NAIL POLISH
March 24th, 2010 at 11:30pm
Port of Lome, Togo
The Africa Mercy
I wrote that I would write today and indeed I shall. There is so much to catch up, but I will attempt to talk about the everyday of today while I am in Lome. The everyday here is like none other I have experienced thus far in my life, and am thankful for each second I have. The mission is almost at a halfway point and I’m digging my heels in deeper not yet quite prepared to head home. At times when I’m in the ward and an unconditional hug squeezes me, and I think I am home. Perhaps home for just a moment, for one glorious moment.
The day started off with our recently new morning meeting. Our communications team made up of two writers, Joy and Elaine, two photographers Debra and I, and a representative from the PR dept Lewis. Occasionally our translators Mehza and Pelagie will join us. We just started these morning meetings and so far they seem to be rather informative and helpful so we all know what we are doing throughout the day and what we have left to do. More than anything it forces all of us to be up bright and early in the morning and in our office.
I have to be honest the whole time during the meeting, I kept thinking about the patients that have become my friends. Many were returning from the Hospitality Center and were going to be seen by one of the doctors on the ship for various reasons. They were about to arrive on the dock at any moment. The Hospitality Center is a dormitory style location off the ship for all of our patients that are well enough to be discharged, but live far away and normally could not return to see a doctor for follow-ups. Many of the patients I saw at the first screening day are now preparing to leave the Hospitality Center and head for home. There are coming for their last bandage removals now and the doctors have given many of them a clean bill of health.
The irony of it all struck me today, as I processed photographs that were over a month old. For example, I am barely editing photos from the first screening days back in February. The faces that a month ago were good photography subjects have become my friends. I have been nicknamed in Ewe (local Togo language) “smiles” Because every time I visit the ward, admissions tent, or hospitality center they always see me smiling. Some of the teenage gals (aka Double Trouble) mimic my smile and wave. They also open their arms wide and ask for a hug. I slide the camera from being in front of me, to the back, so I can hug them diliberately, and talk with them for awhile. It’s one of my favorite parts of the day.
And looking at these photographs tonight, from screening days that took place a month ago and knowing that most of the people in these photos have already undergone a life transforming operation. And the operation not only transforms the patient physically, but it transforms them emotionally and spiritually too. And it also changes the entire family around them too.
The faces that first appeared on the opposite side of my lenses a month ago, now reside in the very deepest parts of my heart. I don’t need a photograph to remember them anymore.
II Corinthians 3:3
You yourselves are all the endorsement we need. Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you.
Christ himself wrote it—not with ink, but with God's living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives—and we publish it.
As I post the photographs, I will share with you tons of the life changing transformations I have already encountered.
More details to come!
Bonne nuit chers amis!
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