My Gift

What to do now...

I have a little heart ache.

My gift from God...

Lord you gave me glimpses of how I was made.

I have never in my life used my natural personality, my spiritual gifts, my talents, strengths and passions in one point in time...and that was Togo, Africa Mercy for me. The Lord allowed all of those things to intersect at one point in time.

My gift from God...

The surprised sweetness of living single-on my own for a month doing what I wanted when I wanted, sleeping in a bunk bed, having roommates, late night movies, girls nights. Of course I needed the emotional connection from Mike and we talked and prayed together almost everyday but to be on my own was something I never thought I would do again after I was married so that was a little treat.

Living in a close community. Sure it was hard and at times lonely. Moving to Africa Mercy was like moving into a little town or village...it is home to about 350 people. It was unlike other missions trip experiences, I was not arriving in a foreign country with a small group of ppl that would be also departing together...I arrived with about 25 ppl from around the world to an established town. So bonding and connecting took time like it would in any new home...but the relationships were rich and deep and unforgettable. It was a joy to wake every morning to dozens of familiar faces over the breakfast buffet (if I in fact woke up in time to catch the 6:30-7:30 am breakfast ). It was a treat to, while passing in the hall to a meeting, greet a friend with a hug or the West African Snap handshake. It was my joy to sit with a small group of friends at lunch, from Nigeria, and the US surrounded by hundreds of Togolese and hundreds of others from around the world from South America to New Zealand. To sit with kind friends gentlemen who when my drink would get low would refill it with my ship fav pink lemonade drink. It was like nothing else to worship with these 350 from all around the world. A special treat to get little hugs from my little 7 year old friend from San Francisco. It was my joy to spend monday nights working out with about 20 other crew to the biggest looser where we would sweat our butts off and laugh our heads off at times, then run down to our starbucks for a 75cent frappacino then run back up, after our workout center turned into bible study zone, for Beth Moore Bible Study. It was a joy to always have a friend near. To know that around 9 pm me and the girls would all meet in the ships communal kitchen the galley to make late night snacks in the form of fresh mango smoothies...and for that same space to turn into a hip happen place when other crew would come in with music and fill the room with dancing and laughing. To know at 10 pm every night one of my sweet friends would be in his traditional spot, the international cafe, aka starbucks area, pouring his heart out in his email updates to family and friends afar...to know that if I wanted to play a game all I had to do was walk a few steps away from my office upstairs to find people playing card games, or board games from other countries, or all huddled around a lap top watching movies. It was a comfort to know that when I left my office at 2 am all I had to do was walk a few steps to down the hall and down the stairs to my room, always passing a kind face at the front desk and a small group of other late nighters-which usually included a few African guys watching football and young crew hanging out in the dinning hall...and to know that I could work in my office in my pjs!!! And to know that often these late nights would be accompanied by one of my two friends on my team. It was a joy to visit the hospital ward and to pass not one not two but three of my friends who were supposed to be all meeting for a girls night! But of course we couldnt get enough of the patients...or some of us had to work! Ahhh community I could go on and on well I did.

To work with people from cultures other than my own. My translator turned friend from Togo, when we were in between shooting we would find ourselves in my office having long talks and often laughing.

To use my gifts as an artist to impact others lives.

To sit by patients bedsides, patients who at age 15 were never able to go to school bc of club feet-the walk was too long- and read Zephaniah with them all about how God loves them and they are not covered in shame. To listen to the stories of how people had been living in hiding to ashamed to be seen but then there in the ward to talk with them freely unveiled!

To pray with patients each night before bed...

To hold patients hands when they are afraid or lonely

To hear their stories so different from my own journey...yet at the core the same, rejection, shame, struggle and hope...

To connect with people who didnt even speak the same language as me, but to be bonded so deeply that we wept as we departed.

To laugh and play and sing and dance...was there these things in abundance...I will never forget!

To eat local food with new friends...fufu and fish stews...

To drink sodas from the glass, and always with a straw bc the rim is not clean so I learned...

To learn about this culture which even now is a mystery to me...through tuesday night classess...

To explore. I walked through a little a farming community to a local beach greeting locals along the way and invited by children to peek into huts to greet their other family members and I swam under a waterfall in a lush area of the north...
...and there were little local explorations too when we needed to escape the heat we would go for a swim at a nearby pool, the funny thing is that the water much to our surprise was not cool and refreshing as we thought it would be rather it was like a warm bath but nice just the same, and at night we would explore local eateries-which surprisingly had food from around the world, there was a German restaurant, a Lebonese place, pizza was a popular menu item and it was amazing.

It was a gift to be on the communications team. I had the freedom, within reason, to document different parts of Togo from waking up at 5:30am to document the fishermen pulling in the fishing line in the mornings, to the hustle and bustle of the main market...I only long to have documented more, next up I was supposed to meet the chief of a local village and document village life...ahhh there was so much to see and hear and smell and know....

But it was often hard..sad...when I would realize that, while trying to document the fishermen, that the fishermen were comprised primarily of a group of young boys pulling in heavy fishing lines from the ocean with their bare hands from 6am - the afternoon, never having been to school just so that they could bring home, if they are lucky, $1.50 a day.

Ah....the children...I would always hug and kiss them.

