Praise God I am healing on many levels. I would love prayer for my persistent headache to release and for my eye strain and sensitivity to light to resolve, it’s been ongoing for 5-6 days. It is far easier to write and document all the stories in my head that I would like to share without these symptoms. Thus, I am limiting “screen time” as our culture has come to call it. I am pulling out some video files from the vault again. I am so blessed to have come across these precious memories, from my archaic phone all the way from the year 2009. I keep thinking, I will just post the video, then at least people know I am alive and I don’t have to stress to write, but then there is SO much to say about the videos. Pictures are worth 1,000 words, so videos must be worth 2,000, but you cannot hear, see, and smell the entire experience without written word. So, join me on a trip down memory lane, not to be confused with the street I lived on in Wichita, Kansas, after I was born, called Memory Lane, across from the church called Memory Lane Baptist Church, where my dad was a pastor.
Although Mercy Ships is a hospital, we are not an ER and we do not always have surgeons and doctors for every need and situation. In 2009, my friend who was from Benin and worked in housekeeping with us became very ill. I will call her E. We learned E had a serious and life threatening ectopic pregnancy. Ectopic pregnancies are when a baby starts to grow outside of the uterus. A fertilized egg implants in the fallopian tube wall. It causes severe pain and if not treated, the fallopian tube will rupture, causing internal bleeding, and often death of the mother. E was in this situation. There was a hospital in Cotonou, Benin that could help E, but there was no way she could afford the surgery. We could not just stand by and it broke our hearts that E may die without care. I remember arriving at the local hospital after we learned of E’s need. No surgery or treatment had commenced as the family had no money. E lay on an unfurnished mattress, in a room without any supplies, in agony. A few of us from the ship pooled resources and agreed to pay for the procedure.
We prayed and prayed for all to go well. I remember sitting on a wooden hospital bench in the hot African blazing sun, with palm trees nearby, with Liz and E’s family members. About 15-30 minutes after E went to the OR, the OR staff came over to where we were waiting. I was fearful we were too late and they were coming to tell us she was gone. Instead, they handed us a scrap of paper that looked like a receipt. The receipt listed a few supplies with prices. At first I had no idea what was going on. I did not know why we were getting a receipt. I came to understand the surgery would not proceed until the family went into town and bought the supplies. There was no central hospital supply room stocked full with supplies. We gave E’s family money and they ran into town to get things to start and IV, IV fluid, gauze, and tape. They came back and handed the supplies over to the OR team. Not long after, the OR staff came out again with a scraggly paper requesting the next supplies. A syringe was needed, an antibiotic, and saline to mix the antibiotic. From our nursing experience, we knew the preoperative antibiotic was now being given. This happened a few more times and each time we gave the family member money to buy the supplies the OR team needed to continue providing care for E. Surgery would not proceed without the finances or someone finding the supplies. Finally, there was a request for gauze and tape. We knew the surgery was coming to an end and a dressing was being applied to the abdomen. Praise God, E came out of the procedure! She was settled back into the room without any supplies and the simple mattress. E’s family brought her food to eat, dishes from home, and covered her with brightly colored African fabrics for blankets. A pain medicine was ordered and we again gave E’s family money to go buy the medicine in town and the hospital staff administered it to her after the family bought it. E was hospitalized for a few days, but thankfully, she made a full recovery.
In many cultures, it is a faux pas and downright rude to refuse food in someone’s house if you are invited there. I am glad to say I had prayed my way through making a dreaded cultural food faux pas for the last year or so I had been living in Africa. (See my post from Thursday, August 7, in Liberia 2008 titled Return to Tenegar). But that day, I was headed to a village in Benin with my friend and roommate, Liz and her mom, a crew member as well. We were invited to be the guests of honor at E’s house to thank us for helping her. We bumped along unpaved dirt roads with the dust flying after the Mercy Ships Land Rover. Beautiful children waved at us from behind huts, palm trees, and the green lush grass on the road. We passed women carrying baskets on their heads and babies tied to their backs. Finally, we made it to our destination.
Upon arrival at E's house, the 3 of us, Liz, her mom, and I were seated at the table together inside E’s meager home. There were only 3 chairs in the house around a humble table. We were the guests of honor, thus we got the chairs. E was dressed in her vibrant colorful fabric and proudly brought in a pot of rice, with cooked potato leaves, and fish. Meat is very expensive and to be offered meat is a huge deal. I ate fish when I was little, loved tuna fish sandwiches, fish sticks, if that counts as fish, and apparently loved eating rainbow trout that I would catch with my family when we went fishing with friends named Mamie and Roy in Kansas. That was all before we moved to Idaho when I was in 2nd grade. I do not recall eating fish after that. I do not know what made me stop eating it, but I cannot stand the smell or look to this day. Some have theorized that I do not care for it related to living in landlocked locations, but let me tell you, after living over 5 years on ocean front property, mind you, in a huge ship, called Mercy Ships, I was still not a fan. The last thing I wanted to do was offend the people I came to serve and bless, so to be offered fish was something I had prayed I could avoid at all costs. Yet, here in front of me, was the most gentle, kind woman, giving what little she had to bless my friends and me, with fish. I was handed a generous portion of cooked fish, potato leaves, and rice that was portioned out for me and as I looked down at my plate, I saw a fish head with its eyes still intact, staring up at me. As that fish stared at me. I thought to myself, “Oh, my goodness, there is no way I am going to get out of this one” and I prayed to myself, “Lord help me not to offend E, but I sure don’t want to eat this fish.”
