"Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." 1 Cor 15-58

Monday, March 7, 2011

Freetown, Sierra Leone – 7 March 2011

It’s 4 am, I don’t know what to expect today. It’s the first time since I’ve been with Mercy Ships and 4 countries later that I am part of a ‘mass screening.’ The country has been advertising our arrival for months, our medical staff have been preparing for these next two days for weeks – we have security teams, registration staff, prayer groups, doctors, nurses, translators, drivers, pre-screening areas, escorts, lab techs, water and bread servers; there are a few hundred of us and we are all prepared to put in long hard days, we’re all convinced we’re doing God work, He goes before us and is with us, so we’re ready for what ever comes our way, or are we? Better yet…am I?

I get up, I’m going to start my day off right so I pull out my now favourite devotional, Face to Face. I let the book fall open on it’s own to where I should read and what I should meditate on today and it goes right to the first day and I think, “interesting!” I pray over the renewal part quite a few times, “`O Lord my God, may I fear You, walk in all Your ways, love You, and serve You with all my heart and with all my soul,’” (Deuteronomy 10:13) and then I go on to pray that the Holy Spirit be my voice today, that He is ever-present in every Mercy Shipper in Freetown’s National Stadium today as we go about choosing the patients who will qualify for surgery over the next 10 months. I praise Him and confirm with Him that my sole purpose for today is to bring Glory to HIm and I give Him this day to do with as He wills. I also pray for strength, compassion and understanding and frankly right now I’m just confused…

Anyway, back to preparing for the BIG DAY. I spray my clothes with Premithin, put on a Mercy Ships shirt and skirt (country appropriate)and spray my exposed skin with a deet that has more than 40% (malaria once, was enough for me). I get myself two litres of water and ice because we know it’s going to be a scorcher and I’m down at the mini van by 5.30 am sharp. We weave and manoeuvre our way through an already rising city and manage to get to the stadium in under an hour. As a well functioning team with great team leaders we start setting up stations and putting security at the entrances, exits and around the crew. We start pulling out chairs for people to sit and wait in and place them strategically around the different stations that have been constructed to accommodate our would be patients. Before 8 am the people are starting to be let in: I’m with the prayer group. We set up 2 areas to pray. The first area has 8 stations with 5 chairs in each station and are for those that don’t qualify for surgery and are asked if they would like to be prayed for to which they’ve replied they would. The second area has 2 stations of 5 chairs and they are for those that have been escorted through different medical areas to determine if they are candidates for maxillofacial, orthopaedic, plastics or general and then told we can’t help them. (There are many reasons why someone might not qualify for our help. It is a very tough job for the pre-screeners as they are the ones that know the criteria and are the first place a patient is seen and given the initial  yay or nay.)  Dental and eyes will be done on other days, and those patients will be given the addresses and dates for those upcoming and ongoing screenings. We’re ready, I’m ready, I’m with my partner Joyce and translator John…bring it on, we have the power of prayer and hope on our side; we are so fortunate and blessed to be able to at least pray with these people before sending them out the gate ….

Ha!

They come in two’s, they come with their children, they come alone, they come with hope, they come to me, Joyce and John with their one last chance to plead their case – please can we help them, they have no money, they can’t go for help from the local hospital, they’ve been waiting for us…the woman whose hip is dislocated, the boy who has come on behalf of his father who has had hernias for 24 years, the goitre that is too small, the mother whose child cannot see, the child who has a small bump growing in her neck and the father wants to do something before it starts to suffocate her…we pray, I walk them to the gate and they tell me how long it took for them to get here from the rural area in which they live and that they slept outside the stadium waiting…I tell them to keep their eyes fixed on Jesus because without that what is our hope in this world and I tell them to go with God, maybe give them a squeeze, a smile or a hug. They look at me and say yes ma’am, or yes auntie, or mammy (as is their way to address an older woman) because first and foremost they will be respectful and then they leave through the gate – not with a joyful look, but one of desolation, anguish and sadness as the gate closes behind them. I turn away and start walking back knowing there are more, there are a lot more, I hear there are over 5000 people  waiting outside the entrance gate; that you can walk the line for an hour and not reach it’s end… It is now around 10 am and runners are going around to the different stations asking us to pray because there is unrest at the gates… we pray, more people come and see Joyce, John and I: a man who had an engine drop on him, a girl who fell into a welding pot and burned her arm and back so badly the scarring is dense and bumpy all over and she can’t stretch out her arm, a VVF patient who had surgery, but didn’t heal … we pray, we share stories, I share ‘war wounds,’ they leave …nothing’s changed, my heart is beginning to carry their burdens and my prayers feel like empty words even though I know they’re  not because nothing from God comes back void…there is rioting outside the gate…more than 5000 - the numbers aren’t clear yet. We keep praying for what is going on outside the gate…More people, more hope destroyed, more weeping, more prayers and then I max out… a little girl of 9 comes with her mother and her foot has a huge bump that has been growing on the top of her foot since she was quite young. It is now cracking from being dry and infected and her skin has split open in the middle of her foot because the skin is so stretched; I can smell it, and the flies are just sitting on the wound not bothered by movement. I start to cry as I ask her and her mother questions – the girls name is Kadiatu. They tell me they have seen many doctors and no one including us say they can do anything – I am so confused, to me, someone who is totally ignorant of the medical field thinks to herself, why can’t they just cut it?,  or drain it?, or anything?,  something?, it doesn’t look particularly difficult????  I pick up her foot, (honestly, I’m a bit afraid), but she’s just a little girl…. I gently put her foot on my lap and I touch it and through my tears and barely understood words because of the lump in my throat I weepingly pray for God to intervene….I tell him, I’m confused, I claim every promise I can think of in this moment , and I request that He intervene where doctors don’t seem to be able to and I ask Him, the greatest physician of all time to heal her immediately, she’s crying, bawling in fact; her mothers exclaiming an Amen after every prayer I cry out and I just want to open my eyes and see her healed – I open them, she’s not healed! I walk her to the gate, I tell her that she must keep hope alive in her life, I hug her, she thanks me and the gate closes behind her and her mother. I didn’t think it was going to be like this…I wasn’t ready! God why? Please help me to understand, please Father make miracles happen outside the gate!

And then we all get called back. All crew are to find a vehicle and return to the ship other than medical personnel!

There is complete and total desperation…

The rioting outside has gotten out of control – a man has been trampled to death – it’s not even noon yet…

Please pray!!!! We go back tomorrow….

2 comments:

  1. Hi Carol,
    Greetings from New Zealand
    I am writing to say I am praying for you to be strengthened by the Lord during these prescreening and desperate prayer sessions. I can only imagine what it must be like to see people who have been turned away from surgery may they know that Jesus will never turn them away from their eternal inheritance.
    Cheers Penny Anderson

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  2. Carol, thank you so much for sharing.
    Angela Friesen (Abbotsford)

    Abba, We know that You are God and that You are good. But this is so difficult, so confusing. I thank You for Carol and her work with Mercy Ships; I thank You for each and every one on the ship who is seeking to do Your will and bring You glory. Father be their strength. Guide and direct each one and the whole process. Give them wisdom and work through them. Each surgery is a miracle but Father, the need is so great. We need more of You. Only You are enough.

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