Over the past couple of weeks, I have seen God work in ways that I have only ever in the past prayed for. As a healthcare professional, I have always had a hard time trying to pray for healing. I always get hung up on the fact that all too often, it seems that we pray for healing and fail to see it come to pass – at least in the ways that we expect or want. I have watched families of dying children pray for revival, and then suffer through the exact thing they were hoping to overpower. Overtime, these types of experiences had turned a little part of me skeptical. Don’t get me wrong, I have never for a second seriously doubted that my God has the power to heal, restore, and even overcome death…..but, I had started to wonder, why He didn’t always do just that. And, more importantly, why we needed to bother bargaining for such interventions if the decision had already been made and He had the power to do so regardless of us.

I had been wondering, for quite some number of years now.

Then, just a couple of weeks ago, Baby O’Brien remembered how to breathe before our eyes. Uncle Gary prayed and within minutes, his entire respiratory status was transformed. Like an actual miracle that has absolutely no medical explanation (I would go into detail about this particular incident, but my friend Ali does it more than justice). When I came in for my day shift the morning after and saw what had happened, I made the night nurse explain it to me three times before I would believe. (It’s funny how shocked we can be when things we pray for actually happen)

Just days later, I was taking care of Marius, our other in-and-out-of-the-ICU-baby, on trial number two of what seemed to be at the time, “the case of the trach that refused to be removed”. Forty-five minutes into the decanulation trial and the little baby in front of us continued to breathe at about 80/minute (for those non-NICU types….that is too fast), wheezing and indrawing like a champ.

Maybe it was because we had done everything we could think of and we had no other nursing tricks up our sleeves. Maybe it was because Marius has the most beautiful, huge, dark eyes that pierce your soul and compel you to do something more supernatural than you are capable of in your own humanness. Or maybe it was because my faith in praying for miraculous healing had just recently been restored.

Whatever the reason, I decided I should pray. Normally, I would have said “God already knows our desire in this situation, what difference does it make if I say it?” Or I might have thought “There are too many more important things to get done right now”. But instead, in this case, I layed my hands on his chest, closed my eyes to the monitor flashing much less-than-impressive numbers, and I prayed to my Saviour. I thanked him for allowing me the opportunity to care for His child. I told him that I believed that He was the only one who had the power to heal Marius. And, I told him that we would accept His will for Marius’ life in this situation.

That morning, the miracle didn’t happen instantly. Marius lasted 12 hours without his trach, and then needed it for a couple more days before he was able to be decanulated for good. But, within a couple more days, he stopped requiring any oxygen whatsoever. And, just a few days after that, a repaired-lip, fat-cheeked, beautiful baby Marius returned to the ward in a triumphant celebration of hope and healing.

And, I think I am starting to understand why our faith and outward expression of faith is so crucial. Because I know God could have healed Marius without me. He didn’t need me to stand there and pray. But, if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had tears in my eyes when I saw him become whole again. I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be a part of it. And, if that were the case, then I would have denied Him the opportunity to change my life through changing Marius’.

I realize it has been a while and I don’t have a real excuse. Being a nurse these days honestly feels like all I could have ever imagined it could be and then some. Life on the ship is as lovely as ever. And Africa remains….Africa. (Nuff said).

So, “why the prolonged silence???” I had to ask myself.

And the best I can come up with is that my blogging silence may be directly related to the relative silence I have embraced as of late in my professional role. As far as verbal communication goes….things are harder here. Although I never even came close to achieving the fluency with Liberian English of my friend Ali, I might have come in a very distant second….or maybe fifth. Regardless, I made do. But, like I said – things are harder here. It seems that skipping out on French class in elementary school to write plays for extra credit was a poor decision.

So I have been left figuring out other ways to communicate with the children placed in my charge. Lucky for them, I seem to remember someone teaching me at some point that only 9.3% of communication is verbal. Or maybe it is 14.6% (it would be fair at this point to question whether I actually attended school at all). What I do know is that it is possible, if not completely necessary, to learn to connect with another person without the use of words.

Which brings me to the point of this mostly-senseless-thus-far rambling: I have recently discovered the significance of “the tickle”.

It started with Junior. It happened three weeks ago, which, in case you are keeping track, is quite a number of weeks into this outreach. I might have been starting to question whether or not I would be able to ever connect with these kids the way I wanted. But I quickly found that, at any given time, day or night, I could produce the most glorious 7-yr-old belly laugh just by tickling / tackling him to the ground. Chalking it up to coincidence and the uniqueness of the child, I refused to give myself too much credit.

However, a double-fisted handful of 2 – 10yr olds later and I am willing to make a very bold assertion: Communication really IS 91.2% non-verbal. Through balloons, bubbles, online crayola colouring pages, and most importantly, embracing the tickle monster that lives inside me (and I would be willing to argue – all of us), I have some new very sweet friends.


Perhaps, I could have learned this lesson (or French) at some point in school. I am pretty sure I would chose to learn it this way.