Week 2 of surgery is underway

The wards are open, the wards are open! I just spent 3 evenings taking care of our first surgical patients in Guinea. It's so great to see all of our new nurses and day workers settling into their new positions and learning the ropes here on the Mercy Ship. One of our new day volunteers is named Judith...and she is wonderful! I walked onto the ortho ward the other night to see all 16 kids standing in line singing songs and praising Jesus. She got each child to go to the front of the line one at a time, choose their favorite praise song, and then everyone sang it together. After everyone had a turn singing and dancing, 2 of the patients got up and recited John 3:16, another couple The Lord's Prayer.... Even the caregivers got involved. Impromptu children's church before bed is the best! I have a feeling we'll have many more nights like that and I love that our day volunteers are so great! Tell Papa God Tenke!!

Guinea Screening Day

On August 22nd I arrived in Conakry, Guinea for my 3^rd outreach with Mercy Ships. It was a 6 day sail from Tenerife with calm water and lots of dolphins and flying fish. The sail was incredibly relaxing and we even got some work done in preparation for our arrival. And now, it’s finally time for the hospital to open.   

Screening day, September 3^rd, was a huge success in Guinea! We saw thousands of people in need of hope, love and SURGERY!  The first caravan left the hospital ship at 5:45am to go to the medical screening site and the last shuttle returned at 9pm.  Over 3,500 men, women and children of all ages and with all kinds of deformities waited patiently in line (some had arrived the previous evening) with one thing in common – a desperate need for hope and healing, a longing for someone to care. As I’ve heard Dr Gary (our Chief Medical Officer) say before, you think someday you will come to the end of the line, that the needs will be met, but every year the line is just as long as ever.  Energy and excitement was in the air as we started to meet our potential patients for the year.

I got the privilege of working in quite a few areas throughout the day.  As a

pre-screener I saw people as they came through the gates and did their initial assessment to see if they would potentially qualify for surgery.  Even though we say in advance we can only do certain surgeries on board and don’t act as a general hospital we still have people that come with stomachaches, back aches, and all sorts of medical problems that can’t be fixed with surgery. We have to turn those away and focus on the many people with medical issues we can fix.  It’s a challenging job for me, turning people away, but I’m learning that God has called us here for a purpose, and that purpose isn’t to heal everyone in Guinea, but instead He’s called us to be a surgical hospital ship that specializes in certain surgeries. And those are the patients we are called to treat.  There was understandably disappointment and grief when someone learned that we were unable to help them, but for the most part they were grateful for the help we were giving their people and their country. And they were each offered the opportunity to be prayed for.  

Later in the day I was moved to the Max-fax/plastics area where I got to work with some of our surgeons, learn from their assessments, and say yes to patients for surgery. It was a great experience and I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.