leaving

Today was another one of the jumbled days, one of the ones where I live a thousand moments that I want to tell you about and then find myself sitting here in front of an empty screen, searching for the words to somehow make you understand what this place means to me.

It never gets old. I've been here for four years, and today I was explaining some of the surgeries we've been doing to a visiting media team and the wonder in their eyes looked exactly the way my heart feels every. single. day. I look around that room at the hope lying in each bed and I can't really imagine anywhere I'd rather be.

My disembarkation form, the one we all have to fill out when we're leaving the ship, was on my door today, Thursday's date printed neatly across the top. I burst into tears when I saw it because it means that my time left is measured in hours now, and hours don't feel like enough.

So instead I measure my time in those thousands of moments.

My mind snaps a photo of a mother and her still-so-sick baby, mama's hands covering her daughter's, protecting her even as she sleeps a sleep born of pure exhaustion. I store the image away to be referenced later on when I need to know how to be the right kind of mama.

Across the ward a teenager returns from surgery. What was meant to be a routine bandage removal turned into several hours on the operating table, but I can't help thinking that Someone planned for this, because the little piece of bone that had to be removed to make room for the muscle that would cover the hole they found was just the right size to give shape to a new nose, one we never thought she'd have.

A newly-minted thirteen year-old is admitted on his birthday, sitting shyly on a chair in the corner, a rag covering the tumor on the side of his face as we dance and clap and sing Happy Birthday in three different languages. His grandma sits by his side, her back ramrod-straight, eyes glittering with the promise that this year will bring for her grandson, for the day coming so soon when he won't have to hide anymore.

Just before shift change, a four year-old taps my leg and lifts up his hands, hope in his still-swollen eyes. I reach for him, settle him on my back, his feet wrapped around my belly, and he rests his head on my shoulder as we gather to pray. From behind me, I hear the amens echoed in his tiny voice.

Soon enough I'll have to open my hands and release this place. But for now I gather these moments like a farmer bringing in the harvest, stuffing my heart until it's ready to burst, tucking still frames and memories into each little corner.

It never gets old.

Tonight marks one week until I leave the ship for at least five months. I hate leaving. I know that it's for a good reason this time, but I'm already dreading the feeling of bumping a heavy suitcase down the gangway, climbing into a Land Rover, and driving away from the port.

One of my favourite parts about this season on the ship, one of the reasons I'm so torn about leaving, is the fact that I've had the chance to be a youth leader again. I love the youth on board here; they're a crazy bunch of kids from around the world, and I've been challenged by their perspectives over and over again. Carys Parker, Dr. Gary's daughter, recently wrote something that was exhibited at the Academy Arts Fair. I stood in the narrow hallway and felt my breath catch in my throat as I read because she's just got it so right.

Africa is my home. She is the sun-scorched deserts and the dripping rain forests, the mighty lion pouncing upon the zebra, the tribes that walk upon her rich, red soil, the palm trees growing strong and tall. The crowded, busy market places, where everything from oranges and mangos to jeans and microwaves are sold. This is Africa. Africa is the people sitting around the fire as the darkness of night closes in, She is the breaking of bones as the women carry their heavy loads high upon their heads, but not of spirit even though death steals so many. Africa is the bright colors and fabrics that blanket the land, she is the laughter of the scantily clothed children as they splash in the waves, She is family, and tradition, and a place of beauty, She is home. This is my Africa.

After years of living here, I have come to look past the poverty and corruption to see the beauty of this cultural land. Africa has forever left her mark on my heart.

Can't you just see it? This is why it's so hard to leave, even when I know I'm coming back. Because my life isn't what it used to be back before I ever set foot on the ship. There's some sort of fundamental change that's been worked deep inside me, some switch that's been flipped and now I don't know where home is anymore. I read Carys' words and I'm convinced it's here, and then I think of the family waiting for me in North America and I can't wait to get to the airport and I feel like I've lost all sense of equilibrium.

Compounding all this is the stark reality that in just a few days I will no longer be working full-time as a nurse. I know they say once a nurse, always a nurse, but I'm not starry-eyed enough to believe that nothing is going to be different. I'm stepping into a completely new reality, and while I love adventure, I'm not so great with change.

And then Lara, another one of the youth, got up at Community Gathering tonight, looked straight into my soul, and spoke to my secret questions. Your story has already begun. God is already doing something in your life. Don't wait for this time to be over. Your story has already begun.

