Dolosie

Today we took a train -an all day adventure- to the other city 3 hours away (German lady, Dutch gal and I).  We left at 6 am and road the train for 5 hours. It went even slower than train in China but beautiful to see the countryside from air conditioned train car (only cost $20). We road through plains, mountains and jungle! No real animals here but countryside is beautiful. (They don't have cattle or horses or even dogs or cats here. They had an outbreak of rabies so dogs on street killed and no one seems to have pets). it's strange because every African country that I have been to treasures their cattle and has wild animals too. I have seen a few goats and a couple of chickens. Oh well.

They do have huge trees and have a forestry industry as well as off shore oil so not a poor country supposedly at least for wealthy few. We came home in a  taxi after walking around the town of Dolosie and going to the agriculture sight that mercy Ships has in that town. It took four hours to drive home and another 20 dollars. We had some great fellowship and got to see a bit of the world outside the ship. (Wait until you see my market pictures and the meat?? rodents of some kind from forest and maybe monkey meat and always fish. ??? Even I didn't stay around to look closely!

  

Itailian aircraft carrier

We went to see the Italian aircraft carrier last night that sits across from us in harbor.
It is pretty impressive with its 6 planes and 3 helicopters on deck. The navy guys were very nice with answering all our questions and letting us take photos. Quite impressive to look out our deck at it.

The Lord is Present

Hi all! I haven't really shared about how spiritually things are going on ship but please be assured The Lord is ever present in what we do. We always start our shift with prayer with the nurses going off, the nurses coming on, the translators, and often a few patients join us as well. When the surgical team comes to get the patient, again there is a time of prayer with the patient. Because we are in an animistic culture where spirits are often seen as doing harm, patients welcome our prayers on their behalf. Each day, the worship team of a chaplain and local believers enter the wards, share with patients, listen to their needs, lead a lively time of worship and praise with singing and dancing and often drums. (Now that would be interesting in the NICU back home!) There is a big "ward service" on Sunday which is held in an area close to the wards and every patient that can get out of bed comes (not forced to attend but the vast majority want to!) We as nurses get to share His love throughout the day with a smile, a touch, a hug, playing a game, just sitting with those who may not be feeling well, coloring (adults love to get a coloring book and colors...never had anything like it growing up and it is quite a therapedic pass time!) I have already mentioned the outreaches to orphanages and clinics/screenings, and Friday night I get to  go to a showing of the Jesus film in a little fishing village. God is at work. :-).  

   Our verses for our ward for the week: I Thessalonians 5:12-18.   "Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in The Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the dishearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and everyone else.      Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."   Serving with you all! Thanks so much for your prayers!


 

Baby Creche

Here we are at the baby creche that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. (I am barely on the photo on right hand side! :-). I went 2 weeks in a row even though it nearly broke my heart. We bring these sponge put together blocks so we have a place to sit with the babies/toddlers and some ABC blocks and a few other toys each time we come. Sometimes there are a few older children of the workers as you see in the top corner. The cribs have sheets on them and about 10cribs are packed into a room about the size of a large bathroom in the States. (We move them to edge to make place  in the center. They wear cloth diapers that we must change usually the moment we get there as they are saturated with urine. Sometimes when one picks one up they are soaked completely through and the smell of urine and feces can be overpowering but one learns to look past that to their beautiful eyes and wounded hearts. I have tried not to judge. If I had to wash all diaers by hand in a bucket and hang to dry on shrubs or part of a clothes line, would I change them more frequently? (Hopefully, yes! but it is hard to not lose hope in this place.) Below is a friend trying to "hold" 3 little ones as is often the case when we are there. The little one on her tummy on the floor is one of the most malnourished ones with spindly arms and legs and hollow eyes. She is difficult to comfort at times and will throw herself out of your arms to be put on the floor where she "moans" or quietly cries. She has brought tears to my eyes and prayers from my soul more than once.

 Notice the sweet little girl in her "pillowcase dress" that ladies around Parkview make time and again! As you can see, there are many variations and now many are just pieces of material with ties at top, along the same line as all the pillowcase dresses that are everywhere here...the hospital wards, the orphanages, on the streets.

 This is the little guy that we can actually get to smile and laugh. A real cutie!

 Special to see two little ones side by side...the one on right is more malnourished, hollow sad eyes, big tummy, less trusting. May God bring them to Him and use us to give joy and hope to each of them.

Eye Clinic

Here we are at the eye clinic screenings. As you can see, people come and wait for us to arrive with the first patients actually having seats! The gentleman in yellow vest is the retired police officer from Minnesota who does a lot of the driving and manages crowd control. He is quite the driver in this crazy traffic and easily holds his own against massive trucks! I tell you, you don't want to get in his way! :-) He also does a great job of crowd control and is here telling the crowd, through the interpreter, what the day will go like. It actually works! (contrary to my experience in Lebanon, these folks stay in nice rows.)

 This is the national trained eye specialist who checks through people in the line and points them to different areas ie possible surgery section for cataracts, tumors, etc. ; possible need for glasses will be referred to local Drs., or to receive teaching and educational materials about wearing hats, sunglasses, eating right foods, etc. to take care of your eyes. Overall, it is a well run clinic that meets 2x/week in the villages as we screen for people who need surgery on board ship.

