Answered Prayer & Gifts from God

God answered your prayers and mine. I worked night shifts on Thursday and Friday. I stayed wide awake and enjoyed the shifts. I was preparing mentally and physically for my two remaining night shifts on Saturday and Sunday, but was blessed to be told I was not needed and could have both nights off! Awesome! I was praying God would give me the strength to do what was required of me, never did I imagine He would get me through my night shifts by giving me the time off. Saturday, I spent the majority of the day recovering from my night shifts. In the evening, I had a wonderful time bonding with some of the African guys and my roommate on the ship. We played ping pong-table tennis, aerobic, Olympian style. Did you know you could actually get a cardiac workout playing ping pong? As many of you know, my hand-eye coordination has never been the greatest, but Saturday night, I was in rare form. I played ping pong for hours. My roommate and I played a few rounds of standard ping pong, but then we moved to around-the-world ping pong. In this special style of ping pong, you have 3 or 4 players, one person starts hitting the ball across the net to the other person, but as soon as you hit the ball, you run around the table to the other side to be there when the ball is hit back, you continue to run around and around hitting the ball back and forth. As you can imagine, you can become very dizzy and out of breath. When all the players agree they are dizzy, you switch directions. It is great fun. My roommate and I started this game and gathered a crowd, we soon had the African guys entertained and invited them to join in our silly little marathon around and around the ping pong table. As simple as our game was, it felt great to actually be able to connect with some of the African nationals on the ship. I made 6 new friends (Israel, Jonas, Charles, Renee, Samuel, and John) that night. Yesterday, one of them told me we need to play ping pong again! I have another match planned. Sunday, I was able to attend another local African church. I attended Bethel Sanctuary of Praise. One of the guys I had met while playing ping pong, actually delivered the message at this church. Israel is from Togo, he works with Mercy Ships as the eye field team disciple. He wants to be a pastor and after hearing him preach, he definitely has the gift of preaching and teaching. He spoke about the Lord's Prayer. At the beginning of his sermon, he had all of us recite the Lord's Prayer together. It was so amazing and truly awesome to be in an outdoor church, with lizards running around (that part was not so great), sitting on wooden benches, surrounded by Africans, all reciting from memory the Lord's Prayer. I am still in awe at the faith of the African people and the fact that the Lord I serve in North America, miles away, is the same God these people in the middle of nowhere, know and serve. I am seeing firsthand the truth of the verse in the New Testament that refers to creation revealing evidence of God and no one is without excuse, no matter where you live, it is written in the sky that there is a God. Sunday evening, I enjoyed another evening at the beach. I went with a few of my friends and a family from Holland. Again, it was great to have time to build relationships and connect with some of the people who are long term on the ship. It is at times very difficult to connect with the people who are on the ship as career missionaries. There is such an intense turn-around of people on the ship that building relationships is difficult. I have also sensed that some of the long term people on the ship seem closed to new relationships. It is possible that because of our cultural differences, I perceive them as closed and maybe they are not, or that they are actually protecting themselves from the pain of change and having relationships end and begin so often. You can pray for me to continue to connect with people on the ship and pray for all of us to have the strength and energy to love and invest time with one another. Monday I made another trip to the market. This time my roommate Christina, Theresa, Jane, and I set out on foot for our adventure. We packed our bottles of water and set off for a dander (Irish term for walk) to the market. It takes about 45 mins to walk to the market. We took our time, laughing all the way at the things people shout at us. Can you imagine walking down the road in your town and having someone yell, "oh, white people!" or "hey, I need a women!" Most of the people in town know white people are from Mercy Ships, so they often just yell "hey, Mercy Ships," but yesterday they yelled "hey, Mercy Ships Doctor!" I like that title, I moved from a nurse to a doctor without all the years in school. Sometimes they yell, " Beautiful, over here!" I just laugh and keep walking and comment quietly to my buddies that they need to stop calling me Beautiful because I will get a big head. It was fantastic yesterday when were walking and I heard "Americano, over here". Why I answer to Americano is beyond me, but that is what all my patients call me now, so I am more used to it than Laura. I turned around and saw one of my previous patients. The one who first called me Americano. He was so excited to see me, he invited me into his home/store/old box car, introduced me to all his friends, and told me to sit down while he found some type of gift to thank me. I told him it was not necessary, but he insisted. A few minutes later, he came back with mangos for all my friends and myself. It was so special! I have been working on this blog for days and my thoughts are all over the place, so I have decided to just end here. I am doing well. Can you believe I have been gone for 1 month already! Love all of you! Forgive my poor grammar.