There She Was...

There she was. Sitting among the group of children adorned with a dark blue, red, and gold patterned dress; hair completely covered beneath her matching headwrap.
“Can you tell which one is your child?” Dora, my World Vision guide and translator, asked me. And as I stared into all of the faces of the children, fearful I somehow would not be able to recognize that face I had so often studied in the picture above my bed, I saw those eyes and that smile and knew it was her.


I don’t know how many of you are familiar with child sponsorship programs, but organizations such as World Vision and Compassion International (both Christian organizations) have monthly giving programs that go to support children living in impoverished areas of the World. Through your $30-40 per month, you provide a child with food, clothing, the ability to attend school, and the opportunity to hear the gospel.

Ever since high school, the idea of providing a child halfway across the world with the tools and foundations to support and enrich their lives in their communities touched my heart. I remember the first child I ever sponsored was with the help of 2 of my high school friends who, through the three of us, gave money each month to support her for over a year before having another person take over her sponsorship. The Lord had put this on my heart even more deeply after finishing university, but it wasn’t until this last July that I finally stepped out and obeyed that call on my heart. The picture above with my little Mattu is evidence of the amazing ramifications of obeying those quiet calls to our heart.

But it wasn’t the noisy, energy filled tribal Mende community welcome dance that impressed me and my dear Mercy Ships friend, Laura Coles, nor was it even the delightful childrens choir that sang to us from the village school. Instead, it was the sheer awe of what such a small amount of money can do for such a large community.


As I said before, our entire trip to visit the World Vision Bagbo site, took Laura and I to a village just outside of Bo, Sierra Leone (about a 3 ½ hour drive southeast of Freetown). After a night in a local hotel (complete with air conditioning, bucket showers, and exploding light bulbs), we were picked up by World Vision staff Dora, Sheku, and Joseph, who would be our drivers and escorts for the day. We made it to the village Kpangbalia over dusty, washed out village roads in about 2 ½ hours, where we were to meet Mattu and her family. As we drove along this road, sign after sign after sign passed by with “World Vision… Well…” or “World Vision Health Center”, or schools and latrines built by World Vision. Village after village had such signs. World Vision quite obviously had a footprint in the community, as was also evident by the friendly waves and yells of “Hello!” and “Opotu!” (“white person” in krio) as we drove by in the white World Vision landrover.


By the end of the afternoon, Laura and I had experienced the fully spectrum of the community tour of the maternal and child health clinic (photo on preivous page), newly constructed school with latrines, 3 wells, and community fish pond (for growing and building an economy within the village). As person after person and group after group stated, sang, or danced their appreciation of us “sponsors”, I felt increasingly overwhelmed. Who was I to claim ANY of this credit with my mere $35 a month sponsorship? I knew I was impacting the life of a child, but I had no idea the ramification of my small contribution. So many sponsors only dream of meeting their sponsor children. I had that dream plus the overwhelming joy of seeing how the small gifts of so many make SUCH a difference. My heart was not prepared to handle the impact this trip would make. So amazing. So amazing.


And, as an “icing on the cake”, so to speak, Laura and I also had the opportunity to find some of our little 8-plate orthopedic children and check up on them! SOOO amazing! We found all 5 of them who lived in Bo. Here we are with two of them and their little bandaged knees! (I am trying to tell Fatmata to smile with her teeth if you are wondering). SUCH a blessing! Oh my gosh! I was SO excited! I am hoping to be able to see them all when I return to Bo in July.



As far as ship life- the hospital continues to run a bit more smoothly each day, and I must say that I am becoming more and more comfortable in my charge nurse position. I still LOVE my patients and find time to play “Waka Waka” music for them to dance to. My dear friend and bunkmate, Laura, will be leaving all to soon, however, as she prepares to fly home the middle of May. My life we be a bit lonelier without her around, but I’ve been so thankful for our time and adventures together.


To close, I want to thank you all SO much for your support and prayers. Just like my experience in Bo, feeling overwhelmed by impact my investment made, I hope you all experience a little of that with each story you read and way you see patient’s lives changed each day. I am SO blessed by you! I don’t even have words. Two letters I received today from home just made my day. I truly could not do it without you- no matter how big or small your contribution. I covet your prayers not only for myself and the patients, but over the entrie ship and country of Sierra Leone. What an amazing opportunity to be used for something so much bigger than us.

Joy Comes with the Morning

I promised to write about my screening day experience. (Smile) It is funny to me that it seems like I blog a bit delayed from the actual date of the experiences. You’ll have to forgive the mark this processing time leaves in my communication. The following excerpts have been especially difficult to express. While so much of what Mercy Ships does is life-changing and life-bringing, there is always another side to that coin. Those we are not able to help and have to leave behind.

Screening Day

What a day of intense emotion. In fact, I cannot think of a similarly, polar-opposite experience of joy and deepest sorrow as I was a part of that day. Joy when, as I moved through the waiting line (queue) of people, I easily identified patients I knew we could help, sending them up through to the gate and into the old U.N. facility to be screened. My heart would leap for joy with every club foot, cleft lip, facial tumor, and bowed leg. “Yes!” I wanted to scream to them, thinking that it could somehow drown out the hundreds of feeble, heart-torn “no’s” that seemed to, in droves, preceded and succeeded every “yes”.


