The little girl in the yellow dress...

Pray for the little girl in the yellow dress.  She needs an orthopedic surgery.  We won't be
doing any ortho this outreach because we are only in Togo for a few months &
bone surgeries take too long to heal. 
We had to tell this precious little girl's mother & many others that we couldn't help them...
...Heart- breaking...

bed...now

I'm alive...tired....left ship at 0400hrs returned dirty, stinky, sweaty, & sun-kissed at 1830 hrs.....the only way to describe the day...amazing & incredible...there was a sense of heavenly peace surrounding the entire stadium/screening process...no trouble...estimations are that over 3500 patients flowed through our screening lines...scheduled as many as possible... pray for all those we were unable to help (there are always more "no" patients than "yes" patients)...bed...now...

it's time to pray for screening day!

Tomorrow is the big day...SCREENING DAY...The day when we expect to see around 3000-5000 patients from all over Togo, Ghana, and possibly Benin...The patients come from near and far hoping that we will be able to help them....From the group of patients we see and screen tomorrow, we plan our surgery schedule for our entire stay in Togo. Almost the entire crew from the ship will be on site at a local stadium here in Lomé, Togo, tomorrow, February 1st, to ensure the screening day process is a success! We are running around like crazy getting together all the final details for the big day tomorrow...I just returned from the stadium a few hours ago after an afternoon of setting up things for the big day.



Our security team is already at the stadium and will be all night along with two nurses who are helping assess patients that are already starting to line up (more than 12 hours before the actual triage/screening begins). We have just made over 1000 peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for lunches tomorrow. We are grabbing our water bottles, sunscreen, scrubs, pens, pencils, & hoping to soon hit the hay. The big day starts at 0330 tomorrow morning. It's time to pray for screening day! The need in front of us is always greater than the help we can offer & this year I am in charge of the team that tells patients "yes" or "no." No small task... It's time to pray for screening day!


*Pray for God to receive ALL THE GLORY...It's time to pray for screening day!


*Pray for the right patients to come to us- pray that those we cannot help stay away & that those who have divine appointments with Mercy Ships show up...It's time to pray for screening day!

*Pray against fear- Pray that the patients that have had to hide in the shadows all their life because of fear or rejection & ridicule related to their medical problems...come to us. Pray that the patients in their villages that may be afraid to come because of curses or lies that witchdoctors have told them about us or "white people" will have the courage to come...Pray for those of us who were at screening last year in Sierra Leone, where a riot broke out, will not fear the events of tomorrow...Our history in Togo has shown us that there tends to be a more aggressive spirit in many people we come across in Togo than in other countries...It's time to pray for screening day!


*Pray for health-There has been a recent spread of the stomach flu & bellies that go "fast-fast" (African term for diarrhea) here. The screening team is dropping like flies & we need all hands available to help with (screening, security, food, registration, history taking, vitals, the pharmacy, data entry, lab, x-ray, cleaning crew, children's ministry, translation, prayer team, water team, emergency medical team, communications/photos, drivers, and much more tomorrow)...We are a body....all part of the team...& we need all our team members...It's time to pray for screening day!


*Pray for Brussels...there is some sort of strike situation going on there that is influencing the arrivals & departures of our crew. Some of our crew members that we are eagerly waiting for have been delayed because their flights were through Brussels...we need our team! It's time to pray for screening day!


*Pray that I can go to sleep now & trust God with our screening day!!!

hungry & falling on my knees

I cannot believe it has been almost 4 years since I stood in front of my home churches in Idaho & New Hampshire announcing that I would be serving as a volunteer, missionary nurse on a ship in Africa! I vaguely remember reading an excerpt from a “Welcome to Mercy Ships Letter” that I received out loud in church as part of my prayer requests as I was heading out into the land of the unknown (life on a ship in Africa). The excerpt I read said “the ship culture is one of constant change: change of location, change of personnel, and change of climate. Relationships, though intense, are often short lived, and this can be emotionally painful. Relationship conflicts are difficult to avoid and need to be worked out which can be a frightening experience for some people. For this reason it is important that crew members are emotionally robust with healthy coping mechanisms…”