I've been lying awake at night, wondering who on earth I'll be once the title on my badge is different, and all the time God's been writing His story around me and through me. I'm dreading the end of this season when God's already seen past it to the chapters ahead. Why do I doubt Him? This isn't the end of anything.

When I opened up the nursing schedule this morning to check staffing for the upcoming week, I glanced up at the top line. It’s the one where my schedule is posted, and I never really look at it because my schedule is the same every week. Monday through Friday, day shift. It’s simple.

Today, though, I looked at my own schedule and it hit me like a fist in the gut. Five shifts left. After four years down in the wards, I have five shifts left until I pack up and fly home for maternity leave. And when I get back, my badge is going to read Primary Caregiver, not Pediatric Nurse or Team Leader.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I’m more than excited about this new chapter in our lives, about the little one growing inside me, about finally getting to be a mama after dreaming of it since I was a teenager babysitting the neighbours. But this morning, looking around D Ward, the thought of leaving it all was a bitter pill to swallow. I’ll still be involved in little ways down in the hospital once we’re back on board with Poppy, but it’ll be nothing like it is now. I get to be there every day, now. I get to work with every patient that comes on board for maxillo-facial surgery. I get to hear every story.

Stories like Esther’s, who, at sixteen years old, came to us from Nigeria with tumors that Dr. Gary ranked in the top five that he’s ever seen. It wasn’t the size of them, although they were impressive by any standards, but the fact that they invaded almost her entire face. Usually we see this type of thing in either the lower or upper jaw, but not both. Esther’s disease had taken over both her jaws almost entirely, and in a marathon, nearly twelve-hour surgery last Thursday, Dr. Gary and two local surgeons took apart Esther’s face and put it back together with metal plates and screws and hundreds and hundreds of sutures.

Esther has been slowly recovering, first in the ICU and now back on the ward, and today I went to stand at the foot of her bed while her nurse changed her bandages and removed the drains from her incision lines. It was the first time I had seen her new face without the bulky layers of gauze and tape, and I couldn’t stop the tears that filled my eyes.

Oh, Esther, I told her, You are so beautiful.

Maybe I’m seeing her through the eyes of a nurse, looking ahead to the future, after the weeks it will take for all the swelling to go down, the months that still need to pass before the extra skin will retract back and tighten. But the little girl lying in that bed is beautiful nonetheless. She no longer needs the scarf that she wrapped herself in when she was admitted, the cloth she’s been using to cover her shame all these years.

Esther’s eyes widened and the hint of a smile crossed her lips as Alana (her nurse) brought her a mirror. She peered into it, just like she has every day since waking up free from her tumors, and dropped it to look back at me. What do you think? Alana asked her. Is it good?

Esther nodded once, that one tiny gesture speaking more than words ever could, and then settled back on her pillows, content to let us care for her.

This is what I’ll miss when I go. I’ve been a part of incredible things like this for so long that I have no idea how to be anything else. And for once, I have no answers for myself, no neat little platitude with which to sum up this entry. Just, I don’t know how I’m going to walk away from this next Thursday.

And just like that it's over for another year. There were three lonely beds in D Ward this morning, Hassan, Grandma Groundnut, and the last patient from A Ward who I hadn't met before. I walked in and Grandma Groundnut stopped in her tracks, ran over to me and buried her head in my chest. She held me tight, sobbing out her fear and her sadness into my scrub top.

I busied myself with the last tasks. I buttered bread and made tea and handed out lotion, and after a surprise fire drill, we gathered in a circle to pray. Hassan sat on Sarah's (our administrative assistant) lap, and to every sentence I spoke, he added an emphatic amen.

We headed out into the cool morning air, huge bundles of dressing supplies balanced precariously on heads as Hassan's mama and Grandma Groundnut swayed down the gangway. We held hands as we walked out to the gate, and after one last hug they turned and headed up the road towards home.

There are times when other people's words work so much better than my own, when someone else can speak my own heart better than I can. This is one of those times. I love her thoughts on the end of the outreach, on the way it feels to get here so close to the end. So I'll just let her speak for me.

Coming in for the last leg of the race has been a blessing to me. We care when something ends because of the significance it had throughout its course. And, as it turns out, experiencing the end of something significant can be just as moving as being part of its beginning.

