pray that his story is not yet finished

     His condition left him alone, isolated, in pain, and suffering. He reached out for help, but none was found. He attempted to get help from all the clinics and hospitals in his village, but even their best medical professionals could not even begin to treat his medical ailment. He put an appeal in with the United States Embassy in Conakry, Guinea to get medical emancipation to the USA, but his request was denied. The Embassy staff have reported they get flooded with requests like his and they cannot help everyone. His medical information was handed back over to the Guinea Minister of Health and set aside in a pile with other files like his. He was another statistic, another “one” they could not help, “one” they would try to find help for, and “one” they would see if an NGO could help.
     It is uncertain how long his file sat on the Minister of Health’s desk, but at this point, that is not important. One day, some of Mercy Ships’ Advance Team members were sitting in that office and saw the file. The file was passed to them and they assured the Minister of Health that they would pass the information on to Mercy Ships’ Advance Hospital Liaison and see what could be done… His file is in my hands…
     I had him on my list of people to contact, but had to prioritize my mountain of work, so was waiting to contact him until closer to the ship’s August arrival. I wanted to connect with him as soon as I heard about his need, but was forced to deal with the reality that I am just one lone nurse here in Guinea, without the ship, I can not really help him, so I put my personal feelings aside and set his file aside as well.
     A few weeks later, we were stuck in traffic, which had become a norm, when I heard someone knocking on our, Mercy Ships’ land-rover, window. Assuming the knock came from just another street vendor trying to sell me Kleenex, a belt, or sun glasses, I didn’t pay much attention to the disturbance. The knocking persisted and being all too familiar with the aggressiveness of street salesmen in Africa, I wasn’t bothered to look up. When the knocking failed to cease, I finally looked up. When I looked up, I saw a timid young man, with a soft-ball sized mass protruding off the side of his face. I felt ashamed for ignoring his knocking and immediately switched into nurse mode asking my translator to help me talk to him. I wanted to know every detail about this young man to see if Mercy Ships could help him. I was so excited to have a potential patient in front of me, that I missed hearing my co-workers say, “This is the “one”...we gave you his file…” Slowly, the pieces started coming together in my mind. This was the patient, waiting to hear from me, the patient holding out hope in Mercy Ships, the “one” denied medical emancipation, the “one…”
     Anything but a statistic…a fragile, man, not too many years my junior, one desperate for help, stood in front of me. The thought still rushed through my mind, “the ship isn’t here, he needs a CT Scan and an OPG to determine the severity of his tumor, what can I offer him???” I silenced the thoughts in my head and remembered that I could offer him my listening ear, my time, and hopefully, that would mean something.
     He got in our land-rover and we headed to a sandwich place for lunch. When we walked into the restaurant, I saw the way others looked at him and I saw the way he tried to shrink and disappear from the room, to not be subject once again to judgmental eyes and critique. I knew it had to be hard for him, but determined to treat him as I saw him, a valuable person, made in the image of God, not a tumor. I wanted him to feel “normal…” whatever that is...
     We ordered sandwiches, sodas, and tried to find something on the menu that my potential patient could eat because his tumor had started to take over his ability to eat. He sat quietly at the table, face down, with his ball cap pulled down over his eyes. My co-workers and I chatted about the day ahead and the remaining meetings we had. My potential patient sat starring at this plate, in silence. The situation was less than comfortable, I wanted to ask him a million questions since the moment I met him, but I didn’t want him to feel as if his tumor defined him, but at the same time, I didn’t want him to feel as if I didn’t notice it or didn’t care. I prayed for wisdom to know what to say and when to say it.
     After a few moments, he looked up at me and said, “Don’t you want to ask me questions about my face?” That was my cue… I asked him if it would be okay if I asked him some questions about his situation, in the restaurant while we ate, or if he preferred we talk privately in the land-rover… He opened up and told me his story…his life had been one ridden with hurt, hopelessness, crushed dreams, loneliness, sleepless nights, and rejection. I saw tears roll down his cheek as he spoke. He told me he was constantly in pain, that he used to attend school, but his physical and emotional pain had become so great, that he withdrew. He didn’t have enough money for pain medicine, didn’t know what medicine to buy, and he was all alone.
     I ached for him…I hurt for him…I wished I could have wrapped him in my arms and made his entire situation go away…but, I couldn’t even promise him it would all be okay when the ship arrived...I told him I wanted to see him as soon as the ship arrived, that we would order a CT Scan and other medical tests, but that I could not promise him a surgery…How does one encourage, but not provide false hope??? Either way, he clung to the promise that Mercy Ships would see him in August and he thanked me.
     This situation did not sit well with me. I couldn’t leave him the way he was… he had a large, painful tumor on his face…he could actually be called heavenward before the ship arrives…and all I could tell him was… “I’ll see you in a few months.” But, what could I do??? Then I remembered the local pharmacist I had met just a few weeks before who agreed to supply the ship with medicines should they run out. With my potential patient’s approval, we drove to the pharmacy. When we walked in the pharmacy, again he was met with nothing but stares. I had him sit on a little bench while I spoke with the pharmacist.
     I bought Ibuprofen and also managed to get my potential patient a strong analgesic that normally requires a prescription in this country. The pharmacist trusted who I was, who I worked with, and since evidence of my patient was starring him in the face, and he graciously gave us the medicine. I carefully instructed the young man how to take the medicine and gave him his first dose with water from a sachet that I purchased out of a basket a lovely African woman was carrying on her head. I prayed the medicine would somehow relieve the burden upon this “one” who was only a few years my junior.
      I still had many errands to complete for they day, but wasn’t bothered if this fellow wanted to ride around with me in the land-rover. I told him I would drop him off close to his home, which was near ours, when we finished our tasks for the day. He was thankful for the offer to save his precious coins and one less time he had to take public transport.
     Traffic can take anywhere between 40 mins-3 hours to get from downtown Conakry, to our apartment so after I finished my errands, I started to head home. I was thankful, traffic wasn’t too bad. After a few minutes of driving, I looked over my shoulder and saw him sleeping, peacefully.
     We neared our apartment and I didn’t want to wake him, he looked so weary, but I had to. He showed us where we could drop him off. We prayed with him before he left us, we made sure he understood how to take his pain medicine, and sent him on his way. As he got out of the car, with shoulders slumped, I prayed that God’s angels would surround this “one”…”one” that was anything but a statistic….”one” that is precious in his site… and I prayed that if the ship can help him that it will come to pass….
     Before I went to bed, I reviewed the whirlwind day I had experienced. I prayed for my potential patient…I prayed he would feel a touch from above and that God would do a mighty thing in his life….And I feel asleep…
     The next day, when my co-worker returned from work, he had a huge grin on his face and told me he had seen my potential patient downtown. The young man was so excited he had driven his bicycle all the way downtown in hopes of finding us in the Mercy Ships’ land-rover. He wanted us to know he slept the entire night for the first time in months, he had no pain, and he had more energy than he knew what to do with! His tumor remained, but he had slept and was without pain!
     I thank God for the young man with the facial tumor and I ask you to pray with me that his story is not yet finished…Pray that maybe he can find hope and healing through the big white ship that is sailing his way!

