I like to play this game in my head when I am not looking forward to something. Prior to the unwelcome event or time period, I speculate about how horrible it could potentially be and then prepare myself for the worst. Having this healthy does of realism most often leaves me presently surprised. I applied this technique a couple of weekends ago when a group of friends and I went on a camping trip literally to the middle of nowhere. After committing to go on what turned out to be a rather enjoyable weekend, a pang of doom and fear entered my body as I considered how miserable a weekend on the beach at the dawn of Liberian rainy season, for a girl for tolerates camping at best, could be. As the weekend drew to a close, I realized that I had been having a good time, but I refused to admit it to anyone until I was safely back on the ship; clean, dry, fed, and showered. It was just too much of a risk.
I am deciding to take a similar risk tonight. My week so far could be described as nothing less than “brilliant” (my favourite new descriptive term, courtesy of my British friends and coworkers). That feeling of being “in the right place at the right time” has been following me around relentlessly. I think it is worth the risk of committing too soon and I going to confidently declare that this week I have been in all the right places at all the right times.
It started with what had the potential to be a long, drawn-out, “feeling-sorry-for-myself” weekend of working 12-hour night shifts. Not the case. Life is so much about the people you share it with and it couldn’t be more true when talking about night shifts for nurses. Luckily for me, I got to spend my night shifts with my friend Becky, a PICU nurse from Seattle, with whom I share many qualities, including a love for making kids laugh, the office, reheated chicken bread, and what we have chosen to call “prophetic charting”. The company made the weekend for me and all of a sudden I found I was feeling not quite so sorry for myself and just more than a little bit blessed to be in this place.
Already the week was off to a lovely start, but, as humans tend to do, I had my doubts that it could continue in such a truly lovely fashion. Enter God.
Over the past few weeks, I have been saying goodbye to many good friends, including a nice little group of six girls with whom many of my most favourite moments on the Africa Mercy have occurred. As of this week, it was down to just Joanna and myself. This could be a reason for one’s heart to feel a little abandoned. Instead, I got to spend the most relaxing, perfect weather, great food, amazing heart-to-heart conversation, exclusively one-on-one (that so rarely happens here) lunch date with my dear friend. We learned so much about each other that somehow we had missed over the past four months and talked through so many of the issues that are clearly plaguing the minds of young, single, North-American pretend missionaries preparing to go to grad school and enter a world of academia and competition that seems so foreign to us right now. Joanna left me a card when she left the ship that said “Thanks for lunch yesterday. My soul needed it”. Perhaps mine did too.
There are some moments in time where you feel like you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Where you almost feel guilty that you are there and other people aren’t getting to experience what you are. Where you feel like the advice you are getting shouldn’t really be free, because if everyone could hear it all of the world’s problems would disappear and we would all just want to hold hands and sing (which would be creepy, so forget it, I am glad it was just a small group of us). Most conversations with Dr.Gary Parker, the medical director onboard the ship, are such moments. The man is truly a legacy. After an entire career and lifetime of serving with Mercy Ships, he has authority. And that was exactly what the group of about a dozen of young wannabe doctors, nurses, pharmacists, surgeons, and Ph.D.’s sensed as we sat around him after dinner last night, soaking up every word and token of advice he had to offer. What was meant to be a goodbye party for a couple crew members turned into a question and answer session with Dr.Gary, who I can say without a doubt, we all aspire to be. He is one of those rare people in life who has all the brilliance, skill, personality, and greatness, yet successfully manages to combine and balance them with grace, humility, and compassion. It truly is incredible, and I believe that the truths he talked about with us last night will not soon be forgotten. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that he successfully inspired us to be tomorrow’s leaders reaping eternal rewards.
Finally, tonight we went to the orphanage that a group of us nurses venture out to every Wednesday evening to read and talk about the bible with the nine teenage / early twenties girls. Most weeks, I don’t want to go. I am tired by the end of my shift. Going out into Africa is hot and you get dirty, and anyone who knows me knows how I feel about getting dirty. But, alas, every week we get there and something happens and I know I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. This week as we were walking towards the car, I told Kortu (my favourite….I know it isn’t ok to have favourites, but I do, and someday maybe I will get saved) that I really appreciate her participation in the discussion and that she makes very valuable contributions (obviously, I phrased it nothing like that, because I don’t think any of those words translate into Liberian English). She opened her notebook and explained to me “Every week, when you leave, I read the chapter for the next week. Then I read the chapter every day until you come back. I think of what it means to me each time I read it, and write something down each day.” I wish I knew what it was like to value something that much. I have wished in the past that my points in Bible Study were a little bit more like 16-year-old Kortu’s points. Now I get. Tonight, I learned a valuable lesson about how much she values her bible and her God. So, I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else in the world.
If it is even possible, I hope my week goes up from here!