To quote our friend Hassan, Amen.

(Quick update on Sia: I spoke with her uncle this morning who had just been in touch with the hospital in Guinea. Sia, her mama and her baby sister have arrived safely after a journey of several days. Keep praying for the continuing treatment to be successful.)

It's just a few minutes before midnight, and I'm sitting on my bed, willing the clock to stop, to speed up, to do anything but march on in its slow, inexorable rhythm. In six minutes it will be tomorrow, and tomorrow is when I go back to my heart's home.

And for the first time, I don't know how I'll do it.

Earlier tonight I sat around the table in our dining room, all the leaves in, stretched to its longest length to accomodate the wealth of family around it. Turned to a friend beside me and confessed. It's never been like this. I don't know what to do.

It's always been one way or another. Sometimes I'm bursting at the seams, so ready to get on a plane that I can hardly spare a thought for those I'm saying goodbye to. And the rest of the times that I've travelled, whether from here going there or from there coming here, I've done so with a heart torn to pieces for the place I'm leaving behind.

This time I'm cut clean in two, and it doesn't seem possible that I'll be able to get on that plane tomorrow and it doesn't seem possible that I'm still sitting here, late at night, alone on my bed.

This has been the most beautiful summer of my life, and I say that with all the pain and uncertainty included. The list of things I no longer take for granted has expanded far past family and friends and a roof over my head, and I am so grateful for the chance I've been given to live my life like this. I'm still in awe every time I pick up a jug of milk, every time I sit down on the floor to play with my nephew, every time I get back up without pain. When he reaches out his hand to lead me off for our next adventure, I can give him mine without wondering whether he'll hurt me. I can finally say that I'm ready to go back to work and not secretly question whether I'll make it through a shift.

I'm ready to go back, but I can't see how I can leave. This all feels so melodramatic, but anyone who's spent time on the ship can relate to the abrupt shift I'm about to undergo. I'm going to trade in the stability and predictability of life in my hometown for a world where friends come and go with every departing flight, where one day is almost never like the next, and where not even the floor is steady beneath my feet. Yet again, I've bought a one-way ticket to Africa, signed up for two more years of this constant whirlwind.

I'd have to be crazy to want this.

I'd have to be crazy not to.

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

We've come to the end, it seems. There are a thousand more stories I wish I had time to tell you, but we leave in the morning and I need to sleep.

Just by way of an update, I got a note on my door that little Balkissa was seen by a cardiologist and may have a sponsor for surgery in Switzerland. I don't know any more than that, but if I happen to hear anything else, I'll be sure to let you know.

I woke up this morning confused, staring at the bare walls beside my bed. It didn't look like my cabin, and for a second I thought I was in the wrong place. Until I pulled back the curtain to be greeted by everything we've accumulated over the past two and a half years, strewn like grass across the floor.

It's taken the better part of the last several days, interrupted by frequent naps to combat the rather nasty sinus infection I've got, to get it all stowed under our bed. I'm sitting here in a nearly-bare cabin, and in the quiet of this evening I can't believe this is happening.

We're leaving tomorrow. We'll each take our packs and a friend will drive us to the Ghana border. We'll walk through the dirt, stand in lines in ramshackle huts to have our passports stamped. We'll change any leftover Cefa to Cedis and then we'll barter for transport to Tema. It will cost extra if we want the air conditioning turned on, and we will not think twice about any of this, because this is the rhythm of our life; this is what we know.

There's a part of me that's so afraid to leave this, afraid that I'll never make it back. We've packed our things under the bed, an anchor pulling us back to this place, but I'm not going to be arrogant enough to assume that I know exactly what God's plan is for us over the next year. There's an entire world of heartbreak and joy just waiting for me on the other side of tonight, and God may just as easily send me to anywhere but back here.

One reader who responded to the call for prayer, Gwen, just recently introduced me to a Hebrew blessing, the Shehecheyanu.

Blessed are you Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who has granted us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this occasion.

It's a prayer to be spoken over new things; the first time in the year you eat a fruit, seeing a friend you haven't seen in thirty days, the birth of a child.

I'm going to carry it with me as I go, because I'm afraid I'm going to spend too much time looking back. This is the part of me that sends roots, the part that has me crying alone in my empty cabin on the eve of the greatest adventure of my life. I need something to remind me of the sheer beauty of discovering new things, because right now I don't want to go.