I was also informed the “ship environment is hazardous and uncomfortable for various reasons. Decks may be slippery, there are lots of steep staircases, and there are many things to trip over or to hit your head on. The environment is often noisy, which can be mentally exhausting. There are occupational hazards associated especially with technical jobs. Heat can take its toll and dehydration is a risk. Sea travel can result in great discomfort from motion sickness. The ship air conditioning system recycles a high proportion of the air, resulting in frequent exposure to coughs and colds…”


Basically, I had signed up for the adventure of my life…and if I was going to survive life in the metal box, where I would eat, sleep, work, socialize, pray, and share every moment of life together with about 400 other people from 35 different countries; I better have an excellent prayer team... All the challenges the “Welcome to Mercy Ships Letter” explained didn’t even touch on the intensity of working with and among the poorest of the poor, experiencing patient deaths, crew illnesses, having to tell patient after patient that our surgery lists are full and that we have no space to help, having limited supplies, falling in love with chocolate children that the Lord calls home before we are ready to say good-bye, and seeing the intense pain and suffering of a multitude of people right out my window. Yikes!


I actually laughed when I read the letter I had received and knew I had nothing to fear because God would go with me everywhere and I would be able to accomplish whatever he called me too… I still believe and fully know without a doubt that it is God ALONE who enables me to get out of bed every day and it is God ALONE that allows me to perform the work he called me too, but…Yikes!


I have burst into tears 4 times in the last 40 minutes alone and I feel like all my emotional robust, health, vigor, heartiness, strength, toughness, stoutness, spirit, beef, sturdiness, muscle, resilience, and durability have gone out the window! Tomorrow is our last day of surgery for the Sierra Leone 2011 outreach. The hospital officially closes November 25th and we still have many surgical patients desperately in need of miracles so that their wounds heal before the ship sails away in December. Many of my treasured friends are leaving within the next few days and I don’t know if I will ever see them again on this earth. My roommate and current best friend is leaving tomorrow and I will have a new bunkmate within 24 hours time. I also have two huge term papers/reports to write within the next few weeks describing the entire plastic and orthopedic surgery experiences aboard the ship this year and I feel like I have a bad case of senioritis!


To be “emotionally robust” is an understatement for my need at this time. I am hungry…and falling on my knees...as tears roll down my cheeks, I ask you to sing/pray with me & for me, the lyrics to the song I am now listening to…

Hungry (Falling on my Knees) by Kathryn Scott…

Hungry I come to You

For I know You satisfy

I am empty, but I know

Your love does not run dry

So I wait for You

So I wait for You

I’m falling on my knees

Offering all of me

Jesus You’re all

This heart is living for

Broken I run to You

For Your arms are open wide

I am weary, but I know Your touch

Restores my life

So I wait for You

So I wait for You

So I wait for You

So I wait for You

Jesus, I am so blessed to be stressed here in Africa, serving in your precious name. I am blessed that I have friends and family, worlds apart from me, who care enough about me to read this, that support me to be here, and pray for me. Thanks!

My Krio Vocabulary

It seems like just yesterday I got off the airplane and stepped into hot & humid Sierra Leone. How can it be that I have already been here over eight months and in just a short time, my floating home will pull up anchor and sail away? All the Krio I have been learning will need to be put aside and I will have to give French my best shot again as the ship is heading to Togo!



Nonetheless- for the remainder of my time in Sierra Leone I will continue to work on my Krio. Below are a few of the words & phrases I have added to my Krio vocabulary over the past few months. The words and letters are all pronounced just as they sound and look. Try the phrases out for yourself or imagine me running around the ward and the streets of Freetown repeating the phrases.


Mohnin-o- Morning!


Aw di bodi? How are you? Literally how is the body


Di bodi fine, how usef? Not bad, and you?


Ah tel God tehnki- I cannot complain- I tell God thank-you


Di bodi de na klos- Fine- the body is in the clothes


We yu nem- What’s your name?


Ah nem- My name...