 This is me standing in yellow vest with the group getting "educational materials". I was impressed that everyone who came that day got through this group and all were pretty attentive. It was hot in the sun and I got a good tan but was glad to help out as the translator, wearing blue and standing, did an amazing job and did it with great joy and enthusiasm inspite of saying it again and again to about 20 groups at least that day! We saw about 350 people with 35 getting "tickets" to come to ship for possible treatment. ie surgery

 I love this picture because it shows the variety of hair styles. :-) The lady with head dress has matching dress which is traditional and beautiful, the gal with white shirt and black type shirt is a school girl in uniform and has pretty braided hair, the gal to her left is in Western dress and her hair more Western as well. Beautiful weaving of life and culture and traditional ways of people here in Congo. No one "usual" dress or style!

Will you pray?

Good morning! It is sat am here and doing laundry...yes I am doing it 5 days after last wash but can't stand running clothes or towel that never in dark windowless cabin! Would think of taking out on deck 7 but oil smell of port not always the best. (Congo has tons of oil but unfortunately that money doesn't seem to filter down to common folks and health care.) To their credit, they are giving diesel fuel to Mercy Ships for free, the entire 10 months in port. Oh, if they could also pour that into the country health.

There was a young gal of perhaps ten who came a long ways from up country with mom. (She was carried some of the way, she was too weak to walk some with help of others.) She has huge facial malignant tumor determined by biopsy. It is so far advance and so severe and disfigurement so bad, you are unable to image. The government took a weary, distraught, anguished mother and daughter back to village in rain forest to die today. It would be in humane to be left alone on foreign ship where one doesn't see light of day, but loss of hope and impending death is also a struggle. Many medical with tears as they carried her down gangway and off ship. Will you pray for mother and daughter? Be assured our African pastor sat at their side through these last days. May they know His peace. We will probably not hear any more from them, but our Father will be with them and sees his little one. May she be comforted in His arms where there is no more sorrow or pain of this world. Serving with you, allowing Him to use us as He sees fit. Hearts breaking for those that society has often forgotten, mended by His tender care. 

Life in medical ward

Hi all! I hope you all are able to have a great weekend with family and friends. I am going to try to give you a little of an idea of what happens in my life when I am on the ward. I will try to get someone to help me with 3 photos of patients and me this weekend...pray now! :-)

The ward I work in is Ward D and we have mostly patients that have had large tumors of the head, mouth, throat, thyroid  which makes them a fairly high risk for air way management ie after surgery the tissues usually begin to swell and because of the area we are dealing with, rarely a patient has difficulty breathing. As a result, Ward D is kind of like our ICU. We have all ages which makes me happy because I usually at least have one patient that is under the age of 10 and coming from Neonatal  in the USA, that is still BIG. :-) My day consists of lots of dressing changes (which take a lot of time because wounds are large and painful) and doing everything that usually involves a team at home.....my 8 month old needed an EKG...never had to do one before because we had a team that came to the bedside and did EKG's...lots of wires, no idea how to use the machine, where  to place  electrodes, yah...huge learning   curve.  This same little one needed a lab draw...Again no one but me for  that  one (no call to lab to have someone draw it!) There are feedings to hang or IVs to infuse and lots of antibiotics or pain medications to give. (Infection continues to be a problem here in spite of lots of hand sanitizer, teaching pt. to wash hands, keep hands away from incisions, etc. For example, most pts have a care giver with them who stays in hospital under the patients bed on a mattress.  We realized recently that a mother was picking up the hem of her skirt to wipe her daughter's face after eating or when their was drainage from dressings....mother had worn that same skirt for the last 4 days, it had been dragging on the floor, let's not get more descriptive...she was quickly stopped when we saw it but how many times it had been done? Needless to say, the daughter has a bad wound infection. so sad but hygiene is a challenge to all in the third world! We  keep educating but sometimes you can't keep ahead of what they are thinking/doing!)

To be continued later! internet going down in 5 min.! 

Baby Orphanage

Good morning! It is almost time for my shift to begin but it has already been a busy day :). I got up a few minutes before 6 to meet on the dock to run/walk. Most people are long distance runners but a few walk/run so if I get there I'd often find someone to match (Only walk with one or two because narrow streets, big puddles and big trucks.) but it was pouring rain so ran with a gal from New Zealand through the ship and up and down the steps. I got a workout. Then did one load of laundry and off to a baby orphanage.
It was so sad to see wee little malnourished babe's with big tummies and tiny sticks for legs. It's enough to make you cry. It was clean, but just toys we brought with to play with. No one cried. Only one little guy would laugh when we tickled him. All clung to us as if their depended on it. Not enough of us so everyone had at least 2 and when you picked up the second one, the first would look away or try to pus the second away. Who could fault them for wanting love all their own? We sat on the floor as few children had strength to walk on their stick like legs. Again, no photos but perhaps you could close your eyes and "see" them? They are imprinted in my heart.