Follow the adventures of our family around the world

March 22, 2006  Well less than 2 months left in our outreach here in Monrovia, Liberia.  I still love it here. I have decided that I like being in a country where people speak some English.  It was so much harder to function when we were in Benin because the language there is French. And boy, I don't speak french, but hey my kids do these days.  Oh man my thoughts are rambling.  I actually had to look back to see how much I have told everyone. Well last Tuesday I was frantically trying to make arrangements for our trip home. At 11:30pm at night I sat with credit card in hand with the intention of buying tickets, only to have about 10 emails back and forth with the travel agent. So i decided to wait and buy the tix on Wednesday. Then Wed morning an email went out from our director saying "Don't buy you tickets".  So what came out throughout the day was that we don't know at this point where the Anastasis will end up. We thought we were going to Ghana and planning to leave once we got there. That was based on the fact that the Africa Mercy was planning to be in Ghana for it's first outreach. There were so many big plans for how the transition would take place, now the organization has to admit that the Africa Mercy will not make it on time, so now what are we going to do. There are so many rumors flying that the ship may go to Europe. So now it is just over 2 months until we are supposed to leave Monrovia and we do not have any idea where we are going. Every time I talk to someone at home they want to know when we are coming home and what the details are and we have to say "We Don't Know". And we just know nothing.  So we wait and try patience, so what do you think the Lord is doing in our lives. Ok, i think I have patience and it seems to be tested every day. We are both at peace with things today, but every day I wonder what is coming next.  So all of this to say that we don't know when we will hit American soil, but the plan is sometime in June, and we can't wait to see everyone and catch up. We also do not know really what is next. All I know is that I can't wait to get a little break this summer. We have been here 16 months now, I have been on call at least 50% of the time for 16 months. There was time last summer that I was on call 100% of the time, so I am tired and need a break. I am looking forward to some freedom. I can't wait to have my own car again and control of when I might like to go somewhere. I know that I will miss Africa-I love it here!!!!!!!!I love my job. Later this week I want to share more about my job.  Miss you all so much.

March 18, 2006  Today is Saturday, although it is not my day to be on call, I still had to spend some time on the ward doing rounds on our plastic patients.  So what do you do on Saturday? The school on the ship is donating furniture to the orphanage we work with, so Mark was working on that this morning. It has been such a busy week. So last week HR on the ship is telling people that we really need to think about getting our tickets to go home because flights are getting full for the summer. Tuesday night I must have sent 10 or 12 emails back and forth with the travel agent trying to figure out details and finally gave up around 1130pm because I forgot what I was doing. I had my credit card in hand and just decided to wait. Wednesday morning we were all shocked to get an email that said if you have not bought tickets DON'T, the ship may not be going to Ghana. We were all shocked to say the least, some people were angry. I was just grateful that the Lord gave me one more day and I had not spent the money yet. Then on Thursday night we were told to try to make reservations but dont pay for the flights yet, we may still go to Ghana. Oh well we may go to Ghana, we may go to Europe, who knows today. We have about 2 months until we leave Liberia but we don't know where we are going. We are trying to be so patient and not to get anxious.  But today I realize that at some point we need to know where we will be so that we can make plans, the options are too far apart to think anything will work no matter what. So we wait. We do know that we hope to be home some time in June, we just dont know where we will be coming from or the exact details at this point. It has been a long emotional week. We will just wait to see what happens.

March 13, 2006  Today was an exciting day on the ship. So this is a quiz as to how well you know me. So today for the first time in 15 months I enjoyed a cold........Diet Dr. Pepper. My favorite softdrink in the world. I have not had one since I left the US on December 11,2004. I know you think, no big deal, but it was wonderful. It is funny the things that bring comfort when you have been away from home for so long. The kids are getting really excited about coming home. Cailin started crying at the dinner table tonight because she is so ready to come home for a visit. She really misses her grandmas. Jessie is just ready for whatever is next.  This morning we found that we had an email from a friend at home with pictures from a ski trip, and Mark and I both moaned and aaaahhhhed as we looked at the photos of snow covered mountains. Snow sounds so refreshing. 

Things are really busy right now because plastic surgery has begun again. I have had two surgeons, I manage all of the plastic surgery patients. Prince is here again. He is a little boy with burn contractures all down the left side of his body. He was here when we were here last year and had releases of his arm and wrist. Now we are releasing the contracted areas on his left neck. He is now 6 years old, when he was 4, rebels broke into his home and killed his father in front of him.  Then they took boiling water and poured it over him. There are so many stories like this.

