Entries by Ali Wilks

Dear Captain,

Let me start out by saying that I think you do a wonderful job around here. However, I just have one tiny little thing that I would like to discuss with you; morning abandon ship drills. Please, I mean no disrespect, but I feel this has to be addressed.

I understand that you're just trying to keep us safe. I understand how important it is for us to be startled out of our sleep to stumble, foggy-eyed, to our emergency muster stations. I even understand how vital it is that we all practice getting into our lifejackets. (Actually, that one I can't complain about; how did you know that that boxy orange fashion faux-pas would sit at just the right level for me to rest my chin on while I grabbed a quick nap between announcements?)

All I'm saying is that, given the fact that I didn't sleep more than an hour last night, (and a fitful hour at that because I just couldn't. stop. coughing.) it seemed kind of cruel to wrench me from my bed, make me find my pants in an incredible hurry and send me running up to Deck Eight. (Well, to be honest, I wasn't running. Number one, because I was wearing flip flops, and we all know you never run in flip flops. Number two, because I'm a respiratory cripple. That tends to limit my top speed. I'm just saying.)

Please, if you have any regard for my sanity and/or the state of my lungs, can we have the drill at, say, lunchtime next week? Better yet, let's wait until it's decently the afternoon. Together, we can make drills an enjoyable experience for all involved. I know we can do this.

Yours Truly,
Ali


PS I wasn't kidding; I really do think you do a great job. And your kid is adorable.

Not that I doubted it for a second, but it turns out that my tech support is indeed the best out there.

He's the kind of guy who I can IM and say, So, I'm technologically challenged. Can you help me change the layout of my blog? I need a new template. And I need you to modify that template for me so I can make it show a header that I put together. Also, can you change the color of the links? Blue and purple is way too garish. Turquoise and lighter turquoise would be great. No, hang on, a little lighter. Yeah, you're right; the other one should be a little darker too. What's that? You want to make the links a different color when you hover over them? Go for it. Wow, that's a nice red you picked there. Not too ... what was the word? ... garish.

And then, just when the blog is looking pretty sharp (if I do say so myself) and everything has fallen neatly into place, he sends me a video of my niece, stretching and making all kinds of little gurgly baby noises while she tries to wake up. And my heart explodes into a million pieces in my chest, and it feels like love.

Thanks Matt; I couldn't ask for a better techie/nerd/brother.

Well, while we all sit around and wait for me to learn how to write code (which could potentially take the rest of my life, just to warn you) I think it's only fair to update you on the ever-dwindling patient situation on the wards. Ward, I should say, since we only have B Ward open at the moment. Actually, if we're going to split hairs, I should probably mention that only one side of B Ward is open, and half of that one side is already torn down and packed away.

We only have three patients left.

The most amazing part is to watch our prayers being answered right in front of our eyes. We started praying, and Louise's wounds dried up. She went home yesterday, healed. We started praying, and Sedeke's infection was also healed. He went home yesterday, too, clutching a new Bible that he refused to stop reading. We started praying, and we were able to arrange for Jacob to be transferred to a hospital up country, near where he and his mother live. He too left yesterday. We started praying, and Kwelywoh went back to the operating room one last time, just like he's been doing every few days for the last couple weeks. Only this time, Dr. Gary found the place where the brain fluid was leaking out. He patched it and ran a thin plastic catheter under Kwelywoh's skin from a spot between his eyes to drain into the space around his stomach. We're still waiting to see how Kwelywoh will adjust to the new pressures inside his head, but with all the other answered prayers we've just received, it's hard to think this one won't go our way too.

Eddie and Kwelywoh and Timothy. That's it. They're the last of an endless string of stories that stretches back over these past ten months, woven together like so many threads of this cloth. Hope and heartbreak and healing and pain. I can stand back, now, so close to the end, and see it all as one.

And moving in and out and through every story, I see love.

Hi there.

Please excuse the appearance around here for a little while. I'm trying to ever-so-slightly upgrade the way this site looks. However, I am, and always will be, a luddite. So it might take a while.

Be patient please?

Remember ten years ago, when that song Closing Time came out? If you're close to my age, you probably had it recorded faithfully on at least three different mix tapes. It ran through my head almost constantly today as we power-cleaned the now-empty A Ward.

