Love and Peace

 It has been a tough few weeks for me personally, trying to come to a decision about my next step. I came to realise my time with Mercy ships was coming to an end, and with that came what am I going to do next.







I have peace about leaving and feel God is calling me to step out on to another chapter. But then my peace is over come with fear and insecurities about what I can do next. Where am I going to live? What type of job do I look for? Do I want to live in the UK? Where do I go? It has been a struggle, and I know God will guide me, but when you have so many doubts that gets forgotten. I am also dealing with leaving a place I have come to love. The patients, my job and friends, going to miss all of it. I mean how could no one miss those smiling kids, who give you hugs even after you have changed their dressing. Seeing hands and feet heal, seeing the joy in my patients eyes when they can move their arm for the first time in years. Oh I am going to miss it all. But it is time to go.
Fortunately in the last few days I have been overwhelmed by God's love for me. Even through the struggles He is there for me, His love is filling me with peace and I know He will show me the way.

Bethel Music - You Make Me Brave Lyrics
I have heard You calling my name
I have heard the song of love that You sing
So I will let You draw me out beyond the shore
Into Your grace
Your grace.






So as I start to step out of the shore again, please pray with me that the right door will be open, and that my last few months here on the ship will be fulfilling.


















I have posted some photos of my patients, that I have had the privilege to get to know through the dressing changes. Also the team I have been working with, they have been a great, and I am thankful for them.

Psalm 77:13-14

Your ways, God, are holy.
    What god is as great as our God?
14 You are the God who performs miracles;
    you display your power among the peoples.
Psalm 77:13-14

I see miracles happen on this ship.
One miracle that happened is to do with machines. But I need to start this story last year in Congo. There is a machine we use sometimes on patients that need help healing their wounds. It encourages the healthy tissue to grow and it keeps the wound clean from infection.

Only a few patients needed the machine last year, but every time we used it we had problems. The machine was old which meant the dressings that came with it were out of date too! This caused problems to do the correct dressing. It was realised we needed new machines with new dressings to go with it. So last summer 2 new machines were bought, this is was such a great time, exciting for me as I could do my job a bit better!
The new machines came with a lot of new dressings (which were in date). One of our first patients here in Madagascar got to have the machine put on his wound. It was great working with the new ones and seeing it work so well!

The patient himself was a miracle, but that is another story. He needed the machine a lot longer than we anticipated to begin with. Unfortunately then we started having problems with the machine, we switched it to the other one and still we had problems. At one stage the both machines stopped working. This was such a blow to me. 2 new machines broken, I kept praying, "Lord please let our biomed technicians repair them so we can use them again". The next day I got confirmation that the machines would have to be taken back to the manufactures, which is in the USA. It was disappointing news.
The headquarters for  mercy ships was contacted to see what they could do to help. Fortunately they had a machine that was donated last summer and they could have it to us by the week. This was great news, as the patient desperately needed the machine for his wound to improve.

But a better and bigger miracle happened a day later. The people at the headquarters who are in charge of  our supply contacted us back with great news. They had contacted the company that we had bought the  2 machines from 6 months ago. They had explained what had happened to the machines, they told the story of the patient as well. The people at the company were moved by the story of the patient and about Mercy ships. They could not give us anything for free (due to legal issues) but they decided if we bought 2 new ones at a considerable lower price (actually barely anything) These machines cost thousands, and they were going to give us 2 for a few pounds! Also if bought 2 we would get the 3rd one for free and donate some of the dressings to go with it!

It was a day of rejoicing! We had 3 brand new machines on their way. From going from nothing and disappointment to having so much. This is a miracle that only God could have done.
I am so glad to tell you that we received the new machines. And they could have not come at a better time, as we have 2 patients needing the machines!
I was praying that the machines would get fixed, but God had a better and bigger plan. He does wonders in this place.
(for those wondering what the machines are, they are a vacuum assisted therapy machines)

Waiting in line

 He waited in line for hours, sun shining down on him, an the heat of the day rising up. He waited patiently just to ask a question.
As he got to me, he was asked what was his  problem, what was wrong with him medically. I waited patiently as the translator asked the questions. Instead of replying with "I have a hernia, or I have a lump on my back". Instead he had waited in line to ask a question. He wanted know if we could operate on a woman who leaks urine all the time. I replied back, yes we can, They can come here and we will see her and hopefully give her an appointment to see the surgeon. He explained how the women is in a village a few hours away from Tamatave, but would bring her the week after.

A new week started in the screening centre, One morning I continued screening patients and asking them questions, The pre-screening had already been done outside. now we where inside screening the patients with more in depth questions, to see if we could offer them an appointment to see the surgeon. This women and man came to my area. As I started asking questions it was clear the women was suffering with VVF (Vesicovaginal fistula). After giving birth to her second child she started leaking urine. She had been in labour for 2 days and lost the baby through it. As I looked at the man next to her I realised I recognised him. I asked him if he had been in the line the week before. He replied yes and that this was his mum.

