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.
This weekend, I did my first two shifts as a charge nurse. Fortunately for me, things were relatively slow. I am wholeheartedly appreciative for a weekend void of social drama or medical crises – because anything less might have made me pack my bags and head home. The one minor “situation” in B ward involved a little guy who has now become my most memorable patient of Togo 2010 – thus far.
Nobody is completely sure what Bobo’s deal was. It may be the fact that his name is Bobo. It may be that Bobo is innately a drama queen. Or possibly, as Ali has proposed, it may be that Bobo is mildly autistic (Given my extensive knowledge of autism - the result of an entire year of ever purposeful graduate studies – I was inclined to concur). Regardless of the reason, Bobo spent last week less than impressed with his bilateral casts. For somewhere between 3 – 243 days (the timeline is blurry….I had a stressful weekend), Bobo moaned. In Ewe.
Most of the time, it sounded something like “why-eeeeeee……..why-eeeeeee……….why-eeeeeee……”. Every once in a while, he would change things up and cry “owwwwwww………..owwwwwww………..owwwwwww”, just for variety’s sake, from what I could tell. Extensive efforts on our part to medicate, entertain, and distract the tormented child were essentially futile. I even went in on a couple of my nights off, after shifts to sit with him and play, but nothing seemed to touch this kid.
Finally, after quite a bit of discussion, the decision was made that regardless of whether or not Bobo was just a kid being a kid and expressing his lack of appreciation for his two new plaster companions, the risk that something legitimate was wrong inside them warranted a cast change under general anesthetic.
And on Monday afternoon, the recovery room brought us back this:
The debate still stands about what truly made the difference. Maybe he was bored of his old casts. Maybe when the entire nursing staff prays every morning, evening, and night for “Bobo to have peace”, God listens. Or maybe when Clementine (our Togolese counselor) threatened him in the recovery room that “if you don’t stop crying, you will never get to go home”, he finally listened.
Either way, I witnessed a miracle.
The Sunday before I left for Togo, I had a number of church family members ask me if I was excited for my trip. I remember having the realization at that point that in one week exactly, I would be in African church. That thought made me excited.
However, due to jetlag on my first Sunday here, and then an unfortunate incident the next week with either the dirt-covered fanmilk bag I had to suck on to enjoy my delicious ice-creamy treat, or the fanmilk itself, I missed African church my first two weeks here. This made today my first Togolese service. As I explained to a friend this morning at breakfast, the three most important criteria for African church are as follows:
a) Not so hot that you require IV fluids to rehydrate in the afternoon – if oral fluids will do, you have chosen the right place (being hot is a given – so “cool” would be an unrealistic criterion)
b) Less than 4 hours (again – it’s going to be long…..also a given)
c) English translation that is actually English
Miraculously, God granted me all three wishes this morning. We had the opportunity to worship at a church that was planted by fellow Mercy Shippers in 1995 in a small fishing village, about 15 minutes from the port that we call home. And, it was everything I could have ever dreamed of.
As I should have been expecting, all the Mercy Shippers were called up to the front to introduce ourselves and say where we were from. We were taught the "official" Togolese national dance (I had already been taught the Togolese national dance – during translator orientation, so I was sort of a pro….except for the fact that while doing the Togolese national dance, one looks quite similar to a chicken and it is hard to look much like a pro while dancing like a chicken).
During the sermon, the congregation spontaneously raised a beautiful song that I knew very well from my time in Liberia. As we all sang “Do something new in my life, oh God”, I couldn’t help but think about the fact that this outreach isn’t just simply “another trip to Africa”, a Liberian reunion, or a checkmark off my bucket list, but that God has unique plans of what he wants to do in me and through me for this season.
But the incident that trumped them all occurred after the service was over. I read somewhere once that “inside the heart of every North American lies an innate desire to box up their old winter jackets and send them to Africa". That always made me laugh – mostly because I think it reflects the way most of us think of Africa. Desolate. Desperate. Lacking. And the reality is that my experience of Africa has been none of those things. But this morning, I got to see the effects of what happens when people really do box up their things and send them to Africa. In this case, the "people" were from a church in Tenerife, and the "things" were brand new toys and clothes. And the outcome was so great to experience.
Because, as much praise as I give to my African brothers and sisters for their spiritual, emotional, relational, and cultural wealth, they often lack the finances for new clothes and toys for their babies for play with. So, to watch an entire congregation open up massive boxes of material blessings was truly an honour. Not because it necessarily changed their lives in any massively significant way, but because through those boxes of goods two very different groups of people became connected. And, if packing up our stuff and sending it to people who might be able to use it accomplishes that, then I am off to find some duck tape....
I remember the day that I truly realized how blessed I am. Blessed and undeserving.