Early in the outreach, this young woman came to the dock with a baby like i have never seen before. The baby had a bilateral cleft face. Many of you know what a cleft lip is, this is a cleft that goes up to the eyes on each side. The surgeon said he had only seen two before and they were in Togo. We had to tell her that the baby needed to be bigger before we could help. So she came back for surgery this week. The mom looks young, like she is 18 years old and she is so beautiful. So she gave birth to this terrible deformed baby and named him...Blessing. Can you believe it? And he is so beautiful and sweet and she loves him so much. So now we have fixed his face and he looks so good. he will need more surgery in the future, but she cannot wait to take him home. We are worried about the babies feeding and trying to get her home with formula for Blessing. She lives in a place very far away and it would take her 3 days in a taxi to get home and i am sure that someone would steal it from her on the way. So we are trying to arrange a UN helicopter to get her home, I am hoping to go with them home. We will see.....

March 9, 2006 We seem to be in a time of constant change in plans.  But in this time we continue to enjoy Liberia. I spent the morning working. We are doing plastic surgery and eye surgery at the moment.  I begin the day doing rounds with the surgeons and setting up a schedule for the day.  We are up to about 30 patients, children and adults. It blows my mind the number of burn victims here. There is no electricity or running water in the country, so there are lots of candles and kerosene lamps. So lots of people get hurt.  And i look at these huge burns, and realize the country really does not have pain medication and cannot imagine what these people have gone through.  It is a moment when i close my eyes and thank God for the privilege to be born in a land that is free and so wonderful. How did i get to not be born here. How did he choose me to be special enough to be an American? How do i get the right to not live in the dark, among people who so devalue women and children. These are some of my random thoughts on any given day.

Liberia thought for today: yesterday was a holiday. "Decoration Day" , From what we understand, it is the day every year when the people go out and clean off the graves of their loved ones, paint them, and redecorate them. They also cry and mourn for them for the entire day. This is the only day they spend crying over dead loved ones. So everything was closed and the streets were quiet.

A wonderful friend sent us a little package with some snacks. It made me laugh as we opened the package with all of us gathered around. We pulled out small packs of these oreo cracker things, teddy grahams,  and the crowing glory.....Brownie bites.  We portioned them out and the girls began to pick snack they wanted for the upcoming days of school. We were laughing and hooting and so excited about something that is probably so ordinary to you. The girls were so funny and meticulously laying out there week and lecturing each other and us not to touch their treats.  Teddy grahams on Pajama day at school were a hit.  it is funny, if you had asked me if these type of things would be good, I probably would have said an unenthusiastic yes, but these packages our friend sends have become exciting times around the table pulling goodies out one at a time.  I am on call this weekend, so it will be a time on ship. Sometimes i go several weeks without leaving the ship. It is just very busy.

March 1, 2006  I cant believe it is already March 1st. The year is flying by, and the outreach. We have started back up with plastic surgery. We have this new plastic surgeon from Canada, and he is wonderful. Today we had this baby and mom that came all of the way from Sierra Leone and in an hour procedure this 6 month old baby had a new smile. It was beautiful. These guys are such artists. We have this girl here named Mary. She has been here for 3 months now. She came in with what is called a noma, a bacteria that pretty much ate away her entire upper lip and the septum of her nose.  After 4 surgeries (I think), she has a new upper lip and looks like a different person. She will have one more procedure. She is 12 years old. She could not read or write when she came to us, and today I went down and she was writing the alphabet. She writes my name everyday at some point. A few days ago she prayed to accept the Lord and was so excited to show us how she was thankful to the Lord for her food. She loves Jessie and Cailin, they visit her often. Tonight we were on the dock and heard someone calling our names and it was Mary from the ship. So Cailin rushed inside to see Mary. Then several of the girls from the ship played go-fish with her.

Today there were more riots in town. It has been a different time this trip to liberia. There is so many unsettled places in the city. There have been lots of riots. Often we are restricted in our travel into town. The NGOs are starting to pull out of here, and it will be interesting to see what happens next. We have become so accustomed to seeing tanks and soldiers in the streets. I often wonder what the girls will think when we go home to normal roads with no beggars at the grocery store.

Mark has been asked to go on the final sail of the Anastasis, possibly to Turkey. So we have lots to pray about because the girls and I cannot go with him. It would be great if he could go. He says it is special as a seaman to go on the last sail of such a fabulous vessel. So we will see.