Anna Goes to Africa

"Miado go" - we shall meet again (I hope)

2010-08-01T18:17:00.000-07:00

It’s my last shift. There are only ten patients left and most of them are here only because their homes are too far away for them to be able to come back, day after day, for dressing changes. My co-worker and I are taking turns watching them sleep. We are all layered under blankets in the cool of our air-conditioned boat, these Africans and I. Most of them are eager to go home. Especially Josie (photo above) who has been here long enough to learn to do her own sterile dressing changes and to take vital signs on herself and her neighbors… the many neighbors she has seen come and go. I’ve watched a lot of people come and go myself. And now I am the one going. I can’t say I’m ready, but it’s a good time. The hospital is half torn down and packed up already. I will only miss out on the bleaching, the boxing and bagging, the floor waxing, a few dressing changes.

So tonight I am doing my laundry and making a last minute check-list of things to do: I must change my extra West Africa CFA back to U.S. dollars. From blue, purple, green and red back into dull green dollars. I need to pack up a box or two to leave behind and pray over, that it will not have turned to moldy remnants by time I return in six months. I need to say goodbye to lots of good, beautiful people. I will get to say hello again to many of them in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone or heaven, I suppose. I need to charge my ipod for the journey, get a few photos from friends.

And I could use one more zimmy-john (motorbike) taxi ride in the evening -at the time of day when stifling heat fades to comforting warmth and the breeze feels soft on your skin, the time when the falling sun makes the red sand glow. Or I'd like to meet just one more child on a street corner who will run up to me and grin with thier flashing white teeth and thier wide eyes and make me think, one last time, that I have just seen the most adorable child on earth. Maybe one last meal of fufu, eaten with my fingers, dripping with red, spicy sauce. I don't know if I have time for all that, but here is one last blog entry sent from the Africa Mercy, Lome, Togo. I remember googling "Lome" not so many months ago. Didn't I just arrive here? In a sense, yes, but long enough ago that it aches to leave.

In the morning I'll have Josie take my blood pressure one last time. She won't know what the numbers mean, but it will be good for my heart. Last night our translator, Yaovi, was singing, "you give me fever, fever when you kiss me, fever all through the night." I told him I was gonna kiss him, but I didn't want to give him a fever. He pointed at the tub of tylenol and told me a little fever would be ok, it can be fixed. Better to have a fever than to miss out on kisses. And it is better to come and go and feel your heart ache when you go, than to not have come at all.

Oh, it must be the crazy hour of the night, the still-dark of morning, that makes me want to cry.

The Goings-On down on Deck Three

2010-06-20T17:09:00.000-07:00

I can make it to work in just under seven seconds: from room 4212 on deck 4 to the wards just down the stairs. "Down into the dungeon," so I say, particularly on those days when this boat I live and work on feels like a big metal cage. The halls are long and empty down here, there are no windows, and sometimes the ceiling leaks. I don't know where the leaking comes from, but I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with the rain that may or may not be falling 5 decks above.

It's suprising our patients don't all go batty being trapped down here. We let them out onto the deck once a day -but they can only go if they can walk up stairs, or if the elevator is working, or if they don't have an infection. And they are all crammed into these wards where the beds are only 2-4 feet apart, and many of the beds are double decker, with a caregiver sleeping underneath. Even at night it is never quiet for more than 20 minutes at a time: someone is getting up to pee, the nurses are opening cuboards or dropping things, the vital signs machines are beeping, someone's baby is crying, the patient from bed 2 is translating for bed 14 by yelling across the room...

Yet, it seems there are mostly smiles and laughter here. Our dungeon is full of happy noises, full of new friendships, singing and dancing, children playing, ladies chatting, male translators watching world cup soccer and squeeling like girls when they should be mopping the floor. Yesterday morning at 4 am an old lady fell out of her bed -a loud "smack," as her skinny bones hit the hard floor. I came running at the noise and found her squirming about with giggles, grinning in the dark so all I could see was sparkling eyes and her two partial rows of teeth. Later, when I was telling others the story and laughing at her she grinned and laughed too -then gave me a good smack on the head.

