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?