It is inevitable... every year we have always have huge challenges for our screening day. Some years it is multiple challenges. This year, in Togo, one of our greatest arch enemies appears to be the big, bad GI bug.
For all you non-medical people, GI stand for gastro-intestinal... so yes... you guessed it... tummy bugs! The vomiting or diarrhea (or both) have been running fairly rampant throughout the ship all week long. In fact, I am just now getting up and out of bed myself after having spent most of the past 30+ hours in bed not too far away from a toilet. Ohhh, GI Bugs... how I hate you.
So please, pray for our screening day tomorrow, February 1st. I'm one of the first crew members of the medical screening teams to arrive at a bright and early 5am!!! We have a night crew that is already at the football (soccer) stadium and will have many more arriving during the we hours of the morning to begin our screening at 5:30am. It will be a very LONG day tomorrow filled with so much wonderful opportunity. We would all covet your prayers for this day! Especially for:
-Health: that those who are ill, that they would be miraculously better. For those who are starting to feel ill, that God would touch their bodies and prevent any more illness from occurring
-Safety: safety for the Togolese people as they are waiting in line and safety for all of us crew involved, that there would be peace and order without anger or rioting.
-Divine appointments: That just the people we can help would come, and the others would simply not even show up.
-Grace, love, and compassion: That no matter whether our answer is "yes" or "no", that each and every Togolese person would leave our screening knowing that we love them and that, most of all, they are loved and treasured by God.
Thank you! Pictures to come!
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
The Adventures of Melisa, Anna, Beau, and Greg!
Bon swa! Como Sava?
Greetings from Lome’, Togo! I’m again in West Africa and SO happy for some heat and humidity after the -10 F Minnesota winter I left last week!
Thank you all SO very much for your prayers for my travels! I had a wonderful time traveling with Melisa from Chicago to Brussels, then up for a quick Netherlands visit before arriving. We had nearly-flawless travels (with one 3-hr flight delay in Chicago) by plane, train, and car, managing to keep all of our luggage with us and be on time for our trains and flights. We had SUCH a lovely time with our Dutchie, old Mercy Ships friends: Corina, Timo, Berdien, Geke, and Johan. We traveled from Brussels --> Rotterdam --> Lisse --> Urk --> Dordrecht --> Brussels.
Along the journey Melisa and I decided to name our luggage. Her extremely large, rolling black duffle was affectionately named “Beau” (short for Buford or behemoth… whichever you prefer), and my large camping pack we called “Greg” (less imaginative; short for Gregory, the brand name). Soo… our trip was dubbed “ The Adventures of Beau, Greg, Anna, and Melisa”. Maybe sounds like we picked up some men on our journey, but no fear. They only refer to our outlandishly giant bags of luggage.
After hauling our 80+ extra pounds of luggage through train station after train station, we managed a number of amazing stops; one of which was in the “hiding place” of Corrie Ten Boom, a famous Dutch women whose family hid Jews in their home in Haarlem during the second World War. The Ten Booms had a secret room made of brick through which 6 people hid for 2 ½ days until they were able to be freed from the Gestapo. (Fitch and I in the hiding place; below).
We had a wonderful time visiting Mercy Ships friends and old roommates on our way to the ship. Thankfully, our awake-until-3am-jetlag happened in the Netherlands where we could better manage the side effects with some delicious Dutch coffee! We had SO many gracious hosts and hostesses! Melisa and I could not believe the warmth of Dutch hospitality. We both agreed that we have a lot to bring back home from the many examples of hospitality we received. Thank you SO much, all you Dutchies!
After hopping on our final train to Brussels , Melisa and I started to get excited… we were getting closer and closer to AFRICA!!! By the time we arrived to our gate in the Brussels airport, we realized we were late arrivals to the enormous group of nearly 40 crew sitting, waiting to board our flight. After we all flew into the Lome’ airport, we were all met by a huge welcome party of Mercy Ships landrovers! As we walked up that gangway, like we had so many times before, Melisa and I were met by huge hugs and “Welcome home!” greetings! Oh! It was SO good to see so many faces once again! I felt the span of the last 5 months since I had left the ship melt away and back into the dear friendships I had forged in Sierra Leone. But then the reality of a ship full of new faces started to settle in. The ship and everything about it was essentially the same, but so many of the people associated with the memories were gone. New faces with new opportunity for memories were approaching! So many lovely new nurses and crew had come to experience the ministry of mercy ships for the first time, and I was SO excited for them!
I did find out I will be Charge Nursing again in the General ward, and am so excited to be able to settle back into that routine from last year. We will be starting out the year, however, with just Max-fax (maxilo-facial) surgeries the first 2-3 weeks, so a little variety will be nice! I was actually secretly hoping to be in Max-fax this year, so in a way, I get my wish!
Ways you can be praying:
1) Continued transition and bonding for all the new crew; especially us nurses as we will be grouping together and meeting our day volunteers who we will be working with all outreach.
2) Our Screening Day is scheduled for February 1st- planned for an intense morning screening to hopefully schedule the remaining patients we need for our various surgeries. I found out that I’ll be the Team Leader of Escorts (I’ll talk more about it later), so if you could pray for that, that would be great! I’m not quite sure what I will need to do or manage yet!
3) Personally, for continued direction and leading from the Holy Spirit to know and see people and opportunities where God wants me to reach out and bless others. Also, a heart that is active and not reactive to the things around me.
Thank you so much! Love to you all!
Greetings from Lome’, Togo! I’m again in West Africa and SO happy for some heat and humidity after the -10 F Minnesota winter I left last week!