Today was Sunday. I was trying to sleep at 10 am after my night shift but I could hear the drumming and singing from the church service on Deck 3, just seven Anna-late-for-work seconds away from my room. I needed to sleep -but I wanted to be down there too. I wanted to watch our translators drumming and dancing till they dripped with sweat, to watch the serious faces of our patients while Clementine tells about Jesus, and to hear little 6 year old Tani yell, "Hallelujah! Amen!" at all sorts of inappropriate times, just because she knows it will make us laugh.

I often feel trapped on this ship. It really is a big metal cage, and it is more cage-like, more dungeony, down on deck 3 where the sun never shines. Yet, on the days I am feeling most trapped the best thing for me is to go down one more flight of stairs, down into the heart of the ship. All our prayers, all our hopes, everything that motivates us is down here. Everything that happens on the ship is us pouring out our lives so that new life can be born down here. We all give our days, our energy, some of us literally give our blood, so that good things can happen here. And they do. The air is sweeter down on deck 3, and it doesn't matter if it's raining 5 decks up, there is always a light down here that is more cheering, better for the soul than sunshine.

"So neither he who plants, nor he who waters is anything, but only God who makes things grow." I Corinthians 3:7

2010-05-14T00:19:00.000-07:00

This is Jean Claude, agricultural director of the Bethesda farm. More specifically, this is him delighted that his six-week corn already towers over his outstretched arm. He will be the first to tell you that it is God who made it grow. Jean Claude, formerly from the Congo, is an Africa Mercy crew member but he spends most of his time in Benin working on the Bethesda farm. The farm is a joint project with Mercy Ships and a local NGO. Last year when the ship was in Benin they built a lovely facility on the site and now they offer three month courses to farmers teaching them how to farm with Godly principles. Last week I was able to take a break from nursing and go live on the farm for five days. Jean Claude was the only one there with more than ten words of English, but the twenty agricultural students were delighted to have a visitor. They let me play with their hoes and machetes, and always said, "good job, good job," even when I was doing the sort of job that required them to redo it.

I loved playing in the dirt and learning something about farming, but more than that I loved being in the country. I loved the little red dirt paths I could run down in the morning, and the air, free from fumes and dust. I loved the delicious African food that arrived by motorbike three times a day. I loved sitting on the porch watching the lightening and the rain, and I loved the farmers, all grown men who giggle and joke about like children.

I also loved how Jean Claude and his students would walk by the corn in the morning and all stop, and he would point at the bees, busy pollenating the corn, and he would say, "God is good. Look at the bees. God is so good." It's true, all of creation is busy declaring the glory of the Lord.

At Bethesda they teach "farming God's way." From what I understood it's basically organic farming, only they call it "God's way" instead of presuming to have invented the idea of growing plants without toxic chemicals. Many farmers here burn their fields and then till them up completely, but that wastes precious nutrients in the soil so they must buy expensive fertilizers. At Bethesda they only till seedling-sized holes and they cover the fields with compost materials -"God's blanket," Jean-Claude calls it -which adds nutrients and also prevents weeds from growing. They make insecticide from onions, garlic and chilies -a huge tub of it that is sprayed over the plants. They sprinkle ashes to reduce the acidity of the soil, and they mix in wheelbarrow loads of chicken manure. They shade their nursery beds with palm branches and use coconut fibers to hold in moisture.

They told me, with Jean Claude translating, that when I go home I can teach others everything I've learned. Once they understood that where I come from there truly are no coconuts growing, and no need to shade things from the sun (this took some convincing) their response was one of awe: "Isn't God amazing that he made so many different places." And later, "isn't He amazing," they would say, shaking their heads and grinning at me, "that he sent you all the way here from so far away." "You have taught us so much," one of them said, "that you work so hard and you sit in the dirt with us." I'm not quite sure what was lost in translation there... they think white people don't like dirt? Regardless, these are good things -to work hard and to sit in the dirt, or simply to be together. To be so pleased for the company that you don't care what you're sitting on or in. And perhaps to even forget there was a job to be done.