Closing time, open all the doors and let you out into the world.
Closing time, you don't have to go home but you can't stay here.
Closing time, time for you to go out to the places you will be from.
Closing time, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

Three weeks from today I will walk down the gangway and into a Mercy Ships car. We'll be in Tenerife by then, so we'll drive on pothole-free roads to the airport where I'll get on a plane and I'll fly home. And just like that, Liberia will be nothing but a memory, forty-five hundred miles away from the family I'll be winging my way towards.

I can't wait to see them. I don't want to leave. Bring on the paradox. (Which, I'm realizing, is exactly what I typed the night before I left home in February. Oh, how my paradigm has shifted.)

I'm probably going to beat this feeling to death over the next few weeks, but this leaving is so bittersweet. I know I'll be coming back for Benin, so when I disembark it'll be with the assurance that it's not forever. But when the ship sails from Liberia, I don't know if I'll ever return, and I don't know how to come to terms with that. I love so much about this country.

I can't stay here. I have to go out from this place and back into the world, and I'm scared.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

Back in February, when I first arrived to the ship and everything was new and unfamiliar, I remember learning my very first Liberian praise song.

Great things He has done,
Greater things He will do.
Unto the Lord be the glory,
Great things He has done.

I remember so vividly sitting on the ward as those words washed over me, poised to begin what's turned out to be the greatest adventure of my life. Greater things He will do. We were all ready to see God do greater things than we had ever seen. It was a sense of anticipation unlike anything I had ever felt before.

This morning marked the final ward service for our outreach here in Liberia. By next Sunday, the wards will be empty, the patients all discharged. So today, we worshiped. It started out slow, but the pace picked up once Andrew, a former patient and the best drummer I've ever met, showed up to lend his expertise. As soon as he began to beat drum, I realized I couldn't stay still. Steph and I (another ward nurse who's become a great friend over the past ten months) spilled out into the hall to join a group of translators who were already shaking their bodies for Jesus.

It's easy to get lost in the music here. The drum pounds its rhythm through your chest and all around you people shuffle and shake, arms lifted as high as the low ceilings will allow. It was somewhere there, immersed in the sound, that the drum slowed and all around me voices blended and rose. Great things He has done...

I sat in the same ward in February, waiting to see the great things God would do. Today I found that I could sing those words in truth from the deepest parts of my soul. He has done great things. I have seen lives rebuilt, futures restored, wonder upon wonder. I never doubted that it would be this way, but somehow looking back and seeing it all played out across the weeks and months, I'm struck all over again by just how awesome a God I serve.

Now all that's left is to pray that these next five days would be filled with even more great things. We still have several patients on the wards who are struggling to get well and so we're holding a 24:7 prayer vigil throughout this whole week, crying out for the Healer to heal.

Pray with us. Pray for Sedeke, that the infection would leave his neck and that his lungs would grow strong. Pray for Baby Eddie, that the wound on his scalp (the place where we grafted skin from his leg) would heal quickly and be free from infection. Pray for Louise, that her wounds would finish healing in time. Pray for Kwelywoh, that the leaking brain fluid would be miraculously dried up and that he could go on to live his life as a happy, healthy child. Pray for Nicholas, that his lungs would strengthen and that infection would be healed.

We're ready to see God do more great things.

I haven’t really tried to do anything much off-ship since the accident. Being a passenger in a car on these roads is honestly frightening, and I kept having visions of being smashed into by another taxi. Or a bus. Or a truck.

Today, however, I ignored my fear (and the nasty case of bronchitis I can’t seem to shake) and piled in with nine other friends to visit Bomi Lake. It formed when a mining company hit an underground spring, and is also the home of a mineral water bottling plant. We were promised a swim in a clean, parasite-free lake (no schistosomiasis for us!) and I jumped at the opportunity. We drove through the countryside, all orange and green and smelling like damp earth and cookfire smoke, until arriving at Tubmanburg.

Not wanting to arrive to the lake and be told to drive back to the ship, we stopped at a UN camp and checked to make sure it was all right. The Nigerian guard assured us that it would be no problem. The three or four Liberian policemen we stopped and spoke to assured us the same thing. (You know where this is going, right?)