One woman, slender and middle-aged, with a red dress and matching red head wrap stood solemnly in line as I attempted to ask “What is the problem?” She stared blankly back at me as I turned behind me with a needful expression towards Jonathan, my translator, for help. Instead, a woman standing in line behind her prodded her with words I could not understand, and after a minute of interaction stated “She is from the provinces.” And, pointing to the moderate sized goiter present on the neck of the woman in the red dress, relayed, “She has had this (pointing to goiter) for over 15 years”.

Knowing full well that Mercy Ships had very limited (if any) general surgery slots for thyroidectomies (thyroid gland/goiter removals), we were only passing very large goiters through to the screeners. With as much gentleness as I could muster, I explained the situation to the woman behind, showing pictures of the large size of goiters we were looking for on an educational poster. This message was passed on rapidly to the woman in the red dress who, upon hearing the news, looked at me with eyes full of pain and disbelief. No longer was she solemn as she wept loudly before my eyes. She began crying out and speaking rapidly in her tribal language as she wept. As I watched this woman’s grief, I came to find out that she traveled all the way from the provinces (the cost which would have been a huge sum of money) 3 months ago when she heard the ship was coming. She had been living in Freetown these entire 3 months, waiting for us to arrive. She cried out “I have been stricken for 15 years, and now I must return to my village still with this? And not only that, but I have lost over 3 months of wages waiting!” I fought with every nerve in my body to hold my emotions together as I watched this woman weep. I placed my arm around her, and all I could say was “I am so sorry. I know- you have given so much to come. I am so sorry.”

Nothing prepares you for that. No amount of training or education. No number of hours of experience. All I can hold onto are the words which Dr. Gary Parker spoke the day of our first screening; “God has hope and a plan for every person who comes to screening. That plan, however may or may not be with Mercy Ships, but he does have a purpose for each one.” Perhaps it was just being treated as a human being, worthy of love. Having someone touch them, or look them in the face and treat them as a person. Whatever it might have been, I can only pray that God continues to hold those whose hope in Mercy Ships has been shattered.

While this screening day experience was heartbreaking in one hundred ways, in the hundreds of “no’s” I told expectant faces that day, another situation hit home even harder.


I’m sure you all remember my little friend “Christophe” (not his real name-pictured to the R) I mentioned in a previous post. He was one of our little long-term patients in the Ponseti casting program for his bilateral club feet. He and his father were familiar faces within B Ward and became endeared to my heart quite early on. His little 4-year old body was tiny enough to be the perfect size to pick up and carry around (despite with his thigh-high casts). This became a daily routine as I often worked charge nurse on B Ward, and soon I would hear “Anna!” and watch Christophe tummy-scoot/army crawl across the floor towards me, his casts dragging. Then, as soon as he would reach my desk, would look up expectantly and say “Anna, moosik”, or “Anna, balloon”. And I would pick him up, look over my shoulder and shoot a quick smile to his father, and give him a big bear hug before scrolling through my IPOD songs to find some music to plug into the ward speakers. You would have thought he was a bit of an 80’s rapper the way he would grab one of the little travel speakers and, holding directly up to his ear, would begin moving and dancing in my lap to the beat of the song. Needless to say, it wasn’t long before I started referring to him as “my boy” and made sure to at least visit daily if I wasn’t on B Ward that day working.

Well, last Tuesday I was scheduled for an evening shift, but was up early getting some needed things done prior to my shift. I happened to just stop by the ward that morning, and as I was just nearing D Ward, one of the nurses on duty caught me in the hall and said, “did you know Christophe is leaving?”


“WHAT?!” I responded in disbelief. “What do you mean?” The nurse went on to explain that little Christophe’s feet bones had fused together, making the Ponseti casting inadequate to treat his club feet.

“He needs surgery to have them break and re-set his bones, but if he has that surgery now, it will affect his growth, so they need to wait until he is at least 10 years old, so they’re sending him home.” As I fought back tears of disappointment, I saw Christophe and his father being escorted back to B Ward from our Physio room- his thin, bare brown legs now open to the outer air. They both had the most somber faces I had ever seen on either of them- I knew they understood what was happening. I followed them into the ward, picked up my bare legged boy after tickling him under the chin to get a little half smile, and, with a translator, told them both how sorry I was. His dad gave a slight smile, and then sat on his bed looking dejected. As I left the ward, I couldn’t hold it together any more… I walked faster and faster down the hall to my room knowing the waterfall of tears would begin at any moment. I just wept over that sweet little boy and his father. “God, WHY? I don’t understand!”

I still don’t understand, but, that evening, as I said my goodbyes to him and his father, we prayed over them-dedicating them into God’s hands. After we finished, Christophe turned to me and said (through a translator), “When I come back next time, I will see you!” That was it. I smiled and choked out “I pray that I will be”. The faith of even this small child. How much I need to learn from him.

”At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said, ‘I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.’ ”

~Matthew 18:1-5~

A Scattering of Random Thoughts...