So he had waited in line for hours for his mum. He wanted his mum to get help and to get better. I was so glad I could give her an appointment. She will come to the ship, be screened by the surgeon and hopefully be admitted for surgery that will change her life.

The wards ready for the patients 

What a week!

Where do I start to tell you about my week? A week full of anticipation, excitement, hope, happiness. But also a week with sadness, desperation and anger. Yes it has been a week full of emotion that I don't know where to start or process it.

Why so much emotion, well I am helping out at the screening centre. Instead of having one big screening day, this time we have a centre, which will be open Monday to Friday for a month. My job is to screen patients to see if they are candidates for surgery. Fortunately most of the time I get to give them hope, by saying yes we might be able to help you, and then give them the card with their name with an appointment to see the surgeon! You see their faces light up, then the smile comes and the thank you's. That's my favourite part of my job to say yes we can help! 

I see them crossing the room towards me and if they have a tumour or a cleft lip (problems that are visible) my heart jumps and I get excited, as I know we can give them hope. I start taking their history and their details through a translator. Sometimes the history is hard to listen to, they have been through so much, but they are survivors and it's so good to give them the card to come to the ship!

Unfortunately we cannot help everyone. And those are the hardest, they have a sadness in their eyes when you look at them. When they have this longing to give them their last hope, and you take that away from them. It breaks my heart to say no to them. The comfort I take is that we can pray with them, we also have a wonderful prayer team that can help them find some peace and healing.

I feel privileged to have been asked to help with the screening team. I get to meet the patients that are going to be on the wards soon. Actually tomorrow, our first patients will start walking up the gangway to the hospital! We are starting with orthopaedics, can't wait to see the children all walking with their casts on!

It starts all over again tomorrow, hoping and praying the right people come along. That we will be able to give them a card with an appointment.

Madagascar

We are on our way to Madagascar! We left Cape Town, South Africa on Friday and we should arrive in Madagascar on Saturday the 25^th of October. We will be there until June offering free surgical care to those in need.

It has been a long time since I wrote in my blog, this is due to the last few months being a strange time of waiting and leaning on God. As some of you know we were due to go to Guinea in August but due to the ebola this was postponed. Then Benin was our next country to serve, but then we waited to see, as the ebola virus came to Nigeria (Benin is right next to Nigeria). After some time and the management seeking advice it was decided that it would be safer for the ship to go somewhere else. Congo was thought of, but that door closed. Then came Madagascar and it has been great to see God open one door after another.

It has been tough seeing West Africa in so much pain due to the ebola. It breaks my heart to see them suffer. Praying God will do a miracle in those countries affected.

I will be glad when we arrive in Madagascar, then we can start surgeries again and see lives change.

Baby crèche

This week I was able to join one of the Mercy Ministries that go out in to the community in different projects. I joined the baby crèche, where for an hour and half we just love on the babies. These babies are left here for different reasons, some do get picked up by their parent once the parent is able to. Others once they have reached a certain age will go to the bigger orphanage.
Here I met a little boy, they are not sure of his real age, but they think he is about 2 years of age. As I walked in to the room this little boy caught my eye as he was trying to get our attention. I picked him up,hardly weighing much! As they told me how old he was, I looked at his huge big eyes and his skinny little body. Realising he looked a few months old not 2 years of age. This little boy was precious. He wouldn't let me put him down he just held on to me tightly for the hour and a half. When time came to leave the crèche, I had to lay him down on the bed, as I walked away he started crying, my heart breaking at his little crying, ohhh how I wish I could pick him up and take him with me.

Healing wounds

As the last plastics patient was discharged from the ward, I was so happy, that was it I had done my job, all the dressings had finished! but I also felt a bit of sadness as I realised I would not be seeing the patients every day that I would only get to see them occasionally while they came back to have their physio. The last few patients took awhile for their wounds to heal, in that time I got to know them better. It was great to see them and chat to them every day while I did their dressings! 

Add caption

 This was the second block of plastics patients, we screened them at the beginning of January and then surgeries began the next day until March when the Plastic surgeon had to leave. In that time we had over a 100 patients have plastic surgery, to release burn contractures, to remove neurofibromas,  to remove lipomas and more! It is exciting to see the patients have their surgery and then see their skin grafts heal which then helps them move their hand or arm for the first time in years, or their neurofibromas removed from the faces and the joy in their eyes at the realisation that the thing growing on their face has gone and they can go back to their families and the communities!

I feel so privilege to be able to do a job that I love, to see wounds heal and to get to know the patients. Also to work with an amazing team of nurses and physiotherapist (and OT's), and not forgetting a plastic surgeon who is so dedicated to what he does, it's great!

So here are some of the photos from this round of plastic surgeries and the patients I have come to love and will miss dearly!

Amazing team!