The new 'do

My patient's sister, Elizabeth, kindly spent over two hours braiding my hair. Unfortunately my hair is not as thick or textured as many others who sport the braided look, so the result wasn't quite as flattering on my head as it would have been on others. Nonetheless, it was a good bonding experience. Elizabeth and all the patients around us kept laughing at how "slippery" my hair was. Ah, yes, slippery hair has its disadvantages. Of course, it has some advantages too: I haven't brushed it since arriving. :)

I opted to wear the braids back during the day (photo 1) because I looked a little less like Medusa than when they were down (photo 2). The removal of the braids gave me another new hairstyle (photo 3) that I affectionately named The Poof.

Elizabeth update

My adopt-a-patient, Elizabeth is doing well! She actually didn't need to have her wrist attached to her leg while it healed after all, so she's just got a basic cast on. It's been good spending time with her and her sister, though sometimes it's difficult for us to understand each other because Liberian English is heavily accented. A couple of nights ago her sister braided my hair! It looks a bit crazy and kind of hurts by the end of the day, but it was a good bonding experience. I've got a couple of pictures of the new do; I'll try to post them soon. Tonight I got to read them some Bible stories about Jesus' miracles. Their uncle was there too, and they all seemed to enjoy it. It was a really sweet time.

Biomedical engineering dream team

This is the Africa Mercy Biomedical Technician dream team! Need a piece of broken medical equipment fixed? We're your guys! The team members include (from left) Carlos, Ned and Marla. Ned is a bit quiet, but the other two are loud enough to make up for him.


And this is our territory: the Biomedical Technician Office. Note Ned's lack of a left leg. This may explain why he has not been very helpful these last few days.

...So this is where I spend most of my working hours. My time here has been such an unexpected blessing! Having had minimal hands-on technical training in the past, I initially felt very unequipped for the job. But I was reminded that the Lord called me to this particular position for a reason, His thoughts are higher than my thoughts, and He equips us with all that we need to accomplish His purposes. And the Lord has indeed been faithfully providing for me in this position. By God's grace I even fixed my first broken medical device yesterday! It was actually really fun to pull it apart, identify and repair the broken bit and put it all back together again. Resources are scarce on this ship and virtually non-existent on land, so we have to be very resourceful in our repairs. I have been particularly blessed by Carlos, the head biomedical technician. (actually, he's the real biomed tech; I'm just an assistant) He's been super patient, helpful and kind and has taught me tons about the medical devices and how to fix them. Ned has been less helpful but has provided a good listening ear if I need to talk.

African sunsets

I took these from the ship a few nights ago. The view was breathtaking.

African beaches

These were taken at ELWA Beach, which is just south of Monrovia. The clouds don't make for great tanning, but rainy season is almost over.

Monrovia Central Prison

On Saturday mornings people from Mercy Ships go to the Monrovia Central Prison to spend time with the prisoners, and today I went along. It was really really good.

The prison is unreal. There are over 650 men and about 30 women. People are packed and locked into tiny cells. They are fed once per day, and the "meal" is a bowl of hard, dry grains covered in some sort of broth. The crimes that led to these peoples' incarceration were surprising and petty - many had been imprisoned for not being able to pay a debt or for getting into an argument. Many were thrown in jail simply because of an unsubstantiated false accusation.

I got to spend some time with the women prisoners, and it was amazing. They have such need. They need people to listen to their stories and to care. They need people to get in contact with family members on the outside, who often don't even know their loved ones are in prison. They need to know that God is steadfast and just and will meet all their needs.

I was particularly struck my a young woman named Thelma and her mother-in-law, Mary. They were falsely accused of kidnapping and were thrown in prison along with Thelma's husband, Jeremiah. Yet they have deep peace and joy. I read them Psalm 139, which continually gives me hope in hardship, and they received the message with thanksgiving. Talk about rejoicing in our sufferings. Though they are imprisoned, they continue to praise Him.

Please pray for Thelma, Mary and Jeremiah. Pray that the Lord would continue to be their hope and their joy. Pray that God would multiply the food in their stomachs so that they would not be hungry. Pray that justice would move swiftly and give them a quick release. And if it is the Lord's will that they stay for some time to be a light in Central Monrovia Prison, then pray that God would continually strengthen and encourage them and give them peace.