I did do some work, but I certainly didn't feel as though I was working hard. Although it didn't seem that anyone was working too hard, at least not for more than a few minutes at a time. And often it was only two or three people working hard while the rest of us watched. They are great team players, these Africans. Not in the sense of efficiency or productivity, but rather in the sense that they will do everything together. Or a cynic might say they do lots of nothing together. Lots of sitting and joking, being busy telling stories. But here it is hard work to just breath sometimes. I could spend a morning doing nothing but standing and sitting outside and still after lunch I would collapse on my bed and sleep for two hours, waking with the same feeling I have after spending too long in a sauna. If I worked too hard here I would die from heat stroke. I'm usually no good at taking naps, but everyday I could have fallen asleep in the dirt... tilled myself an Anna-sized hole and hoped the insecticide man didn't come by and mistake me for a large bug. As it was I came home smelling so bad my roommates wouldn't allow me to unpack my bag in our cabin; I was sent straight to the laundry room.

So I went to the laundry room to wash away the scent of old onions and garlic, of red sand and brown chicken-manure soil, of rainstorms and five days sweating in the sun, the stains of African food eaten with my fingers and juicy mangoes that dribbled down my arms. Me and my things were pungent with the smells of a small farm in Africa. I hadn't noticed until then. But I was not eager to wash them away. Is it strange that I would be jealous of the men I left behind on the farm? I wanted to be back there in my smelly clothes sitting on the porch in the welcome dark, drinking tea with powdered milk and listening to the chatter of the farmers and of the crickets, and maybe standing and walking out under the stars to where the crickets are louder than the men and there is a slight breeze, and I'd sit there in the dirt, with my head back, looking for the big dipper which, I discovered, hangs upside-down in the sky here.

Apostle Paul tells us that we can plant seeds and we can water them, but only God can make them grow. He wasn't speaking of plants, he was speaking of people. All the same -did you see how high that corn is? Tip your head up to see the top of it and tilt your ear to hear the buzzing of the bees way up there. There are so many things I miss about the farm. Being in Africa and surrounded by Africans for one -in particular an Africa that is green and lush and not a polluted port city. I loved the smell of the breeze that came after a rainstorm, and how it felt to hold a ball of dirt that held a living, breathing plant.

Jean Claude said he will bring me some tomatoes when they are ripe. I can't wait to smell them. I will hold them in my hands like precious pearls and say, "Thank you Jean Claude; isn't God good." And he will say, "Yes, Anna, God is so good."

"There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells." Ps. 46:4

2010-04-27T09:06:00.000-07:00

One of our translators said, "I want to teach you a song." And he sang to me: "Joy like a river, joy like a river, joy like a river in my soul. Joy like a river..." I laughed at him and said, "that's not a song, that's just a sentence." But it has been echoing over and over in my head, sounding very much like a song.

The poet Rumi writes,

"Birdsong brings relief to my longing.

I am just as ecstatic as they are

But with nothing to say!"

That little sentence of a song -for me it is as close as I can get to birdsong. Why this joy? I hardly know, I haven't the words, but still I would like to sing. There is "joy in my soul" just as "there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God." The city of God -someday it will be a real place - but for now the Most High dwells inside of us. We are the city, make glad by his presence, made holy because he is willing to flow through us like a river.

Isaiah 55 says:

"As the rain and snow come down from heaven to water the earth and do not return to it without watering the earth to make it bud and flourish so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."

This is part of that river of joy. Even when we don't see the budding or flourishing or we can't imagine the miracle of what a seed will become, we can believe in God's promise that his purposes and the things he desires will be accomplished. His promises, his words, are like rain and snow that fall on the land and flow down to the sea, only to be taken up again into the clouds to once again fall like blessings. His promises are good, and they are endless, persistent, like rivers carving out deep canyons, slowly changing landscapes. They are rivers of joy, streams that gladden.

Even when what we see doesn't look joyful, we are still called to rejoice. Paul says, "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: rejoice!" (Philippians 4:4). It is a strange command, and, incidentally, no more eloquent than my one sentence song.

Rejoice! Even when you do not have words, sing this little birdsong with me: "Joy like a river in my soul." It's a river; you don't have to understand where it comes from to let it make you glad. Rejoice! if only because the Most High longs to dwell within you.

