We're Home!

Hello everyone. We are finally back in the United States. Thank you all for your prayers and for following us on this journey. We are currently in the southeast visiting friends and family, and recovering from a bad case of jetlag.  The Lord was very gracious in providing us with this amazing opportunity to serve in Benin.  We pray that He was glorified in it, and that people will have new hope in Him as the kingdom advances there. Nathan received great training, and was able to perform operations for over 300 patients.  We feel much better prepared for the work that God has called us to in Peru. We look forward to seeing many of you soon.

Adventures continue in Benin....

    I realized today that it has been a rather long time since I posted to the blog, so I will have to catch up! We have continued to have great experiences the past few weeks. Last week Nathan was able to do several pediatric strabismus surgeries, which is to correct a "lazy" or "wandering" eye. He was really excited to have the opportunity to do those surgeries. One of our favorite stories from the week is about a 6 year old child that Nathan did cataract surgery on. After his surgery he was admitted to the hospital ward overnight to recover from general anesthesia. The next day, after the dressings were removed, the child was looking at a children's book. He started trying to grasp all the images on the page (leaves, trees, bugs). It was obvious that he was seeing these things for the first time. His family was overjoyed! It was really good for Nathan to see the wonderful result of helping this child. We pray that as this child grows, the Lord will give him spiritual sight as well.

    Last week, the Strausses invited us to eat dinner with them and a local pastor here in Benin. Pastor Christophe and his wife took us to dinner at an Indian restaurant (it was really good) ,where they shared about their work in training and disciplining young men to be pastors. He is currently working in many countries including Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Benin, Togo, and Cote d'Ivoire. He holds a pastor's training conference every year in Benin and normally has between 800-1,000 pastors from West Africa present. He and his wife have tremendous vision for this whole area to be reached with the gospel. We were really excited and encouraged to see the work that is taking place here.

    This week we were invited to go to Pastor Christophe's house for dinner. What a fun time to get to experience African cuisine and to spend some more time with his family. He also took us to see a hospital/clinic that he is building, which will help to service a poorer community outside of Cotonou. It is a huge work-in-progress, as the hospital is sill a lot of concrete and dirt. We were able to dream with him and offer suggestions for the future. I did wear African attire to dinner, which was fun.

     Ship life continues to be interesting. We are becoming very good speed scrabble players (seems to be the game of choice among our friends). We plan to put our coffee making skills to the test again, as this week as we will be baristas at Starbucks. I have been doing a water aerobics class with a few ladies in our small pool on the top of the ship. It was been really fun, although I am sure we all look really silly!

     Thank you for all your prayers about my seasickness. Fortunately, there have not been many more rough days. It is occasionally rocky, but I seem to be able to tolerate it much better. Praise the Lord that He calmed the waters.

     We cannot believe that our time here is halfway over. Many days it feels like we just arrived, others it feels like we have been here a year. What an incredible experience this continues to be! The Lord provided exactly what we needed to prepare for Peru. In our last weeks, we will be trying to make sure that we have a good idea of everything we could potentially need to do eye care in Peru.

    Pray with us that we finish these last three weeks well for God's glory.

    Here are a few pictures from the last two weeks (sorry there are not a lot of fun medical pictures. It is        hard to get pictures of patients)

One of our favorite pictures! A woman carrying pots on her head through chest deep water.

Relaxing by the beach in our matching hammocks on a Saturday. (We sure are working hard. Nathan is at least reading a textbook about eyes!)

At hospital construction site with Pastor Christophe

Pastor Christophe and his wife outside of their home

Dinner at the Pastor's house

Bonjour

    So we have been trying to work on our french, since that is the official language in Cotonou. Unfortunately, bonjour is about as good as my french gets!

    We have had a good week. There have been several local ophthalmologists that Dr. Strauss has been teaching who have come to operate with Nathan. This has been fun for him to work with other surgeons. Nathan is continuing to enjoy his relationship with Dr. Strauss, and has appreciated his insight into practicing ophthalmology in a third world country. We definitely feel that we have a better idea of how to set up eye care in Peru even after being here just a few weeks.

      This week I had the opportunity to work with an ophthalmologist and his wife, who is a ophthalmic technician. We spent time looking at post-operative cataract patients. He taught me how to use the slit lamp, and looked at every post-op patient with me. This was helpful because it taught me what normal eyes should look like after surgery. It is always good to recognize normal, so that you can better recognize what looks abnormal. I now have even more respect for ophthalmologists, as I now can see how difficult it is to use a slit lamp! I also continued to work in the hospital ward and clinic, and was on call this weekend. Today was busy, but I learned a lot.

