preparation

We met in Esther's office early on Wednesday morning to work out the plan for the next two days. Twenty patients would be coming to the ship who needed to be evaluated for surgery. Tumors and jaws fused shut and gaping holes in the roofs of mouths and finally D Ward was going to have people in it again, if only for the day.

We sat at the table, she handed us a stack of pink sheets, and suddenly it was a year and a half ago and I was sitting in front of this computer again, sending e-mails around the world deep into the night.

These were twenty of the same pink sheets left over at the end of the outreach last time we were in Togo, twenty of the people that you prayed for so faithfully. Every single one of them had the telltale black dot in the top righthand corner. Someone is praying. You can set this one aside. You don't have to carry them in your heart any longer; someone is praying.

It was so overwhelming to watch them file into the ward, to match each one with a black-dotted pink sheet. To know that in the time we've been apart, someone has been lifting them up to the Father.

Only ten out of the twenty showed up between yesterday and today, and of those ten we couldn't schedule all of them for surgery. One little boy, Koffi (he was three when I sent out his name, just in case you recognize it) has a tumor on the back of his head that might be a break in his skull. He will need to wait for his CT scan to be reviewed by a radiologist somewhere in the first world before we can make a decision, but we're not even sure if the surgery will help much, since he's already so developmentally delayed. One woman tested positive for HIV and we had to send her home because her body would have rejected the surgery we wanted so desperately to perform.

These are hard things to hear at the very start of an outreach, hard things to say to aunties and women with hope-filled eyes. But all day long those black dots in the corner of their papers sat as a silent testimony. This is not your load to carry. It has been given to Him, and He holds it in His hands.

As we welcome new staff and train new nurses and get ready for the mass screening day on the first of February, this is the reminder I so desperately need. None of us are in this alone. None of us has to shoulder the entire burden. We rely on each other and we rely on you, scattered around the world, praying for names on little pink sheets of paper.

We're in this together.

It's the oldest cliche in the books, and I cringe when I hear it, even more so when I actually use it myself. I just don't know where the time went! This year is flying by.

Cringe or not, it's exactly what I thought when I finally managed to open my eyes this morning, far later than the to-do list on my dresser would have liked. It's been more than two months since the HoJ and I landed ourselves back on North American soil, which means that it's high time we left it again.

We leave for Peru tomorrow.

As a farewell to my hometown which has treated us so well since we've been back, we wandered down to the local Chinese restaurant for the lunch special yesterday. I've been eating there since I was young, and I've recently introduced the HoJ to their pork fried rice. He is now, understandably, a die-hard fan.

Once our bellies were filled and we had our little cups of tea in front of us, we cracked open our fortune cookies and burst out laughing when we read our miniature prophesies. Their accuracy and relevance were uncanny.



Tomorrow is the start of our next adventure, and I'm excited to be able to share it with you. I'll be the first to admit that I'm a little apprehensive. As we laid in bed last night, I couldn't shake the feeling. I think it's a mixture of things. The ship is getting closer and closer to Sierra Leone as I type this, and my heart is yearning to be there right now. (Yes, I said yearning. It's the closest I can come to describe the way it's trying to punch a hole through my chest wall and go soaring off through the air towards West Africa. Strange feeling, this.) And I'm headed in the opposite direction.

It's such a strange thing, knowing that I'm in God's will but wanting so badly to do something else at the same time; it's a pill I haven't had to swallow before. Up until now, I've been living out my dream life, getting to practice nursing among the most incredible people in the most incredible setting. And now I'm being told that the next five months of my life will take place more than six thousand kilometers away from them.

I think it's called obedience, and I'm not sure I like the taste of it. But I'm pretty sure, as with everything God plans for my life, that this is going to be so much better than I could have hoped.

So with that, I'm signing off until some unspecified time in the future when I find an internet cafe somewhere in the Amazon jungle. I'm going to go beat the mess in our room into tightly-packed submission, and tomorrow I'm getting on a plane heading south instead of east.

