Tenerife!!!!!!!!!!

I wrote this back on the 19th of December, I don't know why I never posted it but here it is now.... sorry for the long delay.

After 11 days at sea, I woke up early yesterday morning to the site of city lights and land out the window. Needless to say I was very excited. Don't get me wrong I really enjoyed the sail, it was a good chance to spend decompressing from the last 3 months in Benin, laugh with friends, and spend some quality time with God.

I have made some decisions during this time. I plan to return to Mercy Ships next outreach in Togo. I will be returning in a new role, as VVF coordinator. It seems overwhelming to think about. The job seems to big for me, it is a role I have never filled before. It will involve less bedside care and more leadership. The thing is God doesn't call us to what is easy and what we feel prepared for. He calls us to the things that are bigger than that so that He can make up the difference. I am super excited to be working along side a good friend of mine Lindsay, it is a relief to know we are taking this on together and I know God has placed it on both our hearts and given us a blessing of providing a job that matches our passion.

To see pictures from my short visit to Tenerife check out my facebook album here

We Sail!!!!!!

I am currently sitting on deck 7 listening to the constant dull roar of the engines and the sound of the ocean as we slice through it. There is nothing but pitch black darkness on the horizon and stars up above. As I sit here I am feeling so grateful. Grateful that after sitting idle for 10 months this ship was ready to sail, everything came together just in the nick of time. I am grateful to be here and for this experience. Grateful to see this outreach come to an end, there is something so fulfilling about that. I am grateful that God called each one of the people here and that He is up there orchestrating this all so perfectly.

We pulled out of port shortly after 11 am this morning and with a final wave sailed out of Benin. We had been warned that the first hour might be pretty rough but overall the seas have been calm, no sea sickness for me so far.....praise God.

I spent my day with great friends reading in the sun, napping, and finally watching the sunset. It was a great day. As sad as I am to leave behind those I came to love in Benin, I know that everything has a season and it was time for this chapter to close. As we leave Benin please pray with me that God will multiply the work that has been done here. That those whose lives we touched will take the message of hope and spread it throughout the nation. Ten months ago I didn't even know this place existed and now it will forever hold a very special place in my heart.

"The earth is the Lord's, and all its fullness, The world and those who dwell therein. For He has founded it upon the seas, And established it upon the waters." - Psalm 24: 1-2

Packing Up and Tying Down

Sorry it's been so long since I last posted. I noticed it has been since the 14th of November and the time since then has flown by. It is 17 days now until I land in Illinois and I am ready. The hospital closed just over a week ago. It was bittersweet to watch the last few patients leave. Two of them included my ladies, Beatrice and Therese. They left on a Friday and although they were not being discharged with completely healed wounds it was neat to see how God has a plan in place to care for them. They went to a clinic that has been established in a building we were using as our dental clinic during the last year. This clinic has been formed to follow up with our patients that still need some care. Once that is finished the clinic will then transition to a maternity center. A former Mercy Shipper who now lives in Benin is running it. I am constantly amazed how God fits all the pieces together.

A few days before the hospital closed, I got the pleasure of going to one last dress ceremony. I got to dance with Beatrice, Therese, and Akouvi. I was reminded so vividly why I do this as Therese stood and said "I had been leaking for 50 years and now I am healed!"

I spent this last week working in the hospital laundry, scrubbing floors and walls, packing things up, playing a crazy life size game of tetris trying to get the beds to stack up, and tying things down to the floor for the sail. It was actually really fun. We played the music loud and danced and laughed. It took very little brain power, no one's life was in my hands and there was something very satisfying about seeing this all come together in the end. Knowing that in the last 10 months, I was part of something bigger than me. We performed over 6000 surgeries this past outreach and God is good.

God You Rock

I'll like to share an update on my ladies and the amazing healing God is doing. First off, thanks for helping me to cover them in prayer. God is answering these prayers right before my eyes and it is so cool. The two women with the wounds are making great strides toward healing and the third went home.

In just 2 short days, Beatrice's wound is 3 cm's smaller than it was on Wednesday and it appears to be healing beautifully. This is an amazing improvement. It is almost mind blowing. Let me tell you only supernatural healing closes a wound 3 cm in 2 days. She is in such good spirit's and I just love walking in to the ward and seeing her face light up to greet me (she even told me I could marry her grandson and stay in Benin forever).

On Wednesday Therese had been put on isolation because her wound had an infection in it that was resistant to multiple antibiotics. It was so sad walking by the little opening in the curtain and seeing how sad and isolated she felt. She would smile at me and say she was ok, but I could read all over her face how sad and overwhelmed she was feeling. She went back to surgery on Thursday and again on Friday to have her would cleaned and surgically closed. We closed the ward that the ladies were on as the number of patients here is dropping and we begin to pack up. We were going to have to separate the two of them into different wards as we wanted to put Therese in a place where the chances of her infection spreading to another patient would be decreased. Before we did this we took another culture to see if her wound still was growing the same organisms and it came back no growth!!!!!! It was going to break my heart to separate them. The thing with VVF women is they feel so alone in their problem and then when they come to a place like this and find other women who have endured the same thing they bond so tightly and help one anther so much. Now thankfully they got moved together and now their beds are side by side. So now we continue to pray that the surgery will help and that her wound will begin to heal quickly.