Me and my friend Liz the ships photographer said we were "all access pass Africa Mercy" bc we were the only people that could docuement visually the work that these 350 crew, 200 day workers were doing in the country! It was a gift...and now there is no one to fill my position this year an AFM, so here I am in New York working at a cafe where there are hundereds dream of working and doing photography in a city where everyother person is a photographer. It just isn't the same. Not that I thought it would be the same, but I didnt imagine my heart ache to be so big...but it is big.

I realized while there I am made to work with people in crisis in the third world in Africa telling their stories with the public...as a photo/video journalist

Who knows how this will pan out but until then I am praying that the Lord will use me as he made me, my personality, gifts, talents, strengths, and passions here in New York for his glory. But it is scary....will there be another chance? My heart says yes that is God's character he doesn't put anything in us to waste it...so this passion in me will continue to be used.

So I could write on and one, but for now thank you Lord for this most perfect gift and for being strong enough to get me where you called me to be, while my heart ached for a journey such as this for years and many thought it just a fantasy you knew lord it was a call...lord and when I was fearful you were strong enough and big enough to overcome my fears and to carry me there through the support and love of many...

Aba show me where to do now...now that everything kinda seems well blaaaa....

But I know my life is sooo good I have an amazing husband and live in an amazing city surrounded my loving friends.

I know I have to have faith over my feelings..so here goes for faith lord!

Two worlds

Here at times I feel I am living in two dramatically different worlds, that happen to inhabit the same physical space. This is Africa Mercy.

Just a few steps away from my bedroom is the operating room and hospital where patients and their caretakers stay, some for weeks, others for days-in and out they come and go.
I wander through the wards throughout the day of course for work, but also because I love these people. At times I find myself being caught in an African dance with beautiful women, women with tumors near the size of their heads, who outside of the hospital cover their faces with cloths but inside the hospital dance freely unveiled, hand and hand we swing our arms and of course booties-this is Africa-with the translators pounding on the tables creating a rythm for us to groove to. Heads usually covered in shame are lifted high with songs of worship, "I am so happy because of Jesus!" Then in the next room is a little boy moaning from pain, or from fear, who knows this is Togo, many people are deep into voodoo and sometimes we just don't know what is really happening after we've deduced that it's not medical-at best we pray that he is just upset...so I lay my head on Bobo's tiny chest with my arms around his back and begin to sing to him "Jesus Loves Me" and before I get to the next verse he is silent and asleep...but then the moaning starts again as soon as I leave. One night he repeated in Ewe, the local tongue here, "Take me with you." Others have experienced this with this sweet little guy, so please pray for the Lord to give us all wisdom to know how to help him. Then there are the moms...the amazing moms of the tiny baby's with club feet or cleft lip or pallet...there are three of them in a room...one mom has twin girls about 3 lbs each, one just had two casts put on to correct her club feet which were no bigger than a marker at best...The moms often dance and sing while their babies are asleep..what a joy..then over to the next room there is a 15 year old girl alone-her mother up country. She is here recovering from surgery on both of her legs, which were severely clubbed- so clubbed that she was kept from ever attending school, the journey too painful...and together we read the scriptures of how God made her beautiful and how he sings over her...

And then just a few floors up and I am in a different world...I am no longer in Africa I wonder am I in the States? I sit on the ships deck in a bathing suit, trying to catch as much sun as I can before heading back to Winter in NYC, listening to my ipod and reading while friends, other sun bathers, pass by....

Where am I...how can I reconcile these two vastly different worlds? It's so strange at times for ministry and life to be in the same physical space but yet be so separate.

So every day and every moment I pray, "Lord where do you want me now," because I have to be a part of both worlds but on my own I don't know how, so I go to the Father.

And with only a few days left I don't know how I will ever leave...I love you Togo...I love you, who will dance down the isles of church with me when I go home?

Togo

there is soo much on my heart I have a hard time journaling its like I have been given a million piece puzzle and I am sorting through the pieces but I can't even fathom how to put them together...the stories here you can not wrap your mind around them...mothers with cleft lip babys are often abandon by their husbands and community and some are asked to kill their own babies in order to rid the community of evil spirits...people with disabilities and deformities are looked at as demons and witches they stay in hiding they have low self esteem and no friends they are lucky if their own parents support them...even christians here fear that the ppl with deformities have had a spell cast on them...so not only are the patients dealing with feeling uncomfortable from the pain of their tumors, and funny looks from others...they are dealing with being treated like a demon or a witch...I CAN NOT wrap my mind around what that must feel like....to be in hiding esp for young teenagers who for their whole hormonal development have not been able to know what their face really looks like bc all they see is a huge tumor that stretches their eyes and nose out of place...Kossi my boy here keeps looking in the mirror touching his face...I walked out of the room this morning and as I closed the ward door I saw him investigating his new face tumor free....I can't imagine the restoration that is happening in his heart...
I really can't put into words what is here...children who have to walk on broken crutches for very treatable problems who cry in their rooms at night bc they feel rejected .... poverty is immense: there are children who are 4 months and only 6 lbs their skin hanging from their bones, their are children with bone disorders bc they have never had a sufficient supply of milk...children who can never go to school bc they have to pull in heavy fishing nets at 6am every day all day just talk earn 1.50...There is joy here too parents I have seen three in particular hold their children and cry to God for their healing...with all their heart...father's tenderly caring for their sons wiping their mouths, spoon feeding them, reading them scripture, kissing them....things I will treasure in my heart...