francois

This morning, in the corner of A Ward, a little baby smiled at me. Not a huge accomplishment, you might think, since I'm goofy enough that there are very few babies in Africa who won't give me a grin, given enough time and stickers. For this baby, though, it was more of an effort. His top lip just barely moved, held in place by the steri-strips covering a neat row of sutures. The smile was fleeting, the smallest of moments, but his mama saw it and turned to me, her eyes full of wonder.

Konu, she whispered to me, hardly believing that her little broken boy was learning to smile like all the rest of them. A smile. She grabbed my hand and held it tight, gazing at her son who lay on the bed in a pile of blankets, kicking his legs contentedly. She let go after a while, and started to pack her things.

And so, once again, life comes full circle. The little baby who met us on the dock when we arrived (see his tiny little legs?) was back out there today, resting in my arms again. Only this time, he didn't feel like he was going to float away. This time, I noticed the weight of him, felt his soft, round cheek squished against my arm and the rolls of his legs in my hands. This time, instead of a lip split wide, his nose sits atop a perfect, unbroken line.

His mama climbed into the car first and turned immediately, holding out her arms for her baby, her face alight with the promise of new life. I relinquished Francois willingly into those arms because I knew that her heart was as new as her joy.

Just a few days ago, the nurse asked a question of the mama who had tried to leave her baby boy in an orphanage, afraid of his split lip, afraid that she couldn't live with a broken baby. What will you do, she asked. What will you do when you go home? And Pirette, her smile small, revealed that life had won, that hope had finally found a place in her heart.

I want to take him home.


In this season of Lent, I think that mama's words are so much more profound than she will ever know. Isn't that exactly what God said to all of us over two thousand years ago? Isn't that what held our Saviour to the cross while thousands of angels waited with bated breath for Him to ask for it to stop? I sit here, centuries after the fact, and in a mama's words I hear God speak to my heart and it's a revelation all over again.

I want to take you home. I will risk everything to do it. I don't care that you're still a little bit broken. See? I have started to mend you. I have started to make you whole, and I won't stop until you're perfect. I just want to take you home.

Pirette and Francois will come back at the end of the outreach for Francois to have his final surgery, the one to close the hole in the roof of his mouth, the surgery that will finally make him whole again. And until that day and for the rest of her life, that mama will love him with a love that has won out over death.

There's no way I can fathom how much more my Papa loves me.

She came almost hesitantly around the door, her eyes searching for her son's. When she saw him, propped up on the shoulder of the recovery room nurse, she came close, peering at his face. Her eyes widened, and she threw her hands up to the sky, one short burst of praise before taking him in her arms and beginning to rock him back and forth, back and forth.

On a stretcher across the room sat the surgeon, divested of his gown and gloves after the operation. The hands that had placed the knots so carefully in the little baby's lip were still, folded in his lap while he watched the scene unfold in front of him. The mama who couldn't take her eyes off her baby's face, patting his back to soothe his cries.

I love watching the way their foreheads wrinkle, he told me. The way they just take it all in, like they can't even understand what they're seeing. I stood by his side, watching the mama and her little baby, a tiny family on the road back from brokenness. Later, I saw the tears fall from the grandma's eyes as she stared at the smooth, unbroken line of the little boy's lip.

And like the surgeon, I sat across the room, just watching them take it all in. Watching them turn his face to the light so they could look again and again, making sure that it was true.

Enyo gangi, Francois' mama told me, knowing that I speak just enough Fon to understand the cry of her heart. Gangi gangi.

It's good. It's so, so good.

Last week was hectic, to say the least. After all the rigamarole of opening the wards, orienting new translators (so many of whom don't seem to speak English) and ironing out the kinks in a system that seems to change on a daily basis, I was exhausted. Knowing full well that it was only week one out of thirty for the outreach, I was well aware that I needed to rest or else I wouldn't be able to head back down there this morning. To that end, I spent the weekend in my cabin. I ate zero meals in the dining room; the HoJ brought provisions and I subsisted on popcorn and garlic bread.

This morning, feeling well-rested and energized, I walked onto a completely different ward than the one I left on Friday afternoon. The patients were quiet and relaxed. (All but Bobo, who felt the need to cry all. day. long. The photo to the right is of Bobo; it was not taken today.) The translators moved about their work with quiet efficiency, and the nurses were confident in their tasks.