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." II Corinthians 4:18

2010-04-12T01:24:00.000-07:00

I tried to memorize this passage once:

"Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world -the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does - comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and it's desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever." I John 2:15

And my thoughts at the time were of how easy it is to fall in love with the things of this world. This earth is so full of good and beautiful things, and it is so easy to go about our business doing and seeking and satisfying our endless desires and forgetting that everything is spiritual. Even though it is that part -the spiritual part -of ourselves and this world that will outlast the rest.

I read this passage again recently though, and my thoughts were very different.. more along the lines of, "Thank God that this is not the end, that he has better things planned, that here and now is not all these people have to hope for." I cringe to speak of the poverty and injustice of this place in general terms. We know these things; I would rather point out the good and beautiful. But it seems that maybe now after the thrill of the new and different has faded I can more easily see the ugly things -and it is easy not to love them.

Some examples: There was an election recently, and the family that has been in power for forty years "won" again, thanks to military backing. They say girls can now go to school without having to pay the fees, but when I mentioned it to a local father he said it is what the government tells the Europeans, when the true story is that unless you can pay for a private school your child will be crammed into a classroom of 100 with one teacher who is paid $50, maybe $60 dollars a month... well, hopefully the teacher will be paid. Lately they have been going on strike because they haven't been paid.

It is true that you can live cheaper here - you can buy an arm-load of bananas for $1, and really, it's too hot for clothes (although all the Africans with $2 dollars to their name dress better than me), and you don't need a car because if you're African you can carry 50 pounds on your head (of anything, including chickens -live or dead) and a baby on your back and walk all day through the 98 degree heat.

But it is hard to find any way at all to make money. Our day worker volunteers get $6 a day in "travel expenses," based on our agreement to not officially employ locals. And some work with us because they love what we do, but for most it is also because they can find no other work. Six dollars for travel is a stretch, but gas is expensive and it is not ridiculous to allow that much. The sad part is that it is also not something these people can turn away -and they are the educated English-speaking locals. They tell me $6 a day is not much, but $8 a day, that would be a good job.

I saw a poster recently. It said, "with God all things are possible," and had a picture of a shiny car and a big house. My first thought was, "oh, that's so wrong, so materialistic." But I have always had a house. I thought of one of our workers; he is 31 and has been living with his brother, then his aunt, now his nephew, but his nephew just got married and now he sleeps on the couch 4 feet away from their bedroom. He wants to get married and have children. I saw him rubbing the cheek of a baby and he said, "I wish I could have a baby, but I am getting old and I can't get a wife." Wives only come to those who can afford to at least rent a house. He doesn't want a big house, or a shiny car; his heart's desire is for a small room in the corner of a dusty courtyard to call his own so he can have a wife and a child. I know it doesn't only take money to have a family -but it breaks my heart that America is full of young people who have so much and who are too engrossed in it all to want something as good and simple as a family, while here there are so many young men longing for this good thing -to be a husband and a father, and they are unable because they don't have enough money to rent a room.

Living here beside these people I'm discovering a different meaning when God tells me not to love the things of this world because they are passing away. It is not so much a challenge, but a reason to continue to live in hope, a reason to rejoice despite circumstances. It is true that with God all things are possible... a big house, a shiny car; it's possible. But more miraculously, it is possible to live on little but faith and hope. I am challenged to look again at that awful, materialistic picture and think of how it is an eternal promise of riches and blessing in a realm I have yet to see clearly. May God continue to focus my eyes. And I pray he would pour out his blessings, his eternal blessings of peace, hope, joy and comfort on these people who have so little now.

Ready or not, here comes Jesus

2010-03-30T01:33:00.000-07:00

This weekend I travelled north a few hours to Kpalime and hiked up the tallest “mountain” in Togo, topping out at 3,234 feet. Along the hike there are several villages. We stopped at one to rest and could hear Sunday singing close by. Then my friend says, “Oh, here comes Jesus.” And I look, and there he is, on a little cross, coming up the stairs into view. “Oh, you’re not kidding,” I say as we watch a boy and then a whole procession of singing, palm-leaf-waving children come into view.