I think it's going to be awesome.

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Want to know more about where we'll be and what we'll be doing? Here are a few links:

YWAM - the organization we'll be working with
YWAM Peru - the website of the base where we're staying
DTS (Discipleship Training School) - a description of the course

My mother always reminds me when it's been too long since I've blogged, and this time was no exception. Until the last two days, though, there hasn't been much to say. Silence truly was golden. Silence was the ten days spent in blissful rest at Deeper Still, rediscovering the reason God told us all to stop working on that seventh day.

Mama J has a point when she says that we've totally lost the concept of Sabbath rest. I think it's especially true for us as missionaries. We're meant to be these unbreakable powerhouses who just keep going day after day, month after month, with no regard to ourselves. Because, after all, there are needy people who, well, need us. Right?

But what we were forced to do during our time in Chiang Rai was to put all that aside. To be 'useless' for ten whole days, except for a couple of odd jobs around the place. To stop measuring ourselves by how much we could accomplish in a day or by how many days in a row we could keep on going. And it felt strange, a little wrong, even, to be in a place where nothing was expected of me. I couldn't shake the feeling that there was somewhere I should be, something I should be doing, and all of a sudden it became so clear to me that Mama J is right; I don't know how to rest.

I don't have any earth-shattering realizations to add to that. I didn't all-of-a-sudden learn to lay down my need to be useful. I think, if anything, I just learned that I need to. Deeper Still was a starting, a place to begin. Now I just need to find out how I can do that in real life, something that promises to be slightly tricky because of the next piece of news I have to share with you.

We're going to South America!

That, I know, seems incongruous for the author of a blog entitled Ali's African Adventures. And Africa is still the biggest piece of my heart; be sure of that. However, for six months next year, starting on the 28th of February, the HoJ and I are going to be living in South America instead; in Peru, to be exact. We're going to be taking part in something called a Discipleship Training School (DTS for short, which is how I'll refer to it from now on) with Youth With a Mission, (YWAM). We'll take part in four months of class and then go on outreach for two months, to places not yet determined. (Potentially, though, we could end up in Ecuador, where a good chunk of my heart was left in the sandy ground of a camp on the beach there.)

The course will be in Spanish and then translated into English, so I'll be learning another language on top of everything else going on. We will be living in the city but going on outreaches to Amazon river villages, and the packing list includes jungle hammocks, so I'm pretty sure it's going to be an incredible six months. We're going to use the time to seek God's heart for us for the coming years and to grow in our love for God, the world and each other. I get the feeling it's going to be intense.

So that's the news up to the minute. We've spent the last two days in Bangkok, wending our way through crowded markets, climbing temples and riding boats on dirty canals, but I can't upload pictures, so it seems hard to write about for some reason. We're about to say goodbye to Elliot and Julle, our companions for the last two months, and board a plane for the next leg of our trip, where we'll spend six weeks just hanging out with Mercy Ships friends and family in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.

In some ways, I'm looking forward to the first world. It will be nice to pay a set price rather than having to barter for everything I want. For the first time in seven weeks I won't have to carry toilet paper with me everywhere I go, and I'm going to be able to go out alone with no fear for my own safety.

But standing on a crowded bus last night, sweat tricking down my back even as my hair was being pulled into the fan above my head (because I am taller than 99% of the Thai population), I had this sudden, blinding realization that, in some strange way, I belong in the third world. I might long for the first, for its clean bathrooms and safe streets, but there will always be something in me that pulls me back to the chaos and the open markets and the people staring at my white skin. I revel in the crush of people and the swirl of colours and I don't think I want to stay forever in a place where no one stares at me.

Ask me again after I've had a dose of clean streets and first-world supermarket selection; I might be singing a different tune, but something tells me I'll be missing all this.

Back when I started this blog, I had only one real aim in mind: to cut down on the number of newsletters my mother would tell me I needed to write. I figured that if I wrote my stories here, people could just stop by and read them, and they'd know what was going on with me.