It was the day I became friends with Marion. In crossing the line from caregiver and nurse to friends who found genuine similarities between one another, I became starkly aware that (if God had willed it) our two situations could have been easily reversed. From that point forward, it was impossible for me to view my upbringing, my geographical home, my family, my education, or my experiences as anything more than cards dealt to me by my heavenly father – not at all haphazardly or arbitrarily – yet similarly without obvious cause or warrant.
It has been this type of thinking that has prevented me from being able to settle into a self-serving life. But, as it turns out, it seems that it has been this type of thinking that is also making “this time around” feel so natural so quickly.
On Tuesday, at the reception we hosted for our Togolese hospital translators to welcome them to our healthcare services team, I met Aida. My new sister and I spent the better part of an hour learning about eachother’s lives, histories, and passions. For those few precious moments - for which I was scarcely aware of the other one hundred something people in the dining hall - I became truly connected to another person in that unique, rare way that I used to think would only be possible with someone whom I had invested copious amounts of quality time. But, as Aida told me her story, it was impossible to deny that we have been cut from the same cloth.
“….I know that I am blessed to have received an education…I consider it my responsibility to bless others with my skills…when I look at little children, I know I need to help because I see them as innocent……it is so important to teach people skills that can be used in the future to support their families… people sometimes question whether I am capable to do the job because they think I am too young…God called me to do his work and I had no choice but to go…”
Aida received her post-secondary education in Business from a University in England. She returned to her homeland and, despite initially finding a fairly well-paying, prestigious job, Aida chose to give up her job to create an NGO. God gave her the name Yayra for her organization– which means blessing in her native language of Mina. She and her 5 coworkers travel to rural areas where many groups put little to no value on formal education. As Aida explained to me, education is paid for by the government up until the end of the equivalent of elementary school, but many children do not attend due to a lack of cultural value on school. Aida’s passion is for children to be able to go to school, even if only to obtain the foundational skills they can acquire in the first years of being in the educational system. Her team does teaching, and raises money to pay for school uniforms or supplies, if that is the inhibiting factor. In addition, they try to do agricultural training for families that are currently farming on a small scale, but have yet to expand to a level where their farming can provide a regular income. In Aida’s words:
“I want to help both groups. For the children, they have the opportunity to receive an education, and I want to help them with that. But there are many people for whom school is no longer an option. We want to provide something for them as well”
Aida and her team live the definition of their namesake. In comparison, my life’s vision probably fails miserably. But her life’s work spoke to me - because I saw her, and felt her passion, and understood her vision. And, the ability of the two of us to connect in such a unique way is yet another miraculous blessing.
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.
This weekend, I did my first two shifts as a charge nurse. Fortunately for me, things were relatively slow. I am wholeheartedly appreciative for a weekend void of social drama or medical crises – because anything less might have made me pack my bags and head home. The one minor “situation” in B ward involved a little guy who has now become my most memorable patient of Togo 2010 – thus far.
Nobody is completely sure what Bobo’s deal was. It may be the fact that his name is Bobo. It may be that Bobo is innately a drama queen. Or possibly, as Ali has proposed, it may be that Bobo is mildly autistic (Given my extensive knowledge of autism - the result of an entire year of ever purposeful graduate studies – I was inclined to concur). Regardless of the reason, Bobo spent last week less than impressed with his bilateral casts. For somewhere between 3 – 243 days (the timeline is blurry….I had a stressful weekend), Bobo moaned. In Ewe.
Most of the time, it sounded something like “why-eeeeeee……..why-eeeeeee……….why-eeeeeee……”. Every once in a while, he would change things up and cry “owwwwwww………..owwwwwww………..owwwwwww”, just for variety’s sake, from what I could tell. Extensive efforts on our part to medicate, entertain, and distract the tormented child were essentially futile. I even went in on a couple of my nights off, after shifts to sit with him and play, but nothing seemed to touch this kid.
Finally, after quite a bit of discussion, the decision was made that regardless of whether or not Bobo was just a kid being a kid and expressing his lack of appreciation for his two new plaster companions, the risk that something legitimate was wrong inside them warranted a cast change under general anesthetic.
And on Monday afternoon, the recovery room brought us back this:
The debate still stands about what truly made the difference. Maybe he was bored of his old casts. Maybe when the entire nursing staff prays every morning, evening, and night for “Bobo to have peace”, God listens. Or maybe when Clementine (our Togolese counselor) threatened him in the recovery room that “if you don’t stop crying, you will never get to go home”, he finally listened.
Either way, I witnessed a miracle.
The Sunday before I left for Togo, I had a number of church family members ask me if I was excited for my trip. I remember having the realization at that point that in one week exactly, I would be in African church. That thought made me excited.