There is lots of Jesus here. He keeps surprising me at times when I am –like on our hike –just sitting there. On this boat, sometimes I find myself looking around and thinking, “what a strange boat this is; how crazy that all these people come and live on this boat; where did this ridiculous idea come from?” We have a whole village living on a ship. And if you aren't on the hospital deck or out with a field team you might be confused and wonder if maybe this is a long-distance ferry or a low-budget cruise ship stalled at port. But then you will see something, or hear a story that will strike you as if you were just sitting under a tree on a hillside and suddenly Jesus is there walking up the hill towards you.

The people I talk to here say things similar to how I feel: somewhat unsure about this big, strange ship, but certain that God has told them to come here. Yesterday a baby died on the boat. Some of the nurses knew her from Benin. She was tiny then and they were trying to get her feeding better. This year she came again and she was still too tiny and sickly. It is the second baby this mother has lost. She is four months pregnant now. Pray with us that this third baby will be healthy. We come here to heal and we had to watch a baby die. We had to give up and say, "Jesus, come and be a comforter." We have not been able to bring healing, but Jesus would you reveal yourself here, would you visit this mother and weep with her as we do. They are used to children dying here; it's nothing new. I find myself wondering if maybe it is a greater thing for this mother that a whole ship of people from foreign lands would mourn for her loss than it would be if we could have saved her child.

I remember another mother who brought her son. She had taken him to an orphanage because he had a cleft lip and the villagers told her he was cursed, that she shouldn't keep him. But she took him back and brought him here and by the time he was ready to go home she had decided to keep him. I would like to see Jesus here on this ship doing miraculous healings; he could have brought back the heart-beat of the baby that died. But perhaps it is of more lasting significance that a mother who gave up her son has fallen in love with him again, or that a woman who has lost two babies knows that there is a God who loves her and her lost children despite what the world seems to be saying.

So we live on this ship and we go about our work and trust that because God has called us all here that when we least expect, at any moment, we will find that Jesus has walked by and what we do in faith and blindness has been made holy and eternal.

A few things that aren't lost in translation...

2010-03-23T10:15:00.000-07:00

On the ward everything we say to our patients, every question we have, must go through a translator. The translators are one of my favorite parts of my job, but the fact that they are there to translate is my least favorite part. I am constantly muttering under my breath: "I wish I could talk with these people." It's my new, useless, little mantra. Yes, I could study my French more, but lots of our patients don't speak French, they speak Ewe, or some other local dialect and their French isn't much better than mine. I went with a translator to speak to one of my patient's parents and after rattling on for awhile the translator said, "he doesn't understand my language." And we asked all our other translators and turns out there was nobody who speaks his language. Luckily, the patient, an eight year old, knew a little French.

We loose a lot of things in translation. For example, the boy I was looking after last night: with the help of one translator I learned that he pooped yesterday. I was suspicious after I felt his bloated belly, so I asked with another translator and found out he hadn't pooped for four days. "Defecate, bowel movement, 'caca' in French"... perhaps that would be a more practical thing for me to say over and over again. Enough poop already, I know, but let me just mention that one translator told me, "to poop" in French is "urine." I don't know much French, but I'm pretty sure that's not right.

But enough telling tales on my translators, I wanted to be saying what a joy they are. And although it's often quite frustrating to be a nurse when it takes a few hours to figure out if someone pooped lately or not, I am certainly not in a position to be criticizing people who have not yet mastered their third language. And they are definitely not getting paid the wages of a linguist. They are hard workers when they need to be, but they are best at smiling and laughing. They carry children to the bathroom; they pray with us; they hold patients hands when I have to poke them with needles; they sing songs to them and tell them not to hit their mothers.

It is a little sad to be in Africa but on a ship that feels like Europe. It makes me so happy to go down to the hospital and be surrounded by Africans. They are all so friendly; they will stand and shake your hand and smile and laugh with you, and they will talk with you whether or not any words are understood between you. We have translators and parents and patients all jammed into a few rooms -there are patients on beds and parents under beds and translators wherever they can fit between the nurses. And then sometimes the translators will find drums and the parents will pop out from under the beds and we will have a little dance party. By dance I mean the Africans will do finely controlled graceful things with their bodies while the Yovo's (white people) will flail about and inspire hysterical laughter. But laughter is like medicine -I actually learned that in nursing school- and the Africans take very well to laughter.

