june newsletter

above photos: me with patient Anne (smallest Ponsetti casts ever!), Marius after surgery
second row: getaway weekend in front of waterfall, African road
bottom: cabin mates Amy (and fiancee Sam), Miriam and Haley

Dear Family and Friends,

I hope this letter/email finds each of you well. It would be great to hear from each of you how you are doing. Once again, I find myself amazed at how much time has passed since my last newsletter. I apologize for not sending one sooner. I am having trouble trying to summarize these past few months. How do I summarize the triumphs and failures, the joys and sorrows, the work, the life?

Infant feeding program: When the outreach started, I was the interim Feeding Program Coordinator. It was a busy time as each week new infants were referred from our screenings to be evaluated for the feeding program. I saw every baby under a year who had a cleft lip and/or palate as well as a set of premature twins. I would see each of these babies on a once or twice weekly visit to check and see how well they were gaining weight. Marius was one of our babies. He came in weighing around 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs) at four months of age…this is a normal birth weight! He was not much more than skin and bones. We supplied formula and teaching and encouragement and prayers for mom. Two months later, he tipped the scales at 5.3 kg (11.6 lbs) and was ready for surgery. After a rocky post-operative phase, he finally moved to the ward to the cheers of fellow patients and nurses and the praise song bursting forth from his mother’s heart.

Pediatric coordinator: Another role I’ve held this year. It meant reading lots of policies and research to update the policies. It meant teaching adult nurses to be pediatric nurses. It meant reading through lots of charts to see where we could do better. It meant lots of snuggles with kids with ready smiles if someone will just show them love…that was easy!

Pediatric ICU nurse: This is my official role on the ship. It has been a very difficult one this year. With my own grief from

mom’s passing so very fresh, each ICU patient, each patient death was ripping at a hurt barely beginning to heal. It has been a rough time. There have been more ICU patients than I remember being in the ICU last outreach. I think there have been less deaths but the ones have been patients that tore at our hearts…patients from last outreach, babies. There have been patients who should have done fine but then didn’t. I’ve had to use knowledge/skills that are not in my everyday here even though they were in my everyday work at home. BUT, it also meant getting to see a miracle. There are little day-to-day miracles that we miss a lot because we aren’t looking. But this miracle was an in-your-face, you can’t miss it miracle! We were preparing to place a breathing tube in a patient who had been struggling to breathe for over an hour. After a prayer by the surgeon, not only did we NOT intubate, but we were able to give less breathing support than we were previously giving! That just doesn’t happen. God is pretty amazing!

Emergency Medical Team: I am also on the EMT. It means that any time there is a patient doing badly or a crew member injured, there will be an overhead bell and the EMT will be called with a location. (it also means pretend victims every two weeks during fire drills). One EMT call found me sitting in the front room of my cabin with my cabin-mate Amy, both reading. I couldn’t find my shoes but hers were handy (pun intended!) so I dashed off in her shoes. I got upstairs to find it was Amy’s fiancée Sam who had lost the tip of his finger in a fight with the lift (elevator)…unfortunately the lift won. It is always a bit harder taking care of those who already live in my heart.

I always try to be honest with each of you. I am certain that I was supposed to return here this year even after mom’s passing, but it has definitely been harder. Although the joys are there, they are muted somehow…I can’t dance to the African worship music, the patients’ smiles wrap around my heart but there have been so many days when I could barely smile in return, I have been quieter, I have cried more. And yet, there has been such a peace and I have so clearly seen God’s hand on this time. The joys ARE there, even if they are muted. There IS laughter and love…just a bit quieter than usual. The work HAS been a blessing, just a bit harder to see.

What’s next??? Well…I’m coming home in mid-June. I’ll be home for about six months. The ship will be sailing to South Africa in August where it will go into dry dock for engine replacement. (They have to cut a big hole in the side of the ship to take out the old engines and place the new ones). Because of this, there will be limited medical outreach (eyes only) and so I will come home and work for a time. When I first get home, I will be heading to Amy and Sam’s wedding in Chicago. After that, I will likely be in Texas working. I look forward to seeing you all at home and sharing some time with you.

This work is just as much yours as it is mine and it is all for His glory. I could not be here serving if it weren’t for my gracious financial and prayer supporters. I pray that this work will bless you as well. You are part of each patient’s story. I am only the hands. Thank you, for myself and those who cannot say thank you.