Eilzabeth

I met Elizabeth, my adopted patient, today! She seems really sweet. Her older sister, who is also conveniently named Elizabeth, is going to be staying with her while she's in the hospital, so I'll get to minister to Elizabeth x 2. :) The first few minutes where a teensy bit awkward as I tried to explain to her that I had signed up to be her friend; there are mild language/age/culture barriers to overcome. But all things considered, I think we hit it off pretty well, and I'm looking forward to developing a relationship with Elizabeth as well as her older sister Elizabeth. The older Elizabeth (O.E.) already asked if I would be her best friend. This invitation, in combination with the wedding proposal last weekend, is leading me to the cultural assumption that Liberians are very friendly people.

I also found out more about Elizabeth's upcoming surgery - her right hand/forearm was severely burned, and it healed in a way that forces her wrist to remain fully flexed and barely functional. I learned that the surgeon will need to repair this with a skin graft from Elizabeth's groin, and the graft has to have subcutaneous tissue because it will cover exposed tendon and will need to vascularize the area. The tricky thing about this is that the skin must remain attached to the groin during recovery so it can remain alive to vascularize the new tissue. So basically, Elizabeth will have to spend three weeks recovering here with her right arm attached to a piece of skin around her groin. To me this sounds terribly uncomfortable. But Lord willing the discomfort will be worth the outcome, and Elizabeth will once again enjoy full functionality in her wrist.

Please keep Elizabeth in prayer as she undergoes her surgery tomorrow (Friday)!

Adopt-a-Patient

Yesterday I adopted a patient! We have an Adopt-a-Patient program on board that pairs up each surgery patient with a crew member. We are committed to spend time with our patients each day as they undergo their procedures and recover. It seems like an incredible opportunity to encourage and support someone as he/she goes through a potentially scary time.

My patient's name is Elizabeth, and she's 12 years old. I haven't met her yet, but she's coming in on Thursday and scheduled for plastic surgery on Friday. I don't know what her pre-op diagnosis is yet, but many of the "plastics patients" are burn victims with wounds that have healed improperly and caused major disfigurement. Please keep Elizabeth in your prayers! Pray that the Lord would be giving her strength and hope about her upcoming surgery, and please pray that the Lord would bless our friendship and use me to convey His love for Elizabeth. I'll provide more details as they come!

Marriage Proposal

Today I was proposed to. By a 16-year-old boy at the craft market. He took stride next to me and said "Hey you. I like you. I want to marry you." He later told my friends and me that he loves American women. Apparently we have "curvy bodies." Charming. He also told us that he wants to marry an American girl so that he can become an American and join the marines. (at least he's honest) We tried to encourage him to stay in Liberia, stressing that the country needs people like him to provide honest law enforcement. ...still, it's nice to know I have an offer on the table...

David

Had a tough encounter with a man on the dock earlier this week. While at work one afternoon I was taking out some trash on the dock, and I was approached by a Liberian man named David. David looked like a skeleton in a t-shirt. He was truly starving, and he talked and moved about slowly with a troubling sort of vacancy. He came up to me and asked "can you help me?" "Yes?," I replied with uncertainty, not really knowing what to say. "Can you give me work?" He asked for work with such sincerity and un-vocalized urgency that I cannot get it out of my mind. Mercy Ships is known to hire locals to work on the dock for good wages, so I told him that I would ask my colleague who has been on the ship longer. My colleague came over and explained to David that our department wasn't hiring right now. He took down David's name and told him that we would get in touch with him via his church if something came up.

I think David left the conversation with more hope than I did. The thing is, I believe we do all of our hiring at the beginning of the outreach, so I doubt we'll be able to offer David work. And work is very hard to come by here.

Please please pray for this man David. Pray that he would take heart and hope in the Christ. Pray that the Lord would bless him with a deep and unshakable faith, and that He would also bless David with work and with food. The prayers of the saints are powerful and effective, and by the grace of God this is a sure way we can all help.

"I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father." (Jesus; John 14:13)

God and poverty

I highly recommend reading Good News About Injustice by Gary Haugen. In the book Haugen takes a Biblical look at God's response to injustice and its implications for our response as Christians. It's been really helpful in giving me scriptural reminders that God HATES injustice and wants his people to do something about it. (there are tons of related passages; Isaiah 1:17 is an example - "Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.") Here's a passage from Haugen's book that I really like. Quoting John Stott, he comments on God's familiarity with suffering:

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Of course, this notion of a lofty, unknowable God who sits beyond the reach of my objections strikes me as infuriating. In the context of human suffering, I find no love for a God who sits on some serene, detached cloud of mystery rolling his eyes and exchanging if-they-only-knew smirks with the angels.