I am pleased to say 17 years later, I am far more adventurous with food than I was in my mid 20’s and days in Africa. Yet, there are still some foods I would really rather not try nor stress the guardian angels of my gut in tasting. I used to be very picky, even with vegetables, but man, I will take on any vegetable these days, over mystery meat. Speaking of delicate stomachs and bugs, I have been trying to describe to my sweet husband infection transmission and sickness. I sure hope he’s catching on. At home, he loves to eat a sandwich at lunch and use the pant leg of his jeans as a plate. I have assured him many times I am more than happy to wash a plate if he would not eat off of dirty pants! He will take a bite of his sandwich, put it down on his pant leg, eat more, put it down, and repeat. He assures me the pants are clean. I go on to note, he sat in the dirty truck, and he crawled in the dirt, dust, and possible rodent feces in an attic and a crawl space on his electrical house call. Thus, the pants are dirty. He assures me they are clean. Oye. I have asked him not to eat off his pants, especially in Africa. Thankfully, he has not, but he still gives me a confused look and I tell him there are invisible germs/bugs/parasites and it’s not good to eat POO! Then I have to go on to explain very few people purposefully eat poop, but if someone prepares a meal for you and they have gone to the toilet, but have not washed their hands after, there’s a possible transmission method. Or, bless Dustin; he has not had a sense of smell since he was little, which he has been thankful for recently that he cannot smell the urine and feces smell that is often present in town. Thankfully, there are not nearly as many encounters with sewage in town here as in some of the other West African countries I visited. He doesn’t account for sewage transmission on our shoes.
I specifically remember my trip to Popo Beach in New Kru Town, a suburb of Monrovia, Liberia. I went there when invited by a local Liberian man/friend that worked on the ship in 2008. It was a fantastic day. My friends and I got to play with a LOT of children as they followed us around the village and played with us in the sand on the beach. We took tons of pictures and the kids were astonished to see a picture of them. A very rare thing back in 2008. But, I will never forget walking on a portion of the beautiful beach that had a bit of rocks here and there, and a few shade trees. Our local friend said to be careful where we stepped as this was the beach people liked to take their bowel movements on. No joke. Anyway, I have gone on to explain to Dustin that although he cannot smell it, we were most definitely walking in sewage in the market, the puddles were not rain puddles. Then he walks into our ship cabin, leaves his shoes on, drops a cashew on the floor where he just walked, and wants to pick it up and eat it! Oye! He could be eating poop! There is NO five second rule in Africa. The rule is cook it, boil it, peel it, or LEAVE it. If the food wasn’t cooked properly, don’t eat it, if it wasn’t boiled, and even sometimes, if it was, don’t chance it, and if you cannot peel off the skin of it, leave it alone. For example apples, if they are not specially cleaned with bleach or another solution to kill parasites and eggs and if the country fertilizes with night soil (which is human feces) the cycle of certain types of worms continues, then leave that food alone! Or you may bring more souvenirs home with you than bargained for. Or don’t eat food that touched the floor after you just walked through sewage! All that to say, fish is one food I’d just rather not eat, I felt it was safe, it wouldn’t be a test for the guardian angels of my gut, but I just did not want to eat it.
There were only 3 chairs at the table in the lowly house we were invited into so the family was not joining us. I thought E would leave the room and then I could sneak my fish onto either Liz’s plate, or her mom’s, but our host stood proudly at the table watching us. She wanted to see our enjoyment as she served us a feast. We were royalty at her table. I took bites of the rice first. It was “safe.” Cooked potato leaves were never on my wish list for dinner, but I took a bite or two of them as they were far less daunting than the fish looking at me. I was hoping our generous host would not notice I had not touched the fish. I heard scurrying from the front door of the hut and saw a group of little chocolate colored children, some of which had to be the neighboring children, peeking around the door post to stare at the odd sight of white people, something few had seen. E shooed the children away to keep them from bothering us. I waved as they scampered away. After a few minutes they were back. “Little hands, shoe-less feet, their lonely eyes looking back at me” (Audio Adrenaline, 2013). It’s not every day 3 white women come to your village. The children snuck up toward the porch of the house and peeked around the doorframe again. Their eyes were wide with excitement just watching us. I waved again and they giggled. I motioned for the children to come into the table by us and E appeared to understand the children were not a nuisance to us. A handful of children hurried toward us at the table. I scooted my chair back and plopped two children on my lap. They were very well mannered and did not reach for my food, but I offered them some. They were ecstatic. They were far hungrier than I was and I was honored to share with them. E smiled as all three of us welcomed the children around us and shared our food with them. I gave the children my fish and their tiny hands and hungry bellies nibbled it up with haste and joy. God had heard my prayer! The children happily ate my fish and I didn’t have to.
As I write this now, I am reminded of the words to another one of my favorite songs, it was not even published until 2013 and this village adventure happened in 2008, but I think the words are most appropriate… The” boys had become kings, and the girls had become queens… wrapped in His majesty…” (Audio Adrenaline, 2013) seated at a table they had not previously been given a seat at… when the doors of our hearts and the home opened… In the Bible, Jesus turned 5 barley loaves and 2 fish into a feast for many (John 6:1-14). God had done the same with our meals, what was served to us as a meal for 3 white women, fed many children in the village that day. As we were preparing to leave the village and head back to the ship, E’s little girl wanted to show us what she was learning. She didn’t have paper, pens, pencils, or math books. She did have a board, chalk, and a stick and she sure was passionate about practicing her times tables in French. Enjoy the videos posted November 5, 2025. May the memories from that time and math lessons remind me and may I never forget, God’s math is different than ours. He can multiply our strength, resources, influence, weakness, food, and all, when we let him.
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