...laura & her scarves...

One of my new little friends in Guinea

I am so known for wearing scarfs that for my 30th Birthday
my friends on the ship had a "dress like Laura Z" themed party! Miriam
one of my buddies, looked freakishly like me!

As one of the Nurse Clinical Educators aboard the ship we had an IV start
class for the nurses that didn't know how to start IVs. I had to learn before
the class myself, and my amazing friend donated his veins
to my learning- Over a number of days this guy let me place 14 IVs in him!

Some of my little friends in Sierra Leone

One of my little friends in Togo

This little Guinean girl was brave...most the little kids here run away
from white skin, not this little girl, she marched up to me, pointed
at my camera, then she crouched down next to me, for a photo, we took one,
I showed it to her, she smiled, and walked away...just like that!

One of my little patients in Sierra Leone

a little piece of Idaho & the African market

It was another sunny day in Africa and I was enjoying a walk through the market. The streets were crowded and strewn with rubbish of every shape and form imaginable. I skirted between trucks stacked a few stories high with old plastic bottles, taxis stuffed to overflowing with passengers, mammas carrying babies on their backs and entire vegetable markets on their heads, and around rotting sewage in the streets. I smiled as I past little ones playing in the dirt with marbles. Around the corner I spotted a few kids chasing slightly flattened bike tires down the street with sticks to propel the tires along. I travelled along farther in town and saw a chubby little chocolate baby being placed ever so gently by his older siblings into an empty 24 pack of Coke, cardboard box with the plastic still attached around the bottom. His brothers had carefully tied a string to the little box and they were having a riot dragging their sibling around in the little box like it was a sled on snow. The little one giggled as his little sled slide across the dirt.