Ah gladi foh mit yu- It’s nice to meet you


We go si bak- See you later


Tenki ya- Thank- you


Ah tell yu bohku bohku tenki- I thank you very much


Ah taya- I’m tired


Ah noh get natin- I don’t have anything


Ohmohs ah foh pe? How much do I need to pay?


Aw mus for dis tin ya?- How much does this item cost?


Ah go want mehk yu bi mi gal friend- Will you be my girlfriend?


Nar dis merecine ah for take?- It this the medicine I should take?


Ah get pain na me an, bak, bele, ed, nek, trot- I have been in my hand, back, stomach, head, neck, and throat.


Udat- Who is?


Os- House


Paddy- Friend


Pikin- Children


Yestade- Yesterday


Tide-today


Tumara- tomorrow


Nehxt tumara- Day after tomorrow


How yu slip? How did you sleep?


Mishef, ah noh lek pehpeh plehnti- I don’t like hot pepper too much


Aw di chop? How’s the food.


Ee Gud- It’s good


Yu lehk go wet? Do you need to urinate?


Well, that’s it for now. We go si bak!

hot-pink, ruby-red, cast shoes

I remember seeing him those first few days after his surgery sitting on a small chair with his two little legs and bandaged feet tucked up on the corner of the chair. In reality, I don’t know if he actually understood that he wasn’t allowed to walk or if the pain in his toes and feet kept him from attempting to walk, but there he sat.


Both of his feet had been burned when he was small. One moment he was playing, the next moment his precious chocolate colored skin connected with a boiling liquid and all the skin on his toes burned. He didn’t have the luxury of medical care and over time his burned skin contracted. His toes fused together then folded completely down and under.


The time came for him to start walking, but it was difficult. He attempted to waddle around and eventually learned to mobilize by walking on the sides of his feet. Shoes wouldn’t fit correctly and he didn’t even have individual toes to mangle into a flip-flop so at least the sides of his feet could be protected from constant contact with the hard African soil.


The tiny skin grafts we put between his toes started to heal and the doctor said he could start to walk. My little patient with bandaged toes and feet timidly clung to the wall contemplating if he actually wanted to walk or not. The physical therapist and I encouraged him saying, “Walka- Walka, you can do it, Walka- Walka” which is the Krio way of saying “Walk.” He glanced over his shoulder looking for approval and confidence from his mama. His tall, beautiful, African mother lovingly nodded her head, persuading her son to take his first steps on his new feet and toes. He stumbled, but we encouraged him to keep walking. We held both his hands in ours and encouraged him to walk. The bandages on his feet made him easily loose traction and he sometimes slipped around like he was on and ice-skating rink. I couldn’t help but laugh as he slipped around on the floor in his little hospital gown and bandaged feet. But, each time he fell down we picked him up and encouraged him to keep walking.


Weeks and multiple bandage changes later, one of my co-workers questioned if it was time for our little patient to try wearing a pair of shoes. I called the PT/OT team and told them about our idea. I got sidetracked and involved in other patient care and missed the PT/OT visit, but all I know is one minute my little patient was stumbling around the ward with his little bandaged feet and then almost instantaneously he was running down the hall-way and in and out of the ship stairwells. I could barely keep up with him. My patient had received a brand new pair of tiny, hot-pink, cast shoes- that look like a snazzy pair of orthotic Velcro high-tops. And it was seriously like magic, as soon as he put on the hot-pink shoes, he was in another world, he was free! He ran, jumped, skipped, and rarely slipped. It was like he had found his own pair of Dorothy’s ruby red slippers, clicked his heels together, and was whisked off to another land.


