Right here, right now

So by Tuesday of this last week, I was completely exhausted. I had worked 6 days in a row and I just felt done in. The day before, Monday was screening for VVF women and as tired as I felt about halfway through the day I stood in the stairway and thought to myself, there is nothing I would rather be doing right now and no where else I would rather be right now. It was one of those I am exactly where God wants me moments.

These women are amazing, they are fighters, they are beautiful, they are courageous, and they inspire me. We are doing 8 days of surgery and Lord willing will be able to help 20 women. Screening day was emotionally draining. My job was to take histories, help feed lunch, coordinate getting them to see the doctor for exams, and to pray with them. The stories break my heart and not being able to help all of them is a reality that we had to face. Who will we be able to help, who will have to wait? These are the times when I have to remember that we will help those God intends for us to help and He is big enough and has a plan for the others.

The first half of surgery is finished and the next half will be done next week. Please be praying for God's healing for these women. The reality is that not all of them will be healed, some will continue to leak and will need furture surgery. Even if not every surgery is a success we still have a chance to show everyone of these precious women who Jesus is, just by showing them love. Many of them have spent years feeling rejected and isolated and they open up to us so freely, so my prayer is that we can show them in every action we take and in the words that we say who Jesus is.

Here is one story of a women who I took care of in July to give you a better idea about who these women are to me.

Rebecca: From Suffering to Joy

“I was eighteen years old when this happened to me,” Rebecca says. She is speaking in her native dialect in front of dozens of people. She is wearing a new dress to symbolize her new life as she shares her story of suffering.

“I was in labor for five days, and finally I went to the hospital. The baby was dead. And I was wounded in [such] a way that I thought I would never walk again.”

Rebecca, now 35 years old, traveled from neighboring Togo to the Mercy Ship in Benin. She had shouldered the burden of obstetric fistula for 17 years. This childbirth injury often occurs in areas without adequate obstetric care and leaves the mother incontinent. Often the woman is abandoned by her husband, and having more children becomes difficult or impossible.

At first Philip, the baby’s father, did abandon her. For the next few months, Rebecca’s family took care of her. Eventually, Philip returned. “It was God who brought him back,” Rebecca says. Otherwise, she feels she might have been alone forever.

Rebecca and Philip were married and now have five children, but she still carried the shame of her condition and tried to hide it from everyone around her. She did not leave the house, and the only person outside her family who knew of her condition was her neighbor, who saw her washing out soiled clothes and hanging them to dry.

“I worried for so long,” Rebecca says. “I was very discouraged, and because I didn’t have enough money, I couldn’t go to the hospital for treatment.”

When Rebecca eventually came to the Mercy Ship, a nurse sat with her and asked her the standard questions to establish her medical history – questions that were painful for Rebecca to answer. How many children have you delivered? How many are still alive? How long ago did the injury occur? Did your husband leave you? As the nurse paused in her questions and put her hand on Rebecca’s knee, Rebecca began to cry.

Then, the night before her surgery, Rebecca lay in her hospital bed and tears formed in her eyes as she remembered the long years of suffering that lay behind her.

“I just remembered [the] past,” Rebecca says. “For seventeen years, I have been like this.” Those years were long and hard as she fought to forget her problem so she could be a good mother, trying to find the right answers when her children asked why she needed to layer cloth beneath her before she went to bed at night.

Now, as Rebecca shares her story, there is no sadness, because her surgery was successful. Her smile is constant and sweet. She wants to sing, dance and give thanks. Rebecca goes home with her shame replaced by hope for the future. She is happy to be with her children, her husband, her family, and her neighbors. She is healed, in both her body and spirit.

“I was so thirsty and I came here to the Mercy Ship and was given a drink. You have taken care of me better than a mother. You have done everything – even clothed me,” she joyfully says as she smiles and motions to her beautiful new dress.

Story by Carmen Radley