I continued on my way, wandering down street after street looking at all the colorful fabrics and listening to the cacophony of the buzzing activity around me. Many a street vendor tried to lure me into buying their merchandise, but nothing was grabbing my eye, besides, I didn’t really need anything, so I found it hard to justify any purchases. After a few hours of wandering around, my friend and I were headed back to the ship when I grabbed her arm and yelled, “Stop!” My friend spun around quickly wondering what in the world was wrong with me. Nothing was wrong, but I had just stumbled on the biggest pile of scarves I’d ever seen in my life! Literally, stumbled over the pile, I tripped on it in the street as I was trying to avoid getting run over by a huge truck driving down the road.

I wasn’t interested in much else that the market had to offer except the occasional baby I could hold in my arms for a quick cuddle, but head scarves, those I could get into! I couldn’t believe it, there were scarves of every color of the rainbow in a pile that came up to my waist. The designs were so beautiful and colorful. The scarf vender handed me scarf after scarf to see if he could persuade me to purchase more. As I was on my hands and knees on a busy street in Africa, digging through the scarf pile, the word “Sun Valley” caught my eye. I thought I had imagined it, but that would be a weird thing to just randomly imagine on the side of the road in Africa. So, I flipped through the scarf pile again and low and behold, I saw the word Sun Valley printed on the edge of a scarf. I pulled the rest of the scarf out of the pile and couldn’t believe my eyes. In front of me was a lovely-ugly green and orange shaded, colored scarf, with a full map of Idaho on it! I looked closer at the map and beyond all believe, Rupert was listed on the map! My little home-town of Rupert, which is rarely listed on USA maps, made it on the Idaho-African Market scarf! I laughed so hard and decided I had to have the Idaho scarf and a few other scarves! Budget or no budget, I purchased 19 scarves from the little scarf man for a total of about $5 USD and one even still had the original tag on it from Wal-mart.

The Lord knows there are those random ocassions when I miss crazy. little Rupert, the Rupert square, Doc's pizza, Idaho potatoes, and fresh corn on the cob, and since Idaho is there....and I am here...God brought a little piece of Idaho my way in a crazy, ugly-green- orange shaded scarf! Thanks God for making my day!  

the neurosurgeon & one single light bulb

The 9 month old little girl who had travelled all the way from the Gambia to Guinea lay on the worn mattress upon the operating table in the rudimentary operating theater. Although there was paint chipping off the walls, the OR theater appeared clean, sort of. Today the electricity was working and I prayed it would work for the duration of the little one’s operation. The OR lights were broken. I was told they hadn’t worked in years, so the surgeon worked diligently by the light from one single light bulb connected to an extension cord that was carefully strung across the ceiling above the patient. There was no vital sign equipment available to monitor the baby’s oxygen saturation, blood pressure, pulse, or temperature during the operation. The room was hot, sweat dripped down my forehead. The surgeon worked diligently to place the shunt from the baby’s head to her peritoneal area, to drain off the excess fluid that was surrounding her brain. I prayed for safety for the baby as the emergency drug cabinet in the room was sparsely stocked, the suction set was broken, the oxygen was in a huge cylinder with questionable administration sets, and the surgeon had just leaned over to tell me another supply he would like is working coagulation-cauterization equipment, the equipment needed in case a patient starts to bleed.



I selfishly hovered beneath the tiny air-condition in the room trying to cool myself and comprehend that I was in an operating room, in one of the National Hospitals of Guinea, with a neurosurgeon, watching a brain surgery, and all the surgeon had to guide his hands was one small little light bulb. All the supplies he needed for the surgery were donated in a little bag, the surgeon got no more and no less than the quantity in the donated bag. If he had needed one extra piece of gauze, it would not have been available.


For some reason, as I stood in the operating room watching the surgeon’s technique, my mind drifted back to another surgery, in another operating room, that took place the same week, five years ago. The patient that lay on that operating table was scared to death, but was being operated on in one of the finest hospitals in her country, with access to any and every type of equipment the surgeons or nurses would have needed. When she was told she had a brain tumor, she wondered if all her hopes and dreams were vanishing and never going to become reality. She cried for days and days, leading up to the operation, she ate every kind of chocolate in site “eating her feelings,” and hoping to wake up from the bad dream, then she cried some more. Thankfully, without any complications, her highly skilled neurosurgeons, successfully removed her brain tumor. And almost five years later, to the day, that same girl stood in an African operating room… hovering under a tiny air conditioner… praying over the little one on the table, undergoing brain surgery, hoping the baby and others like her would be able to grow up and live their dreams…Thanks to God, I am living my dreams…volunteering as a nurse in Africa with Mercy Ships… and I pray God gives Mercy Ships wisdom to see how they can partner with and help the little children in Guinea needing brain surgeries… by helping the neurosurgeon who operated by one single light bulb.