The best part of the day was the very end. As the evening shift nurses filtered in, I realized that two of our ward disciplers were there too. Could we have worship, I asked them, and before I knew what was happening we were packed into the ward, singing and dancing. Someone had brought a drum from D Ward, and the sasa was shaking. We clapped and shuffled and belted out sings in three or four languages.

In my arms I held two-year old Kodjovi. He had his cleft lip fixed on Friday, the steri strips and little sutures sticking out of that lip the only indication that anything was ever wrong. When I moved, he bobbed his little head in response. When I held up my hand he used it to clap, his little feet rustling against my hips as he danced along with us.

We stood there, all of us, raising our voices to God at the start of the new shift. We put our arms out to each other, and all around the ward we joined hands. Small and tall and brown and white, some laying in their beds, others sitting on stools beside them, we intertwined our fingers and bowed our heads to pray.

While all this was going on, Francois peered over from his bed in the corner, his bright eyes making him look for all the world like a little baby bird. Our little chicken baby, once so scrawny, now weighs in at over eight pounds, complete with round cheeks and little rolls on his thighs. His mama mixes his bottles and baths him in a blue bowl and covers him liberally in baby powder. He is absolutely thriving under all the love.

Tomorrow, Francois will go to the operating room to have his cleft lip repaired. The mama who tried to leave her baby in an orphanage will have the chance to take him home with a smooth, straight lip. So while we all stood around praying, I snuck a peek over at Francois. His grandma was holding him, his mama's eyes shut tight while she mouthed the words of her own prayer along with us.

Tomorrow, we're going to see that prayer answered.

Yesterday was the first time I sailed into Africa. I've flown in to meet up with the ship for the past two years, going through the rigamarole of airport security and baggage claim, the sticky drive to the port to finally walk up the gangway. Yesterday was different.

As we sailed in to the port, I heard the sound of trumpets, too faint to make out a tune. We passed the familiar canoes, at least one fisherman in each invariably bailing out the water while another stood to wave to the Yovos lined up at the railing. The water was aqua under an overcast sky and the Togolese flag flew proudly from the tugboats.

As we drew closer to the dock, the indistinct sounds from the band took on shape until I could pick out trumpets and trombones and maybe even a tuba. They were waiting for us on the end of the dock, playing African worship songs and drumming until I thought they would break their sticks. The women waved handkerchiefs wildly in the air and everyone was dancing the unashamed dances of the truly joyful.

As we pulled alongside our berth, they walked with us up the dock, shouting and waving and welcoming us to our new home. They joined up with another, much larger group, one with twice the drums and even more dance moves. My shoulders were warm in the sun and I was sweating through my shirt and I couldn't stop dancing with them, my cheeks hurting from the smile I couldn't stop.

Later, much later, when the sun was almost down, the dock was deserted. The drummers had long ago piled into their buses and the marching band had marched off to rest their tired lips. I was waiting in line for dinner when a friend caught my eye. There's a baby on the dock. Needing no further encouragement, I ran out into the sticky air to find Francois.

He's very small, our Francois; he'll be two months old on the nineteenth, and he weighs a little over five pounds. Huddled around him was a much smaller welcoming committee than the one before. No drums, no fancy clothes, no dancing. Just a mama, a grandma and a little baby, all skin and bones, his lip and palate split wide, his future hanging in the balance. With them was a nurse, who I later learned works at the orphanage where Francois' mama was planning to leave him. She didn't want a broken baby, but the someone had heard that the ship was coming, convinced her that there was another way.

I took him in my arms, his little scrawny legs hanging out the bottom of the damp piece of cloth he was wrapped in. I buried my nose in the cloud of his hair, black and curly and softer than anything I've felt before, and I breathed deep before handing him over to our feeding program nurse who was going to be overseeing his care.

I wanted the drums, then. I wanted the handkerchiefs waving in the air and the ladies dancing in their finest African clothes. I wanted the whole world to know that here on our dock, a mama was choosing life for her baby. But they just climbed into a Land Rover in the gathering dusk, heading to the off-ship house where he'll stay until the wards are open.

And like that, it has begun. Welcome to Togo.