Friday, February 26, 2010

What is that you say?

Another blog from Liz ALREADY you say? Yes...shocking, I know!

We have now had patients on the ward since Wednesday. It is SO exciting! Although with the excitement brings the challengs of any new outreach. It is good the wards fill up slowly as the wards are plumb full of new nurses, new charge nurses, and new translators. I have spent lots of time praying for patience with all the "newness" around me. God has been so faitful and I can honestly say it is all Him!

Just to give you an example of the entertaining chaos...many of our translators do not speak very good english come to find out. Let me describe a situation between my friend Ali, a translator, and a granmother of a patient from earlier today:

Ali to translator: "Can you ask grandma what operation her grandson is having done."
Translator: blank stare
Ali: "What operation is the child having done?"
Translator: stare
Ali: "What did the boy come here for."
Translator: "Ah.." ...rambles on a bit to the grandma.
Ali: "So?" "What did the grandma say?"
Translator: "It will all be ok, I told the grandmother to not be afraid and to take courage."

Later on in the evening when I was in charge I told a translator to tell the new ones coming on that they are not to wear the blue nurse scrubs but the older, light blue ones. I then pointed at the scrubs a nurse had on for an example of what not to wear. They all nodded excitedly..."aha, yes". Five minutes later...in walks one with the blue nurse scrubs...haha.

So needless to say it is a work in progress. We really do have some amazing translators too and they are all so excited to help. But in the meantime...a large dose of patience and laughter is on order:)

Praise the Lord that He delights to use us in our weakness to show His power, Amen?

"But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Cor. 12:9-10

And that my friends, is the reason Mercy Ships is able to do what it does...cause it is actually not us making things happen, but God!

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Open House

As most of you know...this is quite a unique place to live and work. Even though it is a hospital ship there are so many people who do not necessarily work in the hospital or with medical aspect of the ship. Sooo....once a year at the beginning of the outreach the hospital puts together a fun little open house so the rest of the crew can come down, have fun, and check out the secret world of the hospital:) All the medical staff do something different in each of the rooms. This year you could practice IVs, doing stitches, being a nurse for a shift (nurses played great patients), gown races, dental toothbrush toss, laying on a hospital stretcher with feet in stirrups for a bean bag toss (VVF room), and other crazy things. The crew and families love it and it is a great time for all.

Friday, February 19, 2010

The Beginning of Togo in Summary:)

Bonjour! We have been in Togo now for just a little over a week. I have to say I am so excited and it is so beautiful here! The sail went smoothly except for a few rough days at the beginning. I only lost my cookies once, so I feel blessed;) They galley sure did become a mess though with things falling and spilling ALL over.










We are in a busy port, but the Lord has blessed us with our very own dock space this year..along with bees, cockroaches, and BIG rats, but that is another story. We have a great view from port side...trees, beach, ocean, and you can even hear birds!!!!!!!!!!!! The port traffic on the main road is not nearly as bad as Benin and the air and land is much cleaner. It is about an hour walk into town, but there are many taxi's so it shouldn't be too bad.





My cousin is working in the northern part of the city with a different NGO so this past Saturday and Sunday I was able to hang out with her and her local friends. It is so random and fun that we are here at the same time!

I have never been on the ship for the very beginning of the outreach so it has been crazy, yet fun unloading the ship, stripping/waxing floors, and setting up the wards. They look so great...we are all getting excited and anxious for the patients to arrive.








We had our first day of screening this past Tuesday. Because of the elections at the end of the month we could not do one big screening because of crowd control so we are doing 3 a week in different locations for 10 weeks. The heat index was 105 on Tuesday, but the patient line was under trees so it was not too bad. And as everyone knows, I love heat anyway:) I helped prescreen patients at the gate, so it if was something obvious that we could not help with I sent them away. That is the hard part of the job. It was SO fun seeing all the potential patients though and so joyful to see the looks on their faces when I was able to send them in for more screening! I can't describe the joy and feelings I had. I really cannot wait to see them on the wards! It was fun to tell some of the shy/scared kids that I was a nurse, talk to them, and tell them they may see me in the hospital. :)