The little cast shoes he put on were not magical, nor ruby-red. On the contrary they were hot-pink, but it was awesome to witness my little patient getting whisked off to another land. Not a magical land called Oz, but the land of healing…and I am so honored that I can witness this healing every day in the place I call my home…there’s no place like home…there’s no place like home….there’s no place like home…

Thanks father in heaven, that because you live in my heart, I can make a home wherever I am. Thanks for my little patient in his hot-pink, ruby- red, cast shoes and that he found healing in my home/your home here on the Mercy Ship.

balloon soccer & tangible hope

Over the past few months he has been getting stronger and stronger. His little crutches have become one with him. His once unstable gait has vanished and has been replaced with a near run as he cruises around on his one leg and two supporting crutches as if he had perfectly healthy legs and no crutches at all. He has been working very hard with our physical therapy team. He has come so far. It seems like just yesterday that he woke up from his first surgery and “asked for a balloon.” The days when we had to give him multiple medications to deal with the pain from his exercises are long gone. And it seems like it was years ago that we were using tough love to force him to lie on his stomach to stretch the stump that was left of his leg; knowing if we didn’t make him stretch he would never be able to wear a prosthetic leg in the future. I am so proud of him!

A few weeks ago our little patient, that I am so proud of, our plastic surgeon and physical therapists took a small road trip across town to a soccer field. The exciting part of the road trip was not that the trip destination was a soccer field because soccer fields in Freetown are just like Starbucks in Seattle! No, the awesome part of the field trip was who was playing on the soccer field itself. Our little friend got to see the Sierra Leone National Amputee Foottball/Soccer Team play! Our small patient and my co-workers watched the professional soccer players with wonder and awe. The athletic army with crutches played a better game of soccer than most of us with two perfectly formed legs could ever hope to play. I can only imagine what my little friend/patient was thinking as he watched a soccer team of amputees, people just like him doing what all little African boys love; playing soccer.

Although his road hasn’t been easy and the only soccer game he has played lately was a game of balloon soccer with our physical therapy team, I trust my patient’s future is bright. He has been fit with a prosthetic leg and just three days ago he was discharged from Mercy Ships’ care. I know the world around him will tell him what he “cannot do”, that he “will fail”, and “that he is different and can never fit in.” But, I believe it won’t be long until my little patient leaves behind games of balloon soccer for more. I saw it in his eyes as he gave me a high-five good-bye and was ushered off the ship after receiving a round of applause and roar of encouragement when he was paraded through the dining hall during lunch to wave good-bye to the rest of the crew. He will remember the days he spent with us, the days he saw his healing come, and the day we showed him hope for his future on a simple soccer field; a field of dreams.

“In order for hope to be credible for the future it must be tangible in the present” (US Ambassador Robert Seiple). Thanks Lord for your Hope & for Healing.

just a little of what I did...

I rounded with the doctors, handed over to the nurses, assisted the nurses under my management with dressing changes, went to bed meeting, made patient assignments for the next shift, ran to the pharmacy to seek their guidance in figuring out how to give an IV medicine orally because we don’t have the oral form of the medicine. I prayed with my patient who is discouraged that it is taking so long for her wound to heal. I discharged a few patients from my ward, admitted a few into their vacated spaces.  I attended a quality assurance meeting with hospital management. I answered emails from previous surgeons. I was called into the crew clinic to consult on a case where the crew physician wasn’t certain what the patient had.  I diagnosed the patient with one of the tropical diseases I had learned about in my course of tropical diseases and I prescribed treatment for the patient. I went back to the ward and welcomed a group of guests from Belgium to my ward, explaining to them what types of operations we do and explained the basics of how things work on the ship, among the visitors was Miss Belgium.  I chased a few of my chocolate children/patients around the ward and down the hallways when they escaped from the ward.  I kissed all the babies I could.  I gave one of my longer term patients, a four year old, cheeky, little princess, a mini syringe for her to “medicate” her baby doll that she has named after one of the nurses, “medicine” for the doll’s bandage change. My little patient smiled, giggled, and ran off to play with the other little ones in the ward.  I ran out to the dock to give one of my plastic surgery patients TB (tuberculosis) medicine, as she was recently diagnosed with TB and needs to learn how important compliance with treatment is so that she can be cured and not have complications, thus she has to make contact with us daily to take her medicine.  I carried around one of my patient’s babies strapped to my back so that the patient could focus on her physical therapy session. I could go on forever…but that’s just a little of what I did in one shift as a nurse manager on the Africa Mercy, the huge hospital ship floating off the coast of Sierra Leone, the place I am so blessed to work and proud to call home.           