Our first stop was Pak Point. The rocky road winds up the side of the mountain before depositing your car in a little flattened area. A carefully kept path guides you up even further until you’re on top of the world, looking down over the lake and the villages and everything is turquoise and brown and it looks like a dream. We braved a less-than-stable metal ladder to climb up into a little treehouse-esque perch, where we learned just how far it is to China and feared slightly for our lives as the boards creaked underfoot.

Pak Point was not our goal, however, so we jumped back into the trucks and headed down to the lake. We arrived at the lake sweaty and excited, staring eagerly at the cool green water. At which point our dreams were dashed, because, let’s face it: this is Africa. Nothing is easy. The Nigerian guard at the gate crossed his arms, shook his head, and informed us that we couldn’t pass without written permission. We tried to reason with him for a while, and then headed back up the road to hunt for permission.

Our search was initially utterly fruitless. We found a Nigerian UN camp and spoke with the guard there, who informed us that he was powerless to give us the proper permission. We needed to speak with his superior, who unfortunately was unavailable. The Liberian Chief Inspector was headed to town, and everyone was busy preparing. We pushed him a little, and he said he’d try to call the man. It was then that a white truck pulled out of the gate and roared off down the road. Oh, our not-so-helpful Nigerian man told us, pointing to the car, that was him. He’s gone now.

We, however, were not willing to let that be the end. We jumped back into the cars and took off down the road, following the elusive Nigerian who held the power to let us swim. We followed him right to the gates of a Pakistani UN camp, and were delighted to see that one of the guards there was a man who we had been talking to up the hill at Pak Point. He opened the gate for us with a grin, and directed us to go park next to the Nigerian’s car.

I honestly can’t say enough about how much I love the Pakistani UN here in Liberia. Every time I’ve gotten into a scrape up country this year, they have materialized out of the bush to lend their aid. They’ve pulled my taxi out of a ditch, given me a ride on top of their load of bamboo, helped up clear the road after the accident, and now were running interference with the Nigerians. We chose a bad time, honestly; as we were waiting for the Nigerian to finish a phone call, the Liberian Chief Inspector rolled through the gates of the camp. But our Pakistani friends made sure the Nigerian heard our plea. He made an exception to some vague rule, placed a call to his friend at the lake, and we were in the clear.

The rest of the afternoon proved to be more than worth the wait. The water was cool and clear, and a little gazebo on the dock provided shade and a place to sit while we ate our lunches. There was even a diving board built out over a drop-off at the edge of the lake. We took turns diving and flipping and belly-flopping into the water, reveling in the feeling of being out of the city. I overcame a lifelong fear and actually flipped off the board; it only took me about an hour of standing on the plank, crippled by my indecision, much to the amusement of those watching who took turns talking me into making the jump.

We arrived back to the ship around dinner time, a little browner and more than refreshed.

There have been a few times this year when I've felt absolutely and utterly far from home. I really didn't think American Thanksgiving was going to be one of them.

We've never been big into American Thanksgiving. It was just the second round of turkey in a three-month extravaganza that marked the end of the year. My siblings and I were born in the States to Canadian parents, so we've all grown up as dual citizens, complete with the resulting double holidays. Canadian Thanksgiving was first, and seemed to mean a lot more, since that's when we actually got to see the cousins. Then came American, which really only felt like a wind-up for the big show in December. That's when we got to pile into the van again and make the eight or nine hour trek back up to granny's where gummy bears after meals and Christmas crackers with silly paper hats awaited.

Last night as I sat on the computer wasting time before talking to a friend, my brother came online. We chatted a bit about Mya and how their first night at home went. My mother signed on. She told me she was up there, cooking a turkey for everyone. That my sister was flying up to join them and my other brother took the day off and was coming for dinner.

They were all together. My whole family, plus the little one I've never met, and it hurt my heart so much not to be with them. It's hard being overseas, eh? my brother asked me. I said yes, but the truth is that I haven't ever given it too much thought. With internet and phone lines at my fingertips, it sometimes feels like I'm just in the next room, not half the world away.

Last night, the reality started to sink in. My family is incredibly close, despite the fact that we've grown up in separate countries. We have something, my cousin often says, that no other family does. It's hard to put a finger on. We don't really have to though; we all know what she's talking about, because we're family. But if this is what I'm being called to, this life and these people and this continent, then Mya's birth isn't the only thing I'm going to miss. It's going to be a lifetime of experiences lived apart from my family. Last night, that thought was so hard to wrap my heart around.

