Ghana borders, motorcycles and marriage

Last weekend a few of us set out on an adventure. We traveled about 5 hours North West to the Ghana border where the tallest waterfall in West Africa stands.  Transportation itself is an adventure over here as I showed you last week. 5 person cars hold 7-8 people, 12 person vans hold 18-20 and motorcycles, well, the most I’ve seen is 5….

So, we took a taxi up to a town called Kpalime where we argued with 3 zemi-john drivers until we finally settled on a reasonable price (45 minutes later) to take us up the mountains to the border crossing in Wli where we would stay for the weekend.  We camped overnight in a little village by the border with no electricity or anything like that. A family in the community cooked us traditional African Banku (fermented cornmeal and cassava dough that you dip in stew) and we ate outside by the moonlight listening to music and watching the village kids dance around us.  It was so cool to experience a “normal” night in an African village.  Sunday morning we woke up early, crossed the border into Ghana, left our passports and tent with immigration to ensure we were coming back, and began our hike to the waterfall.  It is said to be the tallest waterfall in West Africa and was absolutely beautiful. Thousands of bats make their home among the cliffs surrounding the falls and woke to greet us as we swam in the falls.  After a few hours of soaking up the sun and relaxing by the water we headed back to immigration where the border patrol returned our passports and tent in exchange for a “small gift from our hearts” aka money.  In Togo we made our way back to Lome and our home onboard the ship. Oh, and I almost forgot. My zemi-john driver declared his love for me and was convinced I’m going to stay in Togo and marry him. Don’t worry, I told him no. We get a lot of marriage proposals here…and they’re usually followed by “and you can take me back to America.” 

On a different note, things on ship are going very well! The hospital is filling up quickly and tomorrow we start admitting patients for plastic surgery. I’ve been working in max/fax the last several weeks and have really enjoyed the patients and challenges that come with that specialty, but I’m looking forward to our precious skin graft children joining us soon!  I oriented to charge nurse over the weekend and will take on that new role this week.  Thank you all for your continued prayers and words of encouragement! I am loving my time here and trying to take advantage of every opportunity to meet new people, go on adventures and spread God’s love to this beautiful nation.  It is a blessing!!   

Stop and Starts in Africa

So, transportation in Africa isn't as easy as one would think. Here are a few pictures of our weekend adventures and transportation encounters over the last week or two. My camera has turned up "missing" so hang tight while I borrow other peoples cameras. I'm hopeful mine will turn up soon.

Hiking around Mt Agou

First car breakdown of the year

The local mechanic

and a flat tire

Only 4 in the back of this car so far

Mercy Ships approved zemi-john riding

The tallest waterfall in West Africa - found in Ghana

More blog posts to come soon!!!

WELCOME TO WORDLESS WEDNESDAY



HOSPITAL OPEN HOUSE

   


PRACTICING FOR OUR
EVACUATION DRILL





HOSPITAL OPEN HOUSE -
SUTURE PRACTICE



A NEW PATIENT





B WARD NURSING STAFF AND DAY VOLUNTEERS



SCREENING DAY





WEEKEND HIKE



RIDING ON ZIMMY JOHNS - OUR NEW TAXIS



Screening Day, Togo 2012

Screening Day

Screening day was a huge success! We won’t have exact numbers until Friday, but what I’ve heard is that over 3,500 people showed up for the screening and over 1,600 were selected for further screening!!! Thank you everyone for your prayers! It really was an incredible day! People started lining up the night before and at 5am we opened the gate and everything was underway. It was so exciting to see so many people walk into the gates scared and uncertain and hours later, after telling their story to many people, they walked out of the stadium with their head held high and hope in their eyes because they had received an appointment card. It was beautiful!

One of the coolest places in the stadium was the prayer tree. Everyone who walked through the gates, whether they qualified for surgery or not, was offered prayer as we escorted them out, and I don’t think anyone turned it down. We had day volunteers from the community who were eager to pray with everyone. God is undeniably at work here in Togo and it is so exciting to be a part of His plan for these Togolese people. We serve a living and active God who is the God of ALL nations and people!  

Psalm 47:7-8

“For God is the King of all the earth; sing to him a psalm of praise. God reigns over the nations; God is seated on his holy throne.”