Here, words travel slowly and uncertainly between us, but a lot is said without them. I will ask my patient's parents: "any questions?" And surely, on this strange boat they have so many questions, but usually the response I get is, "I want to say thank you to you and to God." And it is good to hear, but I don't need a translator to understand that message -it is something I can see and feel, over and over, every time I go to work.

When it seems storms are in short supply

2010-03-07T04:45:00.000-08:00

I read Zephaniah 3: 17 this morning: "The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." And I remember how several times in the Bible God tells us that he wants us to live lives of love, not of sacrifice: "for I desire mercy, and not sacrifice."

Here in Africa there are moments when I when I find myself living so richly and comfortably, and it makes me frustrated. I want to be doing something perilous and adventurous; I want to be living sacrificially. Isn't serving God in Africa supposed to be more like daring to walk a tretcherous ridgeline, or stepping out of a strorm-tossed boat and believing you can walk on water? Instead I feel like I am standing barefoot in soft, green grass.

But living for God is the same thing when it is stormy and perilous as it is when you are standing quietly in the green grass. He just wants us to be looking up to him. He is always longing to "quiet us with his love," to see our gaze lifted to him and to "rejoice over us with singing." He can do most of the saving without our help. He wants us to live lives of love and mercy regardless of whether it feels like a sacrifice or not.

This morning I went to church on the ship's hospital ward. There was drumming and dancing and rejoicing. And soon, after I write a few emails, I might go sit out on the top deck in the ocean breeze and watch the waves. And then I will have an afternoon coffee, and a delicious dinner, and a walk on the dock in the (relatively speaking) cool of evening. And tommorrow I will go to work to look after children with straightened legs, or full upper lips for the first time in thier lives, and mothers who pat my cheek and say thank you in some other language. And I will go on loving these people who are so very easy to love, and I will try to be ok with the fact that I'm not feeling too sacrificial. I'm sure my time will come.

2010-03-05T09:23:00.000-08:00

This is Raoul. You can't tell from the photo, but he showed up with a crooked foot. I looked after him yesterday in the ward, and today I watched him go home on his crutches, all wide-eyed and grinning. This morning I looked after three patients and they all came back to me from the operating room with casts on both thier legs. The three year old squealed and moaned and cried whenever I came near. Mako, the 8 year old girl, came back silent with red, teary eyes. And Koffi, the two year old, came back with a tootsie roll half eaten in his fingers and cried only when I wouldn't let him get out of bed and play with the toy truck. These children are delightfully different.

The crew of the Africa Mercy is also full of variety. A few of my favorites are the four security guards who are all Nepalise Gurkas. They made dinner for a few of us one night: tasty lentils and fish that they insisted we eat a painfully excessive amount of. I went for a run one morning -my first run in Africa- with one of them and when I told him that if we went any farther he'd have to carry me back to the boat he said, "Ok," and on we went, a bit farther.

There are lots more things to say... but it's dinner time! We eat on schedule here and it is too tasty to miss. Mangos for breakfast. Crispy lettuce for lunch and dinner -from I have no idea where. Starbucks coffee on tap. Ice cream every Thursday after community meeting... good thing I have Gurkas to make sure I run far enough :)

I'm really going now.

2010-02-09T04:31:00.001-08:00

This morning we are headed to Africa, finally. It will take a five hour drive to Houston, then a ten hour flight to Paris, then a seven hour flight to Benin, then a few hours drive and we will be there. I'm going to wear my pajama pants. And carry-on a skirt in case my bags get lost. And maybe take some benadryl so I can sleep. I checked with my friends -they told me they'd drag me off the plane if need be. It will be a long journey... it has been a long journey already but the good part is just about to start. I have been so blessed with the support and encouragement of so many. Thank you.

Next update (next internet for that matter) will be after I make it to the ship in a few weeks time. Pray that we are safe, and healthy and that the people we are going to serve will be blessed by our visit, that we are able to serve them with respect and humility. (and if you read this and want to get my newsletters email me at anna.dickerson@mercyships.org.) 'till next time.

"Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you." -Jesus

2010-01-17T18:27:00.000-08:00

My training here in Texas is called Gateway. We are, like these sheep, standing at the gate, literally pregnant with hope and promise, with eagerness for the path ahead. My classmates each have their own stories, their own path, but for now, here, we are easily and joyfully woven together. Each in our own way we have been asking, seeking, knocking. And here we are, standing together in front of the same door grinning at each other while we wait and prepare because we know there are good, good things behind this door.

Waiting, and grinning... and learning how to fight fires, and how to catch a lamb by the tail (thanks to my new Irish farmer friend). My Danish friend showed me how to lure in ewes for kisses, but I haven't practiced that yet. And we all learned how to save Bob, the fallen firefighter from the burning ship container. We also practiced piling into a life raft with survival suits on, and blinding each other with signal mirrors.

Tomorrow morning we transition from basic safety training to something more like discipleship training. And then three weeks from now we are off to Benin for two weeks of service (a street kids ministry and a prison) before we drive across the border to meet the ship in Togo. I know I will be challenged and grow during the next three weeks, and I am glad I am here, taking this time to focus and grow. Hopefully I will be better prepared to step through this door I have found in front of me. But for now, there are beautiful things here, waiting on God and finding him in myself and in the smiles and laughter of my new friends.

Peace and Blessings to you all. Thank you so much to all of those who are supporting me with gifts, prayers and encouragement; you are exactly what I asked for.

Take this torch to light your way...

2009-12-21T11:45:00.000-08:00

Jesus said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.'" John 8:12.

I've always known that Christmas is about Jesus being born, and usually I see him all clean and cute bundled up in blankets -and I am peering at him from a distance. But this Christmas I keep having this image of a baby dropped into my arms -a baby Jesus appearing in my arms as though I blinked while a stork flew overhead. It's a baby, and having been a peds nurse for sometime, I know how babies are: some cuter than others, but all of them very needy. The get hungry and wail and chew their blankets and if you pick them up they start wobbling their oversized heads about on their weak little necks in a helpless panic to find something to fill their bellies.

This is how Jesus came. And he probably wasn't even one of the super-cute babies. Strangely enough, he loves us and longs to be like this to us -to be as loved and needed as a newborn and its mother are to each other. I am learning this, slowly. And it seems that he wants me to take him, this Jesus, this baby dropped into my arms, and carry him out into the world and show him to people so that they can fall in love with him too. "This is your God," I would say, "this child is your hope and your promise that all is forgiven, that the creator longs to dwell with you."

I have grown up a Christian, but I have been jaded with the religiosity of Christianity. I want a lover, a savior, a friend -not a religion. Jesus is as humble and gentle as a baby, as joyful as a child, and he is the only one who will never disappoint me. If I could hand this baby Jesus to you I would. It makes no sense, but I know there are enough baby Jesus's for all of us. Take him, I can get more. I just have to open my arms and another one will fall from the sky.

Sitting here, waiting to start down my long, dusty road

2009-11-20T16:51:00.000-08:00

My dad, who is a recent fan of "Mavis-Bacon: learn to type," has my blog on his favorites list. So I must write something even though I am still here in Alaska, counting down the days until I fly away. But during the brief daylight hours, when I am outside in my five layers, it's hard not to pause and be amazed at the beauty of where I live. This photo is a drive across town from my house. And that mountain -it is called "sleeping lady," because in Alaska it is a small rounded hill, a mountain that yawned and laid down to rest.

Recently an acquaintance asked me if I had already been to Africa and come back. Well, yes, over and over in my head... but no, not literally. "Two YEARS," I say, "not two weeks." And already, before I have gone, that sounds like not long enough, although the only other thing I have done for that long is to keep going back to school.

