Danja Bound

Some how writing this now feels almost forced. I haven't updated my blog since I left Africa and now the only reason I find I can make myself write again is that I am getting on a plane in the morning to go back. It's not that I haven't thought about sitting down to write a hundred times but what could I say that would compare with the work and the stories that went on with Mercy Ships. To be honest I have let this  idea take over since I returned from Africa. It's not as though nothing has happened, I have started a master's program in nursing, got a new job, moved to a new city, and even survived a blizzard.  I am settling into life here in Chicago but something feels a bit off. There is something missing. I think when you are doing something that fills you so fully and consumes all of you and then you step away from that, there comes with it this sense of loss and an emptiness. This transition has been something for me to really work through over these past seven months, and it has been anything but easy. God has been using this time to teach me new and different life lessons. The gypsy soul in me has been learning what it looks like to have to make an effort and invest with a longer term outlook. I will be in Chicago for years not months and although at first this caused me to have little heart palpitations, I am slowly coming to the point where the idea of being able to invest in relationships in the longer term is really exciting. God has blessed me with an amazing roommate, great classmates, and solid friends at church and somehow I have managed to find a community to live in that doesn't float, and I am very thankful for it!

So since I left Togo in July, I have known this trip to Niger was coming. I knew before I even came back to the states that this trip coincided with my spring break and there was no way I was missing it. In fact I have been clinging to it. When I got my plane tickets I was dancing around my apartment like a crazy person. Now it's here... it's tomorrow... and I am very excited. 

I have the opportunity to work with Worldwide Fistula Fund and their Danja Project.  I am headed out for two weeks to be doing more fistula work and reuniting with the old team of sorts even though it is with a different organization and in a very different setting. The same surgeon Dr. Steve will be our lead surgeon, and my fellow nurses are old friends, Beccy, Karin, and Ashley and I could not be more excited to be working side by side with them again caring for our ladies that we all love with all our hearts.  This trip will look a lot different as it is in a rural area at a land based clinic. The organization has been working on the building of the free standing fistula clinic in a small rural community of Danja, Niger. This trip, Lord willing, will be the final one before the clinic opens later this spring! We will be doing 5-7 days of surgery and hopefully helping about 15 women!

While there I will have some intermittent internet access so I will try and blog and post pictures as I can. Thanks in advance for all the prayers... I know that the Lord walks ahead and I am excited to follow Him on the adventure of the next two weeks!