      Friday was a "ship holiday" and so we had the day off. We went to the largest craft market in West Africa with the Strausses.  I had a good time looking at all the booths, but as you all probably know, Nathan did not enjoy it nearly as much as I did. The highlight of Friday was that we found a Thai restaurant. It was about a 30 minute walk, but it was well worth it (delicious Tam kha gai and pad thai)! We were pleasantly surprised that there is an excellent Thai restaurant in the middle of Cotonou Benin.
     Nathan and I are starting to go through The Truth Project DVD series together. It's from Focus on The Family, and is really challenging us to have a stronger biblical worldview.  We are recognizing even more the daily struggle to believe God's promises, and the truths of his word over lies that would discourage and deceive us. Please pray that God would continue to build this strong foundation in our marriage and in our lives.

A few pictures:

At the craft market....we are still smiling:)

Fishing village right next to our boat

View from the dock in front of our boat. This is our "front yard."

Tugboat waiting to pull this big ship into the port.

Sight for a Child

We are starting to settle in a little better here in Benin. Our sleep schedules are finally relatively normal, and we're getting into more of a grove here on the ship. I have been going out more with the field team and learning about some of the pre-operative screening and evaluation of surgical candidates. Our Peru eye team will just be two (me and Nathan) at first, so I think that these kinds of things will be really valuable for me to have seen and learned before we get there. Nathan is learning new little subtleties of the surgical technique every day. He's also getting a little more autonomy in the OR, and I think that has been good for his confidence.  The outcomes are really amazing to see. Most people are literally being led into the operating rooms with both hands because they are completely blind in both eyes. Then when they come to their post-operative visits, they walk in on their own.

This week they operated on the youngest child to ever receive cataract surgery on this ship. He is 3 months old, and has had cataracts in both eyes. If these were left alone, the child would be blind for life because the visual system would never develop properly.  The operation was a great success, and we are praying that the child continues to heal well without any problems.  It is wonderful to see a child who may be spared a life of blindness.  We are thankful that we've been spared a life of blindness as well. The Lord has been so gracious to open our eyes to the beauty and satisfaction found in an unwasted life of relationship with King Jesus.  We hope that he uses these medical gifts to open many eyes, both physical and spiritual. Please pray for the blindness in Benin.

We also had some fun in another interesting way this week. Starbucks has donated everything for a coffee shop here on the ship, and we were able to work last night with the Strausses as 'Starbucks Baristas' for the night. We can make you a latte, or a cappucino, or even a double shot caramel/hazlenut/chocolate steamer with extra foam (what I like). Really fun and a good time to get to know some folks here better.

A few pictures from the week:

Child with cataract in both eyes: Before surgery

No more cataracts!

Barista night with the Strausses

A Day of Celebration

          Today was a long day, but one of celebration.  Nathan spent the day working at the post-op clinic in town.  They did about 150 YAG lasers (for you ophthalmologists) in the morning, and saw about 190 patients total for the day.  At the end of the morning clinic, the patients had a time of worship and praise, thanking the Lord for restoring their sight.  There was singing, and dancing, and times of testimony. It went on for over an hour. It was very emotional, and exciting.  They kept singing in their different languages: 'Jesus lives! Jesus lives!' Dr. Strauss calls this 'payday' for the folks on the eye team. It is really moving.  

          I spent the day helping Glenys (the head nurse in the eye OR) organize a shipment of lenses (over 500). We also worked on the operating room data base, which records all the surgeries that have been completed. She is a really lovely woman from New Zealand. She has quickly become one or our favorite people on the ship. It was really fun to visit with her and hear all about the years that she has served as a missionary in many African countries. It excites my heart to hear about what the Lord is doing all over the world, and I cannot believe that He is allowing us to be small part of it here and in Peru. So often my sin and emotions can cause me to loose focus and become discouraged, so it was refreshing to be reminded of how sweet it is that God has called us to this mission at this time.