I know it doesn't make sense, to be so reluctant to start a new chapter when it promises so much. It's just that I'm so tangled up in this place; my heart is woven deep into the red soil of West Africa, and I don't know if I know who I am outside of it anymore.

But go we will, whether I'm ready or not. The ship will sail without us to South Africa and then on to Sierra Leone in the new year while we search out God's heart in other parts of the world.

First stop: Zimbabwe.

Today marks the beginning of a new era down in the hospital. Somehow, three days after the Buddy System came into play, I no longer get to benefit from it. Which is okay, because I've exchanged the absolute insanity of A and B Wards for the relative calm of D Ward. With the outreach half over, Hannah and I have agreed to swap turf for the rest of the time here in Togo.

This might have something to do with the fact that the VVF ladies are here again. Don't get me wrong; I love the women, but at the end of the day I'm a pediatric nurse. Which means that I'm not terribly well-suited to wards entirely full of adults. I need a healthy dose of kiddos in my life, and right now D Ward is the best place to get that.

All that being said, today felt weird. Every time I picked up the phone, I answered with A Ward, this is Ali! Hannah did the same thing up in A Ward, being totally convinced she was still in D, and everyone that walked through the door did a complete double-take when it was me sitting at the desk. (True story; the almost-falling-over was actually the first time I've ever seen Dr. Gary overreact to anything.) Things were just a little strange.

It might have had something to do with the fact that we were playing musical patients all day long, with only three patients in D Ward ending up in the same beds they were sleeping in last night. Down the hall, the drums pounded as the VVF ladies who were here to be screened sang out their hope, and there was a constant shuffle between the ship and the Hospitality Centre as we tried to fit far too many patients into far too few beds.

Through it all one thing kept running through my mind. I miss my babies. It's not that there aren't cute kiddos on D Ward, it's just that I don't know them like I know Sammy and Tani and Abel. So when I led a parade of patients out to the dock to wait for the driver to take them to the Centre, I was more than excited to see Aissa out there, too.

She caught sight of me and took off running towards me, throwing herself into my arms with her typical abandon, busy hands pulling at my keys and pens, proclaiming her love over and over, sounding for all the world like a little old Italian man. (She's mastered the v sound, so just imagine the guy behind the counter in a pizzeria, throwing up the dough and shouting, I love you! at the top of his lungs and you'll kind of get the idea.) Once we got her on the ship, she told Sarah that she wanted to see her old home, so I brought her into A Ward. A chorus of cheers greeted her, and she threw her arms out wide, taking up a stance in the middle of the floor that would probably have been better suited to a Broadway show.

Once we finally managed to corral her back into the post-op clinic, it was to be greeted by the news that our little Madam is going home on Thursday. While we entertained each other by throwing a magnetic cow toy at the ceiling, (much funnier than you might think, if her shrieks of laughter were any indication) the nurse printed out her final papers, officially releasing her from our care. I took her hand and we headed back down the hall towards the stairs that lead to the gangway, and I felt a suspicious knot in my chest.

I knelt down one last time before I let her go, and felt her arms around my neck. I love you, Aissa, I told her, and she pressed her brand-new cheek to mine before turning to give me a kiss. I love love love you, she told me, and then headed up the stairs, up to the promise of new life.

Everything changed today. I'm in charge in a new ward with new patients at the beginning of a new block of surgery. There are three ladies in their beds in B Ward right now who are going to start over tomorrow, who are going to be given the chance to come back into society with the rest of us. So is my sobaajo, my little friend Aissa.

Shore leave expires tomorrow morning.

For the normal person, this means nothing. For us on the ship, it means everything needs to be tied down and secured, something I spent a good chunk of this morning doing. (The sore wrist and awkwardly placed cut on my hand from where a rogue sink fell on me were a little extra bonus.)

It means one last extra load of laundry, one last long, hot shower where you let the water run while you shampoo your hair, knowing full well that once we leave the dock we'll be on water restrictions for the next six months.

It means sitting on the dock, staring at the shadows of the mountains against the night sky, not knowing if you'll ever see them again and not really caring, because shore leave expiring is the anticipation of sunsets over the open ocean, dolphins at the bow and, in about a week and a half, the warm, red smell of Africa.

I'm sitting on my bed and from my porthole I can see the captain walking along the dock, making final checks of the mooring lines we'll soon be throwing off. The HoJ is playing football with friends from Canada and Australia and Italy, and over the sea wall the dark ocean stretches out like a promise.