Ground-Nut & Pumpkin



My little ground-nut! You know how we call cute, small babies, "peanut" in
the Western World? Well, in Sierra Leone, they call peanuts- ground-nuts so
I decided we must call this precious little one "ground-nut!"



I love this kid! We call him Pumpkin! His little cheeks are so kissable
and he is so round and chubby, like a precious little pumpkin!

Fishing Boats & Towels

It breaks my heart and I hate to admit it, but he has been on the ward with us since we removed the small football sized tumor from his shoulder more than four months ago. The surgery to remove the tumor from his shoulder went extremely well. The skilled, South African, surgeon that removed his tumor grafted new skin from his right thigh to cover the gaping wound that was left in his shoulder after removing the mass that had protruded from his arm for far too many years. A few weeks after his surgery his skin graft had taken and his shoulder was healing. He started to learn shoulder range of motion. He was ecstatic when he got to use his regained shoulder range of motion to wave at his brother, who was in a fishing boat that randomly passed by the ship one afternoon during the patient’s daily trip outside to deck seven of the ship. We loved watching him stare at the clock each day waiting in anticipation for the daily patient trip outside. Another day he randomly saw another one of his family members float past the ship in a tattered fishing boat and the smile on his face melted our hearts. We got so excited for him and his “family sightings” from deck seven, that we started making nursing notes in our charge nurse handover notes about who he got to wave at each day. His happiness added to our happiness.


Although his shoulder was healing well, the donor site on his thigh that we grafted skin from was not healing well. Then it got infected. As soon as we thought the skin was getting better, another area of infection would appear and the fragile skin that was healing would once again break open and pus. This cycle of almost total healing, then wound breakdown has continued and despite our best efforts, his years of malnutrition and poor skin condition in general have made his healing process extremely lengthy and prolonged.

He has been sad, depressed, discouraged, and questions why it has taken so long for his leg to heal. We ask the same questions. He misses his wife and kids; the waves from deck seven of the ship aren’t enough. He needs his family, but they live too far away and cannot travel each day to visit him. We are discouraged, but know God is big enough to heal his leg. And praise God, just this past week his healing has sped up and we pray that soon he will be able to go home.

Yesterday, he asked to speak to me and I hate to admit it, but I tried to avoid him, not wanting to tell him once again that he was not ready to be discharged. He started to speak to me in Krio, the main language here in Sierra Leone. I understand most Krio, but wanted the support of a translator to help me explain once again to my patient that I didn’t know why his leg wasn’t healing, but that I was praying with him for it to get better, and that we weren’t giving up on his healing. He agreed to wait for me while I found a translator. I prepped my translator, telling her about the situation before we approached my waiting patient. With a heavy heart, we approached my patient once again and I had my translator start to explain to him that it wasn’t time for him to go home yet.

She started speaking in a local tribal language and smiled at me and was laughing with the patient. I was confused and interrupted her, telling her to tell the patient what I asked her to tell him because I was certain if she had really told him that he couldn’t go home, that he wouldn’t be laughing. She stopped me and said, “No, Laura, it is okay.” I was dumbfounded. It wasn’t really okay. My patient has been here more than 130 days and his wound still isn’t better. She said, “No, it really is okay, He just wants to know if when he finally goes home if he could take a towel with him. He doesn’t have one at home.”

All the heaviness that had been on my shoulders lifted. I breathed a sigh of relief and told my patient he could most definitely have a towel when he goes home. He smiled from ear to ear, shook my hand, and thanked me for all we are doing for him, and walked back to his humble bed, in a busy ward, to wait for his healing, but somehow comforted by the idea that he would have a towel to take home.


Dear Father in Heaven! Thanks for my patients. Thanks for the healing YOU WILL BRING THIS PATIENT. Thanks for the chance to be here & thanks for simple things like towels. (Next time you use a towel- please pray for my patient, that he will soon heal & be able to take home the towel I promised him).