Nursing Staff

Bon Jour!

First day exploring the streets
and market in Togo

Bon Jour from Lome, Togo! I can’t believe I’m back in Africa! It’s a little surreal. Part of me feels like I never left. The ship is still so familiar and many people are back this year for another field service. Reconnecting with friends and co-workers has been great fun. But at the same time, so many things are new. New country, new faces, new patients, new field service….

The ship is an excited place right now, full of energy and anticipation! Most of the nurses have arrived in the last few weeks and Screening day is Wednesday at the stadium.  We are expecting around 4000 people to show up in need of medical attention and I am eager to meet some of our future patients.  I found out this week that I’ll be back on the plastics team this year.  My unit will take care of patients that have contractures from previous burns or snakebites or facial tumors such as Neurofibromas, with a few other plastic surgery cases mixed in. The first 2-3 weeks of surgeries will just be maxilla-facial patients though, so I’ll get a little experience in that area to start.

A few things to pray for:

-Our Screening Day on Wednesday February 1^st. It will be an intense morning of screening potential patients and scheduling them for surgeries over the next 4 months. Pray that God will send those who we can help and that the ones we can not help will stay home. It will be hard to turn people away, but we won’t be able to treat everybody’s conditions.

-Good connections and friendships to be formed with all the nursing staff as we being working in our teams. We will meet our day volunteers tomorrow and start training them, so prayer for good, clear communication and bonding with them as well. These are the translators and local people we will be working closely with for the entire outreach.

Women from the fishing village church I visited this morning

The journey continues...

I'm going back to Africa!!! After months of prayer and discussion I feel God's call to go serve with Mercy Ships again. I've committed to 1-2 years beginning in late January and will be docked in Togo and Guinea throughout 2012. I am so excited about what is to come and want to share this journey with all of you.  I hope everyone is having a blessed holiday season. Merry Christmas and more posts to come!

How da body?

Well, how are you? Or better yet "how da body?" It's an expression that I hear and say often. "How da body?" "Body" is not quite as all encompassing as "you" but in a land where physical needs are often not met, the state of the body is probably a good starting point.

These last few months have been really eye opening in that regard. I still remember my first day walking through town. The streets are so busy, so dirty, so loud, so poor. I have to admit, that first day I was overwhelmed. I mean, you come because you want to serve, you want to help, and you see all of this around you and you wonder if it will make any difference. It just seemed so big, so endless, so hopeless. Thankfully, the future of this nation is not up to me, or up to Mercy Ships. The future of this nation, this beautiful nation of Sierra Leone, is up to God. It is in his hands, not mine.

What I have realized is that I can't save Sierra Leone, but I can join with God in loving it, in walking with the people of Sierra Leone, and by doing my part in the things God has called me to. I have come to see that if change is to happen, it happens with individuals, one person at a time. And as one wise woman told me, that's how Jesus did it, just one person at a time. So here I find myself, working as a nurse, loving and caring for one person at a time. My last few months have been a time where God has shown me what it means to love. Each day I feel like he's giving me a greater capacity, to see what he sees, to fill my heart with this deep deep love that I know only comes from him.

We have a group of patients right now that have been here for a while. They all had some sort of skin graft to one or multiple extremities most likely from a past burn contracture that kept them from using that extremity. These kids are amazing. I love them so much, that even when I'm not working, I feel compelled to go down there and visit. The Patient Life Team that I talked about in my last blog comes down to the unit every day and leads praise and worship with us. And these kids love to worship God! They are so precious. I worked night shift this past week and every night I’d walk in and hear, “Stephanie, Stephanie, let us sing, let us sing” and we would open the song book together and pick 2 or 3 songs to sing before tucking them into bed for the night. They would have loved my mom! I know my nursing skills are needed here, and man, is it ever a blessing to be able to use them, but the thing I love the most is to just play and sing and love on these patients. To see joy in their faces, to laugh with my African brothers and sisters, ahhh, such a blessing.

As my time here in Africa comes to a close, I just want to thank you all for your encouragement, your prayers, your love and your support. This time has been such a blessing, one that I wouldn't trade for the world. We serve a good God, a really good God and I am excited to come home and continue to see what He has in store. Love you all!!!