Writer’s block. Isn’t that what they call it when you’re welling up inside with words, stories, and experiences, but unable to get them out and onto paper. I have had such a week full of joy, singing, heartache, pain, healing, teaching, blessing, and laughter that I don’t know where or how to begin. Perhaps the best way to relay some of my pent-up inner thoughts is to spew them out as randomly as they are continuing to flash through my mind.

I thought I would begin with a humorous collection of the quirks of Mercy Ships life that I've labeled, "You know you're a Mercy-Shipper if..."

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy experiencing it:

“You Know You’re a Mercy Shipper if…”


1) Your idea of a luxurious shower morphs into one where you can keep the water running for 5 whole minutes.
2) Flexibility is the theme word of every department at every given moment.
3) “Plan” or “timeframe” are relative words.
4) You startle from your dreams, thinking you’ve heard “This is a drill, this is a drill, this is a drill” being announced overhead.
5) You find that mechanical noises and engine hums lull you to sleep.
6) Breakfast is just not breakfast without your daily Nutella on a freshly baked croissant (Thank you Albert, our German baker!).
7) You are considered an “expert” if you claim you have done something “once or “twice” or make any reference to something being familiar.
8) If (as an American) you begin “queuing” in line to take your patients up the “lift” or take the “rubbish” out.
9) Figuring out a task is “easy” due to the simple fact that the instructions are in English.
10) You find yourself startled by silence.

And for all my nursing friends:

“You Might be a Mercy Ships Nurse if..”



1) Having pre-filled saline flushes makes you want to dance for joy (Otherwise- you draw up every single one from a bottle/bag of NS with your 10 ml syringe and 18g needle!).
2) “Infection Control” means keeping patients from sharing drinking glasses and bedpans. We’re shooting for the big goals, really! 
3) You find yourself learning 5 different words for the same supply or skill you thought you already knew the name for.
4) Music and dancing become a daily shift activity.
5) Giving report/handover often takes nurse to nurse cultural translation. (ex. “Obs” vs. “vital signs”, “bluies” vs. “chux”, “IV catheters” vs. “IV’s” etc).
6) Trips outside to play with your patients on tricycles or with games of Connect 4 are part of a regular “treatment” plan.
7) You begin forgetting the trade names of all the drugs you know, and begin calling all acetaminophen (Tylenol), “paracetamol”.
8) You are considered “experienced”, ready to help the “newbies” if you have been on the ward 2 weeks or more.
9) Your brain grimaces every time you try to make sense of your patient’s temperature in Celcius.
10) You find yourself planning twice the amount of time it takes to complete a task to leave room for the 2 or 3 part translation process.
11) You begin making hand gestures with every word you speak to your patients.
12) You know you are the walking blood bank for your patients and live on ship, ready to donate at any time.

Random Quotes/Revelations:

-White people’s hair is not as strong as African hair… I found out first-hand as some children attempted to braid/cornroll my hair at the Hope Center and I felt it breaking. I now have a number of 2 inch long pieces of hair at the top of my head… a lesson learned.
-My African friend, James So, (from Benin) commented one day: “Anna! I’ve been looking for you like an American Visa!”
-It never stops making me laugh when I hear patients say, “I need to piss" (the Krio word for urinating). Or, when you are asking a translator to teach the patient to swish and swallow their chlorihexidine mouthwash for mouth care after surgery, the say "take medicine and swishy swishy". Too funny.
-When a sweet little “Christophe” smile and giggle never gets old. And the request of “Anna- moosik!” (meaning he wants me to play my ipod).
-The amazing prayers I have heard the local Sierra Leonians pray… “Father- we appreciate you (when have I ever heard anyone pray like that). With you, nothing is impossible. Tenky, tenky (thank you, thank you in Krio). We give you all de glory.”
- “When I die, I want to be known as ‘de one who loved de pekins too much’”. (Pekins (peekins) is Krio for children). One of the mama’s of one of our patients was telling another woman that on Mercy Ships we “loved the pekins too much”. I think I can live with that.



Finally, on a more serious note, some reflections I've had recently...

Giving Thanks on the Ward.

“Patient surveys” have been a new addition to our admission and discharge forms for each patient admitted to the ward, and with them have come feedback from patients. While at home in America I was very used to seeing these types of feedback forms from the patients we cared for, I hadn’t ever seen the West-African version. As I read through the feedback messages from the patients, one after the other repeated essentially the same thing. “God/Jesus has done a wonderful thing for me through Mercy Ships.” Or “God has healed me. Thank you Mercy Ships.” As I read over them, I found myself feeling disappointed that no specific nurses or names of other healthcare providers were mentioned. Then, as if hit by a brick wall, I realized the source of my disappointment. It was the fact that we (as nurses) were not praised or thanked as I was very used to in my Western-culture, customer-satisfaction centered, American hospital. Instead, people were praising and thanking God alone for what He had done for them. It wasn’t about us. It was about the person who was in and behind us. I was so humbled by that I had to simply stop and thank God for my brothers and sisters in Sierra Leone who “got it right”. Thanking the Creator, rather than the created. Such a privilege to be used by Him.