         Tomorrow we are setting sail. We did not know about this until today. The ship has to be moved for several hours so that the port can be dredged. I think we are going to go into town during that time, as I do not like boat movement. Hopefully the boat will be back in port when we return;)

     

Here are few pictures:

Sight Celebration

Lots of patients waiting to be seen:

YAG room:

A Good Day

Today was a good day. I worked with Balinda, who is currently the ward physician on the ship. She is from South Africa, and I enjoyed getting to know her very much.  I will be helping her to admit patients to the ward.  Nathan had a good day as well. He did twice as many cases as yesterday, and even though he sometimes still feels like a beginner, he's getting slightly better each day.  We have had several encounters with people who are heavily into voodoo, even some in positions of religious authority in the culture. It is a very big thing here.  Please pray that the Lord would use this experience to display himself as the one true God, and that he would reveal himself to them through the things that are said, and the things that are done for them.  We had a date night last night, and watched a movie on the computer. It has been good time here together.  Nathan was a little sad to hear about the bulldogs, but he's gotten over it quicker than usual.  Here are a few pictures from the day:

Nathan works while Dr. Strauss teaches

First Day of Work

Today we started our actual jobs on the ship. Nathan began operating.  His second cataract of the day was 'the scariest looking cataract' he had ever seen. He used instruments that he'd never seen before, and did maneuvers that he'd never tried before. He learned a whole lot. It was a little stressful, but everything turned out great. I think that this is going to be a great experience for him.  Nathan's instructor, Dr. Strauss, is very fast. He does cataract surgeries in an average of about 5 minutes. I spent the day figuring out exactly what I would be doing on the ship.  Besides assisting Nathan in surgery, I will also be working some on the ward and in the clinics as needed.  There is a possibility that I may take a few call nights, but these are generally mild.  We had a few more painful orientation sessions, but I think we now know what to do if the ship starts to sink in the port, even if it's on fire at the same time, and being attacked from all sides.  So that's good :) Tomorrow I'm going with a few folks to what is supposed to be the French equivalent of Walmart in the city here.  We have met some very neat folks here, including a British Lord.  Our interactions with patients on a personal level have been brief up to this point, but we look forward to more in the future.  Please continue to pray that the Lord gives us opportunities to testify to His great love and work in our lives.

Here are a few pictures of our home on the mercy ship. I hope to get some pictures of Nathan operating tomorrow.

We have arrived

Hello from Cotonou Benin.
       We finally arrived last night on the ship around 8 pm. We were greeted by the ship crew, fed dinner and then taken to our room.  Our room is very cozy with a queen bed, desk, small couch, sink with a few cabinets, and small bathroom. We are on the port side and have a small window overlooking the water. We were rather surprised at how large the ship is. There are about 400 + people on the ship at any given time. This morning we took a tour of the entire ship. We got to see the school (grades K-12), OR, hospital wards (four 20 bed wards and one 4 bed ICU), laundry, library, and galley kitchen. This ship is really incredible. The hospital administrator took us on a tour of the hospitality center, which is about 1/2 mile from the ship. It was built to house patients who have come from long distances, and who need post-op appointments, but are not in need of hospital care. He also took us on a tour of the city. It looks very much like Dakar, Senegal where we were for a short time last year. It was a great day to be exposed to what Mercy Ships is doing in this area.
    Tonight, we had dinner with Dr. Glenn Strauss, who is the head of ophthalmology on the ship and will be responsible for training Nathan. He and his wife Kim are delightful and we look forward to learning so much from them. They hope to mentor us by leading us in a Bible study (I John), as well as helping us to think through how we will practice ophthalmology in Peru. We are grateful that the Lord has provided them while we are here.

     Thank you again for your prayers. We have recently been reminded of the power of prayer as we have seen God provide in so many ways in the days leading up to our departure. We thank God for all of you in our lives. We pray that you have a blessed day.  

    
     Below are a few pictures from our day.   

The tent is the eye screen center where Nathan will go on fridays to use the YAG laser and to perform postoperative visits. This is in the hospitality center. 

One room in the hospitality center. This can house 25 patients.

We are on the way!

Hello dear family and friends--

    As I write we are sitting in the Atlanta airport about to begin the trip to the Africa Mercy Ship in Cotonou, Benin. We are excited and pray that this will be a great time in marriage, as we are hopefully able to spend a lot of time together. I will be assisting Nathan as he operates, which will be another great opportunity for us to be together in ministry.  As many of you know, the Lord provided wonderful buyers for our house and we were able to move a few weeks ago. This has been a busy few weeks, but a great time to watch the Lord confirm His calling for us to live long-term in Peru. We are so grateful for your friendship, support and love throughout this whole process. We will miss you all very much, and cannot wait to visit with you again when we return. We hope this blog will be a great way to keep us in touch while we are away.