Oh, child, He says to me through my tears, nowhere did I say this would be easy. But you need to hold them lightly, this family I've given you. You need to be ready to turn your back on them, all of them, even Mya, if this is really what I've called you to. Just realize that what I have in store for you is more than you can imagine even in your wildest dreams. Trust Me.

Can you see why it's hard, though?

It's just after midnight and the wards are settled into a quiet hush.

When Allen from my church invited me to take part in our annual Thanksgiving Eve service, I was more than happy. It's one of my favourite traditions at my home church. We gather together on Wednesday evening and praise God for what He's done in the past year. And then, since everyone in the Brethren church seems to have an inherent ability to bake delicious pies, we head downstairs for a pre-turkey-day pie-fest. (Gladys, if you're reading this, I'm trying not to think too hard about what I'm missing this year!)

I wrote this a few weeks ago, when I found out that the service is going to be focused on giving thanks even through hard times. My dad was supposed to be reading it, right about now, but instead he's in Toronto meeting his granddaughter. My life is so full of such a strange mixture of joy and heartache these days; I wouldn't want it any other way.

It's hard to know what to write, because I'm sitting on a ship off the coast of West Africa. Outside, the sun is burning away the clouds from last night's rain. The faint ocean breeze is the only thing that breaks the stifling heat, and nothing in the air tells me that it's Thanksgiving. When I leave the port and walk to town, I pass ruined buildings, walls riddled with bullet holes and children hawking wares on street corners instead of going to school; nothing in this place looks like Thanksgiving. On the wards, our beds are filled with little kids in various stages of malnutrition, crying for their mothers or their fathers or just a cup of milk, even though their throats are scarred so badly that they can't drink anything. Women lie swathed in thick bandages and men whimper softly in pain as their wounds are cleaned and nothing feels like Thanksgiving.

And yet.

I was working on the wards yesterday evening. An old man had just come back from surgery and lay propped up on pillows, a clean white bandage around his head. How are you? I asked him, expecting the standard reply of fine or trying. Instead, he answered immediately. I am grateful to God.

Liberia is a country recovering from more than a decade of brutal civil war. Almost every person I talk to can recount horrific stories of families torn apart, loved ones savagely murdered, lives gone up in flames. In the face of all this, they are the most grateful people I have ever met. They have been teaching me this lesson all year long.

When I want to complain about the heat outside, I remember Victoria, who spent three hours crammed into the back of a Liberian taxi, just to come to the ship to say hello to me. Because, as she said, we did well for her, and she is thankful.

When I feel tired and think I can't handle one more shift at work, I remember Seikou and Saran, children wrapped in bandages from neck to navel, shoulders to wrists, recovering from surgeries to release necks and limbs trapped by burn scars. They laughed and played and endured painful therapies, and when we were finished stretching their joints and winding fresh gauze around their sores, they would look up through tear-filled eyes and say, thank you.

When my whole body ached and I could barely walk after my car accident and I just wanted to stay in bed, I remember Alfred. They reached into his leg, cut his bone and put it back together with pins and plates. And it wasn't long before he was hopping around the wards on his crutches, telling jokes, solemnly informing us that he was the scientist who would find the cure for AIDS and thanking us for taking care of him. We were, in his typically-teenaged words, cool.

When I missed my family, my mother and the Haggans and my cousin, and everything seemed to be happening so far out of my reach that all I wanted was to be angry and bitter, I remember Marion, a woman living under a curse. She has lost three children, been abandoned by her father and her boyfriend and shunned by the people of her village. And when I greet her as she comes through the gate and she shares all this with me, her face is resolute. No man can make a way for me. Thank God that He can make the way for me.

I am now, more than ever, convinced that nothing can separate me from the love of my God. Not death, not distance, not pain. Weariness, frustration and heartache have no power over Him. And no matter how hard I think things are, I have been given friends who show me with their lives that God can make a way for me.

And I am now, more than ever, thankful.

When I was born, twenty-five years ago, I was named after my Aunt Ali, and I've lived my whole life as her namesake. Today, finally, I get to live up to that name. Because I'm an aunt!