Along the way, it's evolved into something so much different. I find myself actually needing to write, regardless of whether or not anyone is reading. I process my days through my words, my sorrow and joy and frustration and exultation all draining through my fingertips as I type. It calms me, writing. Takes the pieces that didn't fit and slots them neatly into place. Smooths the rough edges and holds me tight while I cry.

And somewhere in the midst of all that, I realized that people were reading what I wrote. Not too many, and probably not many with any regularity, but somewhere out there, someone was taking the time invest in this work alongside me. I can't tell you how encouraging that has been. To know that there are people out there who, in some small way, care about me and what we're doing here. Care enough to leave a comment when they can relate to something I've said. Care enough to send me stickers from Singapore. Care enough to write me some of the most uplifting e-mails that land in my inbox.

Like the one I got from Dina just yesterday. The one that was full of joy! and! exclamation! points! The one that ended with the words ...got to get my kiddos to bed! but first bedtime prayers for ali and ani...

Now, maybe it makes me a big old baby, but I'll admit right now that I read that e-mail and burst into tears over here, somewhere on the Atlantic. The thought of those four little kids who I've never met taking time at the end of the day to pray for me completely floored me, and I guess I just wanted to say a public thank you, to whoever's out there.

Thank you for being a part of this. Thank you for caring about me and what we do here on the ship. Thank you for leaving comments and writing me encouraging e-mails. Thank you for sending stickers and baby clothes and craft supplies. Thank you for praying for us. We'll be in Togo in just a few days, going full-out to get everything set up for the new outreach. There will be new nurses to train, new translators to meet, new stories to learn.

And somewhere, on the far side of the ocean, there might just be a handful of kids sending prayers up to Abba for us. Which is why I'll keep writing, keep telling all those stories. Because they're not just praying for me; they're praying for the babies with the cleft lips, the ladies who have been wet for years, the old men blinded by cataracts.

The worship leader at our community meeting last night said it perfectly, I think.

We are going to Togo because God is already there.

We are going to meet God there, all of us, because we are all part of this work. You and me and the little girl who sent me the money from her piggy bank to help pay for a package she sent me. Whether you realize it or not, you are part of this work, part of this awesome privilege as we get a front row seat to the piecing-together of shattered lives.

And that, my friends, deserves an exclamation point!

Here's another old post, this one from the beginning of August. It seems to me that every time I read back my own words, I find myself realizing all over again why it is that I'm quitting my job, packing up and heading to the other side of the world.

.....

This is going to be long, but I guess I had one today. I was precepting a new hire, a middle-aged woman who came right out and told me that she had missed her true calling as a veterinarian, was just in nursing for the money and thus was going to be unhappy for the rest of her life. Needless to say, it was a difficult 12 hours, compounded by the fact that my patient was slipping backwards.

We're talking about a baby I have poured blood, sweat and tears into over the past month. Literally. He's been getting worse rather than better over the past days, and the outlook is darker than ever. I had to explain this to the parents when they arrived to visit. Four dark brown eyes locked on mine, trusting me to lead them through the tangle of their son's life. If only I could see my own way clear ...

They explained to me that, in their culture, it's traditional to shave the baby's head during the first week of life. The hair is "dirty", and shaving it allows the baby to have a clean start at life. The dad didn't meet my eyes as he quietly told me that they had thought he would come home, but now, 39 days into this, they realize that things aren't going as planned, and is there any way we could do it for them?

I had to decide at that point. Give report, pass off the task, end one of the more difficult days I've had in recent memory and walk away? Tempting. And then, unbidden, the image of Christ, kneeling, towel around his waist, taking one dirty foot after another into his hands, washing, drying. A clean start.



The night nurse and I warmed water, got soap and razors and set to work. We carefully placed his soft, black hair into an envelope for his parents to take home. The room was quiet. I looked up and saw his mother smiling. Dad took a picture on his camera. Then recorded a video. And then ten more pictures. Smiles and laughter in the face of terrible suffering.

