Snapshots of the Heart...

They are here! Pictures from the Mercy Ships photographers! Join me in the journey through the pieces of my heart the past 3 weeks.
Here she is... the Africa Mercy. As shot of her sailing into the port of Freetown, Sierra Leone the day before I arrived, Feb. 27th. The fishing boat in the picture (L) is a daily sight from onboard the ship as fishermen and tradesmen carry their wares to the seaside markets. If you are ever out on deck, they will often wave to you.

My little friend to the right is one of our first orthopedic patients on the ward. After the madness of our first admission day, “Abu” (not his actual name), one of our 38 patients new admissions, settled into bed, freshly showered and in his patient gown. I LOVE this captured moment.






Another precious photo (above), is of one of the patients I have head-over-heels, fallen in love with. “Christophe” (not his actual name) is one of our club foot patients who is receiving the Ponseti casting treatment for his bilateral club feet. The Ponseti method is a non-surgical approach to treat club feet through a series of castings- gradually stretching the feet and tendons back into their normal position. Some of you may remember this from my Togo visit in 2010. Well, “Christophe”, (who, by the way just fell asleep in my arms 25 minutes ago while I was holding him in the ward) was a part of the 30 plus group of patients on the first admission day. They took a picture of his little frightened face as he stood in the doorway to the ward. Remember, this was most likely, most of the patients’ first time to see the ocean, be on a ship, and experience air conditioning. After about a week on the ward, this quiet, frightened child blossomed into the little boy you now see in the photo above. His priceless smile now comes every day along with a little giggle as I pick him up for my daily Christophe hug.

The following pictures are from the first admission day. Due to the fact that we were admitting 38 patients in one day, the admissions department called in the reinforcements (a.k.a. myself and another ward nurse) to help with the process! It was the first day of the hospital being open and we were getting our first patients, thus, PR (public relations) was ALL over the event snapping pictures left and right! The end result (fortunately for me) was many Mercy Ships photos with me in them! Here are a few of my favorites. (Below, right), I had one of our patients listening to my heart sounds. It’s one of my favorite things to do with patients on the ward; let them “play nurse”. This activity was met with a big grin, both from the patient and her mom when I placed the stethoscope in their ears.


(Below) Taking patients from the ward and to admissions!









(Below) All of our patients arriving from the north! All of my bow-legged and club-footed children!







Going through the admission process (below pictures). Weighing my patients and putting in vital signs. I personally love the left below picture. It was taken while I was doing all the information gathering in the admissions process. Yaaayy paperwork!


*SCREENING NOTE*
As a quick report of screening- it went VERY well today! We had a night security group who pre-screened patients in line the night before to be sure those waiting in line were waiting for health problems that Mercy Ships could treat. By the time we arrived (the pre-pre-screeners, that is), we only had the newly forming line that morning to pre-pre screen. While it was extremely difficult (I’ll share more stories later), overall, it was SAFE, calm, and fast. We were finished pre-pre-screening by 1100 and most of the team returned by 2pm. Thank you for your prayers!!! And my understanding that we scheduled around 200 people for surgery! More detailed information to come as well, so stay tuned! I praise God for his answers to prayer in so many ways- even down to the detail of putting up cloud cover over the U.N. compound to block the sun and keep things cool. We serve a pretty amazing God, Amen? May we all know even more of him today.