As I awoke this morning and thought about these two women and how God is good. I was completely overcome with joy. I am a little extra excited that I get to serve Him today. God you Rock!

Prayer

There are only 3 VVF women left and I praise God that we have sent so many home dry. I am also thankful that the ship will be in Togo next year which is close enough for those that went home wet to return for follow up surgery and they will have another chance at healing. The 3 women that are left are named Akouvi, Terese, and Beatrice. Terese and Beatrice have wounds that need a lot of time to heal and time we are quickly running out of. We are doing all we know how to do medically and now it is time to pray. Today the nurses and staff that have been caring for these women are going to fast over lunch and meet and pray over them. If you feel led please join us in doing so over your lunch. We are claiming this scripture over them.

"And the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up..." James 5:15

"Elijah was a man with a nature lie ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit." - James 5: 17&18

Today We Danced

VVF surgery has finished but the work is no where close to finished. We are still working with the women who are recovering after surgery. This set of surgery feels much different than the last set. It has it's own unique set of challenges and joys. Even though VVF has been around basically forever we are still just at the beginning of figuring out the best way to treat these women. There is not a lot of research out there and every case is a little different.

I am asking for prayers for one women in particular who I screened and have cared for over the past two weeks. Her name is Beatrice, she had a bit of a unique problem and had a different surgery than most of the other women. I won't go into the details but she has an infection that is resistant to all but one of the antibiotics we have available. So what she needs is prayer and I know God is bigger and can heal her wounds and her infection. I want so badly to dance with her and I believe this will happen.

When I stop and think of the women that are going back home still leaking and when I think of those we never even have the opportunity to help it breaks my heart. The statistics are staggering, at the current rate that VVF surgeries are being done it would take 700 years to treat all the fistula patients that are currently suffering with this condition. But the thing is I can't think about all of this all the time because it becomes overwhelming and discouraging.

So today I am celebrating because today we danced. Four beautiful women celebrated God's healing today. The ceremony was wonderful. I'll share the story of one of the women, Veronique. Veronique has had 4 surgeries. She has had 3 of them with Mercy Ships this year alone, one in March, then again in July, and finally just last week. Today she danced! She stood with the attitude and sass that I love about her and she gave a testimony. She thanked God, the doctors and the nurses and then with tears streaming down her face she shouted, "Today, I Veronique am dry!"

Grace and Love

So lately the big lesson God has been teaching me is to let Him love me. This seems like a strange lesson to learn but I think it has been a long time coming. I was rereading the book Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller and in one of the chapters he is talking about grace and how some people accept it so freely and then others struggle with accepting it. It's like the concept slapped me in the face as if I had never really processed it all the way through before. He writes,

"I would hear about grace, read about grace, and even sing about grace, but accepting grace is an action I could not understand. It seemed wrong to me not to have to pay for my sin, not to feel guilty about it or kick myself around. More than that, grace did not seem like the thing I was looking for. It was too easy. I wanted to feel as though I earned my forgiveness as though God and I were buddies doing favors for each other."

I'm not saying that I have never accepted God's grace because I have and I have no doubt I am forgiven but I just feel as if I get caught in this trap of trying to prove myself and in a sense earn my keep with God, which when I think about it seems completely silly. In my head I know this isn't necessary but it seems to be this mentality I fall into. A little later in the chapter he says,

"I am too prideful to accept the grace of God. It isn't that I want to earn my own way to give something to God, it's that I want to earn my own way so I won't be charity." " Who am I to think myself above God's charity? And why would I forsake the riches of God's righteousness for the dung of my own ego?"

This really struck a cord with me. I have always found it easier to give than receive and I have always had this fear of being someone else's charity case. Here I am in a place where everyday I am working to take care of those who are in need and I am in just as much need of God's grace and love as anyone else. I am too prideful to accept God's gift of grace feeling as if I am not worthy of it and I can in someway prove to God I deserve it, but I am in no way different from anyone else and He offers it freely to all of us. He simply gives it because He loves me and I need to get myself out of the way sometimes and simply let Him.

"I will love God because he first loved me, I will obey God because I love God. But if I cannot accept God's love, I cannot love him in return, and I cannot obey him. Self-discipline will never make us feel righteous or clean; accepting God's love will. The ability to accept God's unconditional grace and ferocious love is all the fuel we need to obey him in return. Accepting God's kindness and free love is something the devil does not want us to do. If we hear, in our inner ear, a voice saying we are failures, we are losers, we will never amount to anything, this is the voice of Satan trying to convince the bride that the groom does not love her. This is not the voice of God. God woos us with kindness, He changes our character with the passion of His love."