There's talk of wind and waves, so I'm afraid my new-found love for sailing might disappear just as easily as it found me, but despite the forecast, I can't wait. It feels a little like Christmas Eve, only this time the present waiting under the tree is a whole new country to experience.

We sail for Togo tomorrow. A whole new country, filled with people living stories I haven't yet heard. We haven't left the port, and I'm already impatient to arrive.

I was just sitting on the sea wall for the better part of an hour. I'd been there for quite a while, lost in thought, looking out at the ocean, before I realized that it was probably the last time I'll ever sit on that wall. Sooner than my queasy-in-anticipation stomach would like, we're going to be sailing, and I don't know when I'll be back in Benin. True, Togo is right next door, but with Ghana on the other side, we're more likely to be exploring new places rather than revisiting old ones.

So I sat there, savouring the heat for one more night, my bare feet tucked onto the ledge that some thoughtful builder had thought to incorporate into his construction. Little wavelets ran up the wall, rushing towards shore and making small smacking sounds on the concrete. The water was slate blue and grey, reflecting a thousand colours from a pastel sky, and the horizon was dotted with ships waiting to come into port.

Way up on the mast, the HoJ was silhouetted against that sunset sky where he was working on the last fixes that need to happen before we can head out. All around me were the now-familiar sights and sounds and smells of a port I'd never seen before June. And just like that, I'll say my goodbyes to Africa for the next couple months. It always happens sooner than I'm ready, and I'm growing accustomed to the idea that my life might just end up being one long series of goodbyes as HoJ and I wend our way around the globe, following the Call that's brought us this far.

It's no use looking that far into the future, though. For now, I'm content with tying down my cabin, tipping my beloved linen closet down to rest on the floor so it doesn't fall over when we hit open water and securing my Tupperware tightly in its closet.

It's time to say goodbye again. I'll see you on the other side.

(Unless, of course, a miracle occurs and I'm not violently ill for the entire trip. In which case, you'll hear all about what a great sailor I am and how all those people who get sick really just need to man up and tough it out.)

(Don't count on that being the case.)

It's been silent around here, I know. For probably the first time, I make no apologies. Truth be told, there's not much to say. The wards are quiet, the beds folded and stacked, strapped to metal bolts screwed into the floor. Every surface has been washed down twice. Every surface, including ceilings. (I'm six feet tall; I'll give you three guesses on who got to work on that little project.) We sit around on rogue mattresses that escaped the piles and we talk about all that's happened this outreach. We scrub until our knuckles bleed. We laugh together, and we pray together, and this is how we end the year.

I was walking down the hallway with one of the nurses the other day who said it felt like the end of school. The time where your teachers are just giving you busy work to fill the hours until that final bell rings and you're free for two glorious months of summer. We hand out jobs like candy; empty that cabinet, scan those files, scour that floor. And all we're really doing is waiting for the time the Captain will come on the loudspeakers and let us know that the Pilot is on board. That we're throwing off the lines and setting sail.

That time is coming soon, but until then, we have this time stop and reflect. After a hectic ten months where we practically doubled the number of surgeries from last year, we've finally got time to catch our collective breath. And that's exactly what we've been doing. The nurses spent the day off ship at the pool. We called it Team Building, but as far as I can tell, this is one team that's already standing on a solid foundation.

So when I sit here in my cabin, the lights finally on again after yet another day of blackout while the technical crew (HoJ included) worked feverishly to ready the ship for sailing, all I can see is that foundation, that crazy call that made each of us leave everything to come here. A few of the nurses noticed my tattoo today, and when I quoted the verse it comes from, I knew from their faces that the same Love drew them here, too.

The Love that has us dancing on the wards when ladies go home dry. The Love that sees us through the dark days when babies go back to Jesus. The Love that opens pockets and hearts to give money so a mama with a broken baby can buy a new cow. The Love that lets nurses from across the world work together without strife. The Love that causes an Aunty to care for an orphaned baby with no thought to her own wants. The Love that has us on our knees, scrubbing until our backs ache, laughing the whole time. The Love that brought each patient to us, and the Love that saw them home again.

That's the Love that will fill me again each time I pour myself out.

If your pour out your soul on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness and your night will be like noonday. (Isaiah 58:10)