Thank you all SO very much for your prayers for my travels! I had a wonderful time traveling with Melisa from Chicago to Brussels, then up for a quick Netherlands visit before arriving. We had nearly-flawless travels (with one 3-hr flight delay in Chicago) by plane, train, and car, managing to keep all of our luggage with us and be on time for our trains and flights. We had SUCH a lovely time with our Dutchie, old Mercy Ships friends: Corina, Timo, Berdien, Geke, and Johan. We traveled from Brussels --> Rotterdam --> Lisse --> Urk --> Dordrecht --> Brussels.
Along the journey Melisa and I decided to name our luggage. Her extremely large, rolling black duffle was affectionately named “Beau” (short for Buford or behemoth… whichever you prefer), and my large camping pack we called “Greg” (less imaginative; short for Gregory, the brand name). Soo… our trip was dubbed “ The Adventures of Beau, Greg, Anna, and Melisa”. Maybe sounds like we picked up some men on our journey, but no fear. They only refer to our outlandishly giant bags of luggage.
After hauling our 80+ extra pounds of luggage through train station after train station, we managed a number of amazing stops; one of which was in the “hiding place” of Corrie Ten Boom, a famous Dutch women whose family hid Jews in their home in Haarlem during the second World War. The Ten Booms had a secret room made of brick through which 6 people hid for 2 ½ days until they were able to be freed from the Gestapo. (Fitch and I in the hiding place; below).
We had a wonderful time visiting Mercy Ships friends and old roommates on our way to the ship. Thankfully, our awake-until-3am-jetlag happened in the Netherlands where we could better manage the side effects with some delicious Dutch coffee! We had SO many gracious hosts and hostesses! Melisa and I could not believe the warmth of Dutch hospitality. We both agreed that we have a lot to bring back home from the many examples of hospitality we received. Thank you SO much, all you Dutchies!
After hopping on our final train to Brussels , Melisa and I started to get excited… we were getting closer and closer to AFRICA!!! By the time we arrived to our gate in the Brussels airport, we realized we were late arrivals to the enormous group of nearly 40 crew sitting, waiting to board our flight. After we all flew into the Lome’ airport, we were all met by a huge welcome party of Mercy Ships landrovers! As we walked up that gangway, like we had so many times before, Melisa and I were met by huge hugs and “Welcome home!” greetings! Oh! It was SO good to see so many faces once again! I felt the span of the last 5 months since I had left the ship melt away and back into the dear friendships I had forged in Sierra Leone. But then the reality of a ship full of new faces started to settle in. The ship and everything about it was essentially the same, but so many of the people associated with the memories were gone. New faces with new opportunity for memories were approaching! So many lovely new nurses and crew had come to experience the ministry of mercy ships for the first time, and I was SO excited for them!
I did find out I will be Charge Nursing again in the General ward, and am so excited to be able to settle back into that routine from last year. We will be starting out the year, however, with just Max-fax (maxilo-facial) surgeries the first 2-3 weeks, so a little variety will be nice! I was actually secretly hoping to be in Max-fax this year, so in a way, I get my wish!
Ways you can be praying:
1) Continued transition and bonding for all the new crew; especially us nurses as we will be grouping together and meeting our day volunteers who we will be working with all outreach.
2) Our Screening Day is scheduled for February 1st- planned for an intense morning screening to hopefully schedule the remaining patients we need for our various surgeries. I found out that I’ll be the Team Leader of Escorts (I’ll talk more about it later), so if you could pray for that, that would be great! I’m not quite sure what I will need to do or manage yet!
3) Personally, for continued direction and leading from the Holy Spirit to know and see people and opportunities where God wants me to reach out and bless others. Also, a heart that is active and not reactive to the things around me.
Thank you so much! Love to you all!
Friday, January 13, 2012
Let the Countdown Begin!
So... I'm not usually a big countdown, time-tracking person. My childhood best-friend Ali (R), however, definitely is! It seems she is always counting down something on her facebook page. Days till Christmas... days till the next weekend... hours until she gets to leave on a trip... you get the idea. For me, I think I've just never been detailed enough to bother counting down minutes, hours, or days. However, in memory of Ali (and all you other count-downer's out there)... here goes!
-15 hours until I get to see my dad, brother, brother-in-law, and niece for one last weekend family bash!
-4 days until I fly from "home" (Minneapolis) to Chicago where I'll get to visit family and friends at a one-day layover. :)
-5 days until I meet up with Melisa and we board out red-eye international flight from Chicago-Brussels, Belgium!
-6 days until Melisa and I get to hop aboard the European train system for a 4-day visit to reunite with Dutch Mercy Ships friends Corina, Timo, Berdien, Geke, and Johan (while getting over jet-lag, I might add)!
-10 days until we board our final international flight from Brussels and arrive in Lome', Togo!
My excitement (and the growing reality of my trip) is increasing as I pack and prepare. To be honest, it really hasn't hit me that I'm going back the the place that I love with so many people I love to do something that I love. It almost seems to good to be true. I am truly in awe of God's work in this whole situation; bringing me here; providing me with so many faithful prayer warrior and financial donors... I am just brought to tears without words to describe my heart. All I can say is thank YOU.
Yes, YOU.
For if you are reading this blog, you no doubt have played a significant role in my life. Whether you are a complete stranger stumbling upon these stories of one pilgrim's journey, or a life-long friend of family member, I truly believe that God's timing of our life-collisions is perfect. You haven't stumbled across my blog for no reason, neither have you been an active (or inactive) part of my life without cause. God knows exactly what we need, when we need it. I just pray we would all have eyes to see each of those collisions and recognize them as moments prepared and set aside by Him.
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