was unstrapping the land rovers on deck and seeing how long they take to go overboard, but in the interest of not being thrown overboard myself I've decided to postpone that for after we dock.  Others of my co-workers have decided to try a wide variety of balancing skills such as yoga and juggling,  some are on flying fish and dolphin watch, and windsurfing along the deck with hammocks also looks quite fun. :-D Just kidding, Mom, of COURSE I would never try something like that.

I took the first afternoon to get used to the rocking, my head attached on a string and bouncing around in a fog somewhere above me.  Guardrails on my bed let me sleep soundly without fear of falling out, and after a few hours I could walk without looking completely drunk.  It's sunny now, out on the bow, and I'm looking forward to a good week of catching up with paperwork and reports, and taking time just to relax and enjoy spending time with God and enjoying the beauty of His creation and the vastness of His love.  I am blessed beyond anything I could ask or imagine!

pink sheets

Scorn has broken my heart and has left me helpless; I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found none.  ~Psalm 69:20                              

20M - jaw osteomyelitis, non-surgical, referred to dental.  21F - breast cancer - nonsurgical.  56M - hypertension and inguinal hernia; referred to local doctor for hypertension, wait listed for hernia repair.  2M - inguinal hernia; wait list.  Lipomas, cancers, goiters and physical assaults, urinary incontinence and tumors and hernias and more hernias.

Names cut off the top of the pink pre-hospital paperwork, each page gives an age, a problem, a reason we couldn't help.  The opening few notes of a requiem, ended before the story is ever told.  There are hundreds of pages, each one a life.

These are the people that made it past the pre-screeners and into the stadium on screening day.  The ones who maybe came onto the ship for an Xray or scan, or who saw one of our surgeons for evaluation.  The ages and problems are varied but the conclusions are the same - we could not do surgery for them during this outreach.  The space on the surgery schedule is limited, and not everything can be cured simply by cutting it out.  

We come testifying hope in Jesus' name, regardless of physical appearance or medical diagnosis or community position.  Often our patients understand that hope as they begin to see something tangible change in themselves, as they see people willing to reach out to them despite their appearance, and as they realize that after surgery they can re-enter their village and community with dignity.

For this pile of life, the spark of hope they had for a possible change in their condition with surgery was not realized.  We in our limitations can only touch the few, and must trust God with the rest.

Please pray for healing for each of these patients represented by a pink screening sheet.  We claim  hope for them from a God who has promised to hear and save his people.

The poor will see and be glad - you who seek God, may your hearts live!  The Lord hears the needy and does not despise his captive people.  ~ Psalm 69: 32-33

when the whiskers come off...

Monday afternoon I set a stool next to the charge nurse desk and gathered some supplies - gauze, saline, a basin, gloves, and several pairs of small sterile scissors.  We were fresh out of mirrors on D ward, so I walked down to B to get the most important item for my small salon: a handheld mirror.

Bla before surgery

And I chose my first victim carefully.  I looked up from my preparations to find 8-year-old Bla watching me intently.  He grinned and came over for a hug.  Bla was one of my broken-lipped kids, with a smile so genuine and brilliant you would never realize he had a hole in his lip, and an enthusiastic snuggle-hug every time he catches a nurse with an arm free.  Bla and his mama are from way up north, so far that no one else on the ward speaks their language.  When our one translator fluent in Moba goes home for the day, we pantomime.


The "serious face" - shortly after the
visit to the cleft lip salon.

So I made faces at Bla, sat him on the stool, pretended to clean my lip with the gauze, and gave him the purple mirror to watch.  He nodded, and smiled, and then looked very serious.

As I cleaned Bla's lip with the saline and gauze, we gathered a small crowd of whisker-lipped kids all intently watching and commenting on the process, reaching half-way up to their own repaired lips before remembering not to touch.  I kept up a running commentary of who would be next and how beautiful their lips would be, while the two-year-old with his hand on my knee patted me and giggled along with the rest.  Bla stayed very still, intently watching my hand in the mirror as I snipped the extra spiky suture ends along the upper lip and up just into his nose.  When I finished I told him how handsome he looked, and he inspected himself in the mirror before breaking into an excited smile.

The reward was stickers, and he decorated himself enthusiastically while I cleaned up.  Then I took him by the hand and led him over to my next victim, 4-year-old Abla.

See how handsome Bla's lip is?  I would like to take your stickers off your lip and make it look pretty.  Abla hid shyly behind the translator, but she didn't particularly object, so I soaked off her steri strips and started snipping.  Abla's mama came over to inspect the repair job.  I didn't understand much of the words, but the big grin and thumbs-up are relatively universal.  Little sister watched, interested, from her place on mom's back.  Once I had finished four little lips, we gathered all the mamas and the kids for a group teaching session on wound care and lip exercises -  in four different languages.
This field service our surgeons have repaired 34 cleft lips and palates.  We had 8 on the ward that day in various stages of healing; some still with nasal bolsters and fresh steri-strips, and others already "discharged" and just waiting for a final would check before the long trip back north and home.  The next morning 5 newly-healed little lips were ready for a final photo and a discharge once all the transportation and follow-up details finished.  They're in varying degrees of acceptance still: Bla is quite proud of his new lip, flaunting a "see how handsome I look" at every one of his favorite nurses and visitors that walk in the door, while 6-year-old Assoum isn't used to the attention and mostly just hides his face in his chair and 5-year-old Yaovwi hasn't quite forgiven me for taking off his steri-strips.  They'll forget to be shy eventually and forget that maybe once they were called ugly and outcast.

Instead I hope they remember that first look in the mirror once the tape and crusts and dried blood have all come off, that first glimpse of a chance at normal life, and a voice telling them they are handsome or beautiful...

I pray they know they are wanted and loved, and that beyond just physical repair they find wholeness and new life in a God who loves them regardless of the brokenness on the inside or outside, and no matter where they once had holes or whiskers still waiting to come off.