My sister-in-law and brother had a little baby girl this morning, Mya Grace. I just got to talk to them on the phone, and they sound ecstatic and stunned and wonderful. They held the phone up to her little ear so I could say hello.

Hi Mya, I told her, this is your Aunt Ali. I love you very much and I'm in Liberia right now, but I'll be home soon.

At which point she started to cry. I totally see her point. Liberia is really far away. But I'll be home soon.

And until then, they better send me lots of pictures!

And yet another reason living in community with people from around the world is one of the best things ever?

The look on your Swedish roommate's face when she experiences Pop Rocks for the first time in her life.

But, but, but I don't know what I should be feeling!

.....

A good five minutes pass

.....

Guys, it's still going. Listen! (with mouth wide open) Is this okay?

.....

Another couple minutes.

.....

Do you have more?

It seems that Harold has some kind of radar when it comes to my bad days. Last week, just when I needed a hug, Harold missed me enough to convince his mama to catch a car and come see me. Yesterday was another less-than-perfect day. Despite scenes like little Isaiah and his water-gulping frenzy, the shift wasn’t great. I seem to have caught the ship-wide case of bronchitis, and I spent much of the day doubled over, trying to cough my lungs out. (The hidden blessing in which is the fact that I think I’ll have a well-defined six pack if this keeps up for another day or two.) And just when I thought my body hurt enough, a combative patient wrapped himself around my neck and pulled just the right way, enough to cause an old back injury to flare up in a finger-numbing blaze of glory.

I was sitting at the computers feeling sorry for myself when a crew member appeared with a crumpled piece of paper in his hand. One of your patients is looking for you. Hawa? Hara? I’m not really sure. He held out the paper, and I recognized my name in Harold’s father’s handwriting. He had come back again, and his smile beamed up at me just as wide as I loped down the gangway. I greeted him and his mama and settled down to chat.

Not long into our visit, with Harold just barely starting to talk, she motioned to a black plastic bag that was resting next to my feet. We bring something for you. That plastic; it’s for you. I tried gently to protest, since the bag was bulging with gifts, but she cut me short. I beg you! We need to say thank you. An Harold choose the bananas his self.

I started to unpack the bag. The first thing I pulled out was a smaller plastic that held a whole bunch of bananas. Harold grinned at me, proud in his produce-picking skills. Next came three little bags of plantain chips. They’re crunchy and salty and just a little sweet and they’re easily my favourite snack here in Liberia. Whenever I leave the ship, I make sure I’ve got 5LD bills in my pockets, just in case I come across a little girl with a tray of treats balanced on her head.

The last gift was the biggest. I pulled out a handful of green cloth and unfolded a dress, complete with a smaller piece of fabric to be used as a head wrap. The dress is a standard Liberian garment; they look like muumuus and fit like potato sacks. And when they’re given to you as a gift, they’re generally big enough that all your roommates could take shelter under your cover in a hard rain. Harold’s family had clearly put thought into this bag of gifts, though. Harold pa get you a different one, but I never let him give it to you. I tol’ him no way, it the wrong size. It were too big for you, even though you got the Loma shape.

To say that I was touched by their generosity would be an understatement. As we get closer and closer to sailing, everyone around us has become increasingly demanding. They know that we’ll soon be gone, and so patients and friends and strangers on the street are taking their last opportunities to ask for the things they assume we can provide. It’s draining, and it gives us all an uncomfortable sense of being used. For Harold and his family to show me such love, asking nothing in return, was the most welcome breath of fresh air.

The rest of our visit passed in the usual style. Harold recited a couple Bible verses for me, along with with mama’s cell phone number. He was rather clearer on the phone number, but I give him style points for his classically Liberian rendition of James 4:8. Dress close to God so He can dress close to you. At one point, Harold’s mama got annoyed with him for his refusal to talk to me and addressed him sternly as Peace. When she saw my quizzical look, she laughed and explained. Peace his yard name. Harold jus’ the name he can carry to school. She went on to give me a lesson in Liberian naming. It turns out that everyone has a yard name, the name everyone knows them by. When it comes time for school, they are given another, more official name, the one that will appear on all their documents.