But then I remember Jesus, and I recall what my God, the one true God, is really like - the God of the cross. Even in the midst of the deepest human anguish, I remember why it is that I love Jesus and trust what he says. John Stott expresses my own convictions most beautifully:

"I could never myself believe in a God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as "God on the cross." In a real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered into our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our suffering became more manageable in light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross which symbolizes divine suffering. "The cross of Christ...is God's only self-justification in a world such as ours."

So when at times I flippantly challenge the Almighty as to why he allows horrendous suffering, I am pulled up in a shudder of humility as I recall that there is no measure of his creation's suffering that he has not been willing to bear himself. Indeed, I stand before a God whose thoughts - and sufferings - are too great for me.

-Gary Haugen; Good News About Injustice
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Poverty

For those of you who do not know about the history of Liberia, I highly highly encourage you to read up on it. I admit that even though I knew that they had just emerged from a civil war, until coming here I did not understand the full extent of the devastation of the war. After being here a week I have only just begun to understand it. Since the war only ended four years ago, many of the patients seen on the ship have been victims of gruesome crimes, and nearly everyone has lost loved ones to the fighting.

The poverty is unimaginable. 85% of Liberians are unemployed - especially in Monrovia - and 80% are living in poverty. The city has been ravaged. Buildings are bombed out, the only electricity here (in the capital city) is generator-driven, and UNMIL (UN Missions In Liberia) officers patrol the streets constantly in efforts to keep peace that currently seems a bit shaky. Many of the people go without food regularly, and one woman I was talking to commented on the lack of animals in and around the capital with the explanation that they had all been eaten by the starving citizens. From what I gather there is not a lot of economic disparity among Liberians - everyone is poor.

The condition of the Liberians has been tough for me to grapple with over the past week, and I haven't even interacted with that many locals yet. I take hope in knowing that God IS sovereign even in a place like this. God is ever-present even in times of trouble and unchangeable even in times of uncertainty. And this is what matters. As C.S. Lewis puts it, "all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakable remains." Praise the LORD, He does not look at the external but considers instead what is within us. I really like Psalm 10 lately:

"The LORD is King for ever and ever;
the nations will perish from his land.
You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry."
Psalm 10:16-17

Pictures of my home!

This is where I will be living for the next three months:


And here are some views from our dock, which means that this is what I'll be looking at for the next three months:

I love window seats!

The heavens declare the glory of God


the skies proclaim the work of his hands


Day after day they pour forth speech


night after night they display knowledge


There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard


Their voice goes out into all the earth


their words to the ends of the world



Psalm 19:1-4

Phoenix Sky Harbor --> Monrovia, Liberia

I started to feel genuinely nervous about my trip to Africa once my dad dropped me curbside at the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport and it finally dawned on me that I was about to undergo a lot of change. I got that familiar "oh dear Lord, what have I gotten myself into this time" sort of feeling.

I was quickly comforted with the reminder that I'm never alone; God is with me. Regardless of whatever I'm feeling or whatever happens to me, Christ is there and will continue to be there. I recited some of my favorite promises from Psalm 139 to solidify this:

LORD you hem me in behind and before

You have laid your hand upon me

...

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

If I settle to the far side of the sea,

Even there your hand will guide me,

Your right hand will hold me fast.

...
All of the days ordained for me where written in your book
before one of them came into being.


One of the things about flying into Monrovia that I was the most anxious about was switching planes in Brussels. I don't know why, but I was unreasonably afraid that I would be on some obscure flight into Western Africa that no one had heard of and no one else was taking and that I wouldn't be able to find it. As soon as I boarded my Chicago-->Brussels flight I found myself providentially seated by not one, not two, but three unrelated Liberians all making the same connection as me. It was just a small but welcomed reminder that God listens and cares to calm our fears.

The trip was long, (over 30 hours door-to-dock) but quite smooth and enjoyable. I took a lot of pictures looking out my window, and I had ample time to journal, read and sleep.