The lovely lady who co-leads my home group prayed for me and said, "I see you on a long road." I can see me on a long road too. It is narrow, and dusty, and I don't know where it goes. But around every corner there are new faces to meet, skipping children who will appear beside me and peer at my queer pale skin. And in the heat of the day there is the promise of a cool evening, or a clear stream over the next rise. And in the dark of night, a glow on the horizon that will bring a glorious dawn. This is our promise. In Isaiah God describes the "perfect fast," how he desires mercy from us, not sacrifice:

"...and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." (Isaiah 58:10-11)

I saw Mercy Ships new mission statement today (I think -someone said it anyway) -"to provide a compassionate response to a world that has lost hope." That's what it means to satisfy the needs of the oppressed -to bring hope to those who have none. To share Mercy. And believe me -it is not a sacrifice for me to start down this long road. Don't tell those who are giving me their money in honor of my self-sacrifice, but between you and me -I have been sitting beside this dirt road for so long peering impatiently, with dusty eyelashes, into the horizon that the most sacrificial thing I could do would be to keep sitting here.

I write a newsletter (finally) and, with the help of Walt Whitman, ponder how wonderful it is.

2009-10-17T19:56:00.000-07:00

Whoo-hoo. I finished my first newsletter. It was hard to cram it all into two pages, into the people-will-actually-read-this length. Will people read this blog I wonder? Probably not lately since nothing has changed here for two months, since I have been working so hard to not write too much in my newsletter. But now I am licking stamps (figuratively speaking) and stuffing envelopes, and saying little prayers that people will be as thrilled as I am with Mercy Ships and send money my way.

The whole money thing has been digging its dirty little talons into my skin for awhile now -but I think it (and yes I) have finally realized it has no power. Whenever I take my need to God, before I can say a word, I hear Him say, "I will provide." "I have a thousand cattle on a thousand hills," he says. Even in Texas that is a lot of beef, more than enough beef to send me and all my friends to Africa. And I know God has told me to go, so he will provide. He knows how many hairs are on my head (even my head, a shaggy head that sheds handfuls every time I wash it), so he knows how to get me to where he told me to go. So, despite my request for magic carpets, he will probably buy me a plane ticket to Togo.

And what else has been happening? I bought some pants today -they have SPF 50 protection! They were on sale here in Alaska where I now wear my thermal skirt to work, through the morning frost.

This is fun, this sending out a newsletter. I am, like my favorite Walt Whitman poem (A Noiseless Patient Spider), sending out threads through the distances to old and new relationships. This is good for me, the too-easily-solitary, independent (spidery?) type. And I'm beginning to realize, as I share with people, that this sharing even by itself brings hope, is a testimony. The News is full of terrors and catastrophes; let me bring you some joyful tales. I get to be a part of happy stories. Lucky me.

Blessings on you who read what I get to tell of. May these words I fling out catch you and anchor us both in the vibrant, hopeful thrum of their unfolding. These gossamer threads -they are the tender cords that will draw us up to heaven.

There it is: Destination Togo

2009-09-21T11:15:00.000-07:00

Yes, I think I will take this toothbrush, and maybe this skirt I have tied around my head... and this cozy down coat? I hate to leave my cozy down coat.

I'm back home now, missing some of my new friends I met in Texas, and the fact that I was surrounded by people with the same passions and challenges that I have. Not to worry, I do realize I shouldn't take my down coat. But I have to step out in faith and trust that if God wants me to go he'll provide the support I need. My prideful, independent nature dreads the prospects. But if I can get over that hurdle, I find I am thrilled at the opportunity to develop relationships with people who, like me, long to be a part of bringing life-transforming healing and hope to people in west Africa. One of my favorite things about Mercy Ships is that they offer all their services with absolutely no obligations -no consideration for race, gender or beliefs. In Texas when they explained their mission and vision they shared a quote from St. Francis of Assisi: "Preach the gospel, and if necessary use words."

2009-09-18T14:26:00.000-07:00

Here I am in Texas finishing up a week of learning about Mercy Ships. And just now, this very moment, I am learning about making a blog so all y'all (also learnt that recently) can follow me on my journey. And yes, I will be going to Africa -in February, to join the Africa Mercy. For anyone who hasn't heard of Mercy Ships, check out their website at www.mercyships.com. Before I came I felt certain that God was calling me to go. Now I am... well, I guess, even more giddy about the fact that God is calling me. 'Till next time.