Josephine, Harold’s mama (whose real name is actually Siah), was pregnant with Harold/Peace in 2005, while the war was still raging in Liberia. She told me matter-of-factly about the rebels closing the port, barricading the roads and preventing supplies from coming through. By the time I were ready to get my baby, I were paying 100LD for one cup of rice. If I could even find the rice. It were not easy. The day the United Nations rolled into town, breaking the barricade and reopening the port, Josephine went into labor and delivered her child. That why he name Peace. Because that day the peace come.

Harold has certainly lived up to his yard name as he cements his place in my life, appearing just when I need love and encouragement and peace in my heart. Josephine said it best. She was talking about the perfection of all the gifts they had brought me (if you can call a potato sack perfect, which I most certainly did), but I think I'll pretend she was talking about everything. This boy, this year, this life of mine.

When God want to do something, He do it well. That's all.

Sorry to anyone who tried to check out this site in the last day or so; we were having some technical difficulties with crashing servers. To be precise, my brother and uncle, who coordinate the confusing aspects of this site, were having technical difficulties. I was searching desperately for a paper bag to hyperventilate into as I envisioned all my photos and blog entries vanishing into the Great Internet Void.

Thankfully, my brother and uncle are the ones who actually make a difference to the running of this thing (my Oscar-worthy hyperventilation notwithstanding) and all seems to be well again.

It’s ten o’clock; do you know if your files are backed up?

I'm thinking happiness looks something like this: a little one-year old boy tearing through the door of the ward, just ahead of his mama. From the hall I can hear the sounds of worship, the voices raised high and the drums pounding. But this little one has had enough of singing and sitting still. He runs to his bed and grabs the blue plastic cup sitting on the chair next to his pillow, lifting it up to his mama, who takes it with a smile as broad as the morning. She fills it with water, hands it back to him and he drinks. After about a minute of concentrated gulping, the little one hands the cup back and runs back into the hall, heading for the sound of the drums. The mama pauses in the doorway to look back at me.

He ask to drink? I ask her almost without expecting her answer. Yes. He say he wan' drink. I am happy.

Considering that her child has been unable to swallow since drinking the caustic liquid back in May, that her child can now do what she thought he would never do again, that her child is no longer condemned to die from starvation and malnutrition, I think she has every right to be just that.

It feels like a lifetime ago that I sat next to little Sadie’s bed, holding vigil over his motionless body, willing him to live. Despite pouring everything we had into that boy, we failed and the cancer won. I was just thinking about how easy it is to focus on the failures. Despite a year of successful surgeries, lives changed and futures reconstructed, it’s the ones we couldn’t fix that haunt me in the dark hours of the night.

I think God knew about this quirk of human nature, our proclivity to remember the dark even in the face of so much light, because he recently sent us Esau. He came to us with an eye swollen and bulging. After surgery was done to remove the useless tissue, the diagnosis was confirmed: Burkitt’s lymphoma. Again. Esau lay in his bed, curled up in a little ball, his head wrapped in layers and layers of gauze as we tried to stop the bleeding. His father (or brother; he answers to both titles) sat at the end of his bed, alternately patting Esau’s back or turning his head away from the sight of a small boy so sick.

And because we couldn’t see another one die like Sadie, God didn’t let it happen this time. Instead, we were able to get a dose of cyclophosphamide, the chemotherapy that is almost always effective against this oh-so-treatable (if you catch it soon enough) cancer. We pumped it into Esau’s small body and we held our collective breath in a silent, desperate prayer for healing. Because we all knew we couldn’t do it again.

If today was any indication, it would seem that God was listening. The bandages are long gone; Esau now sports nothing but a little patch over his missing eye. He runs around the wards, dishing out hugs and smiles with reckless abandon. And he laughs. Oh, how that child laughs. If the internet will ever cooperate with me, I’m going to upload a video of this child laughing, and I defy you to keep a straight face as you watch it.

I was doing something in another corner of the ward today when I heard two people talking. They were discussing Esau’s condition and the history of his sickness. His father/brother probably had no idea how profound his words were, but they summed up our entire work here in two short sentences.

He was sad for months and months, ever since he took that sickness. But now ... now he can laugh!

When we sail in three weeks and patients are left behind, a few of them maybe not-quite-healed, it’s Esau’s laugh that I need to remember, not Sadie’s death.

Edited to add the love:


(See what I mean?)