However, due to jetlag on my first Sunday here, and then an unfortunate incident the next week with either the dirt-covered fanmilk bag I had to suck on to enjoy my delicious ice-creamy treat, or the fanmilk itself, I missed African church my first two weeks here. This made today my first Togolese service. As I explained to a friend this morning at breakfast, the three most important criteria for African church are as follows:
a) Not so hot that you require IV fluids to rehydrate in the afternoon – if oral fluids will do, you have chosen the right place (being hot is a given – so “cool” would be an unrealistic criterion)
b) Less than 4 hours (again – it’s going to be long…..also a given)
c) English translation that is actually English
Miraculously, God granted me all three wishes this morning. We had the opportunity to worship at a church that was planted by fellow Mercy Shippers in 1995 in a small fishing village, about 15 minutes from the port that we call home. And, it was everything I could have ever dreamed of.
As I should have been expecting, all the Mercy Shippers were called up to the front to introduce ourselves and say where we were from. We were taught the "official" Togolese national dance (I had already been taught the Togolese national dance – during translator orientation, so I was sort of a pro….except for the fact that while doing the Togolese national dance, one looks quite similar to a chicken and it is hard to look much like a pro while dancing like a chicken).
During the sermon, the congregation spontaneously raised a beautiful song that I knew very well from my time in Liberia. As we all sang “Do something new in my life, oh God”, I couldn’t help but think about the fact that this outreach isn’t just simply “another trip to Africa”, a Liberian reunion, or a checkmark off my bucket list, but that God has unique plans of what he wants to do in me and through me for this season.
But the incident that trumped them all occurred after the service was over. I read somewhere once that “inside the heart of every North American lies an innate desire to box up their old winter jackets and send them to Africa". That always made me laugh – mostly because I think it reflects the way most of us think of Africa. Desolate. Desperate. Lacking. And the reality is that my experience of Africa has been none of those things. But this morning, I got to see the effects of what happens when people really do box up their things and send them to Africa. In this case, the "people" were from a church in Tenerife, and the "things" were brand new toys and clothes. And the outcome was so great to experience.
Because, as much praise as I give to my African brothers and sisters for their spiritual, emotional, relational, and cultural wealth, they often lack the finances for new clothes and toys for their babies for play with. So, to watch an entire congregation open up massive boxes of material blessings was truly an honour. Not because it necessarily changed their lives in any massively significant way, but because through those boxes of goods two very different groups of people became connected. And, if packing up our stuff and sending it to people who might be able to use it accomplishes that, then I am off to find some duck tape....
I remember the day that I truly realized how blessed I am. Blessed and undeserving.
It was the day I became friends with Marion. In crossing the line from caregiver and nurse to friends who found genuine similarities between one another, I became starkly aware that (if God had willed it) our two situations could have been easily reversed. From that point forward, it was impossible for me to view my upbringing, my geographical home, my family, my education, or my experiences as anything more than cards dealt to me by my heavenly father – not at all haphazardly or arbitrarily – yet similarly without obvious cause or warrant.
It has been this type of thinking that has prevented me from being able to settle into a self-serving life. But, as it turns out, it seems that it has been this type of thinking that is also making “this time around” feel so natural so quickly.
On Tuesday, at the reception we hosted for our Togolese hospital translators to welcome them to our healthcare services team, I met Aida. My new sister and I spent the better part of an hour learning about eachother’s lives, histories, and passions. For those few precious moments - for which I was scarcely aware of the other one hundred something people in the dining hall - I became truly connected to another person in that unique, rare way that I used to think would only be possible with someone whom I had invested copious amounts of quality time. But, as Aida told me her story, it was impossible to deny that we have been cut from the same cloth.
“….I know that I am blessed to have received an education…I consider it my responsibility to bless others with my skills…when I look at little children, I know I need to help because I see them as innocent……it is so important to teach people skills that can be used in the future to support their families… people sometimes question whether I am capable to do the job because they think I am too young…God called me to do his work and I had no choice but to go…”
Aida received her post-secondary education in Business from a University in England. She returned to her homeland and, despite initially finding a fairly well-paying, prestigious job, Aida chose to give up her job to create an NGO. God gave her the name Yayra for her organization– which means blessing in her native language of Mina. She and her 5 coworkers travel to rural areas where many groups put little to no value on formal education. As Aida explained to me, education is paid for by the government up until the end of the equivalent of elementary school, but many children do not attend due to a lack of cultural value on school. Aida’s passion is for children to be able to go to school, even if only to obtain the foundational skills they can acquire in the first years of being in the educational system. Her team does teaching, and raises money to pay for school uniforms or supplies, if that is the inhibiting factor. In addition, they try to do agricultural training for families that are currently farming on a small scale, but have yet to expand to a level where their farming can provide a regular income. In Aida’s words:
“I want to help both groups. For the children, they have the opportunity to receive an education, and I want to help them with that. But there are many people for whom school is no longer an option. We want to provide something for them as well”
Aida and her team live the definition of their namesake. In comparison, my life’s vision probably fails miserably. But her life’s work spoke to me - because I saw her, and felt her passion, and understood her vision. And, the ability of the two of us to connect in such a unique way is yet another miraculous blessing.