And this is why I do it. The least of these, Christ says; whatever you do for the least of these, you're doing it for me. Surely this baby is among the very smallest and saddest of God's creations, but today, for the briefest of moments, I got a glimpse at how He must have felt that night.

Hope and healing.

I originally wrote this on July 27th, the day after I got the tattoo. This being a place to record my African journey, I figure it's only appropriate to repost it here.

.....

The question is, I suppose, warranted; it comes quickly on the heels of surprise. "Why?"

There are two reasons. The one is so cliched that I feel lame just telling people about it. Just know that it's a story about a little girl who loved her daddy very much and a daddy who loved both her little girl and the stars, and so everything was as it should be. The other reason is, perhaps, more important, although it's hard to tell.

I've lived in New Jersey all my life, in a quiet suburban town with very few stars; we're too close to New York for that. Growing up, I spent long, idyllic days at Camp, drinking in God's creation. I used to throw myself down on the soccer field or the archery range and stare up at the sky late into the night, amazed by how many stars I could see. It's quiet at Camp, set apart from the rest of the world. It's easy to be close to God there, tucked away in His hills.

I grew up, and God put me on a plane and sent me to Zambia, to live in the bush for a startling, dusty, variegated summer. Every night, just before the generator went off, my housemate and I would boil a kettle full of water. The lights would go off, and silence would descend on the hill. We would drag our chairs outside and sit, mugs of bush tea in hand, our hearts emptied of everything but the stars. I talked to her once about how I have a hard time staying close to God. How I get distracted. She thought for a long moment before replying, simply, in her broken English, "But that's why God bring you here. It's quiet in the bush. You can hear Him here."

For the rest of my life, no matter where I am, no matter how busy my life becomes, I'll carry this reminder with me: Stop. Look up. He is there, and He is so desperately in love with you.

That's why I did it. Because I'm forgetful.

My name is Alison. Call me Ali. (That felt so Moby Dick for a moment there.) I'm 24 years old and I've been a nurse in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) for the last two years and change. I live at home with my parents and my sister in a quiet New Jersey town not far from New York City. I teach Sunday School and lead youth group. I am a photographer.

I am comfortable.

Perhaps that last is the reason for all of this. The reason that God tapped me on the shoulder, dropped me to my knees and told me I'm headed to Africa for ten months. The reason that I'm no longer able to stay here, quietly living out my life in the confines of suburban America. The reason that, despite the two years of seniority (and being that much closer to Christmases at home), I'm quitting my dream job in less than two months.

I'll be getting on a plane and heading for Freetown, Sierra Leone. I'm going to be serving as a volunteer nurse on board the world's largest non-governmental hospital ship, the Africa Mercy. I'll be part of a team, made up of volunteers from around the world, that provides free surgeries to the world's most desperate poor. I will be paying to live in cramped quarters, work long hours and be away from my family for the better part of a year. I have never been so excited in all my life.

.....

I met a man who hails from just outside Freetown at a church I visited this summer. Joseph shook my hand about seven times in the space of our short conversation, a wide smile cracking his face from ear to ear. We stood in the quiet sanctuary after the service, and I asked him what I should know before I went. The smile faltered for a moment as his brow furrowed. "Have you seen poverty before?"

I thought I had that one covered. You see, I was in Africa before. Nine weeks is hardly long enough even to get settled, but I was changed by my time in the Zambian bush. I saw, for the first time (American child that I am), poverty. I saw children die from malaria, malnutrition and gastroenteritis. I sat in my room at night and cried because these deaths could have been prevented.

I explained this to Joseph. He took my hand again. "Sister," he said softly, "that is Zambian poverty. That is bush poverty. In Sierra Leone, you will see war poverty. It is very different."

.....

I don't know how I'm going to do this. I find myself overwhelmed by the magnitude of it. But I know God has plans for me. Hope and future. That much He has promised. So off I go. I'll keep a chronicle here. And I'll come back at the end of next year changed in ways I can't even begin to anticipate.

I can't wait.