"Shake your body in worship to the Lord!"

Today I went to church in town with a small group of people from Mercy Ships and let me tell you it was an experience. This service only lasted 3 hours, in comparison to the usual 5-6 hours and was filled with more dancing than any high school dance I went to! :) Not really, but it was so fun seeing the men and women get out of their chairs and fill the aisles with dancing for the Lord.

Usually the drive to the service would take around 20 minutes, but today marked the end of Ramadan for the Muslims and there was a MASSIVE gathering of people at a mosque that happened to be on our way to church. Because so many had gathered with their mats there was no more room on the ground to spread out to pray so people had even started to fill the streets with their mats to pray, this made driving a little difficult as you can imagine, but hey! why not?? WTA.

Little girl in church....


The service was in French and a local dialect, so a man who came with us translated the service for us. At one point the pastor dedicated a newborn baby to the Lord and the whole family was invited up to dedicate the baby, before we knew it about 25 people danced up the aisles with the mom leading the procession dancing away with her baby in her arms. Apparently the whole family came to dedicate the family. :) At the end of the service we were ushered into a side room and given various soft drinks before we were thanked for coming and made our way home. Today was a good day.

The tooth extraction.

Today was a very fun day indeed. Because I was on weekend duty I was able to take today off and join the dental team out in town. Each day a group of dentists, dental assistants, and dental hygienists go into town to a building where they have set up a basic clinic where they are able to provide basic dental care....

I started this on Tuesday and am now going to finish on Sunday... So I went with the group and watched in awe as teeth were extracted and fillings were completed all day long. The clinic sees around 50 patients a day!! Mondays and Thursdays are the screening days when not as many people can be seen, but it's a well oiled machine of a clinic and I was very impressed. At one point I was helping suction a patient that had a lose tooth and the Australian Dental Therapist (kind of like a physicians assistant, but to a dentist, we don't have any in the states, yet) asked me if I wanted to pull the tooth!!! So I learned that you actually push down to pull a tooth and pulled my first tooth! Crazy, huh??

The long-term mercy ship dentist, Dag, and one of the Polish dental assistants Jojo:



The coolest part about the clinic is that every person that comes through is presented the gospel and on Tuesday 12 people made decisions to follow the Lord in the morning alone!! I wasn't able to get the complete number for the entire day, but it was a great day and an amazing experience with the dental team. The new believers will receive follow-up from pastors from the local churches here in Contonou and will be plugged in with the Nationals. I heard that one day last week only 12 people got saved the entire day.... the emphasis was on only, so it is a pretty incredible ministry that is being used to proclaim the gospel to the people in Benin and lives are being changed daily. It was a great day. :)

Speaking of the dentist.... oddly enough I had a dentist appointment on Wednesday with Dag the Mercy Ships Dentist to investigate the seriousness of my cracked tooth and GREAT news my tooth is fine!!!! :) I don't need to have a root canal, hallelujah!!! And I can even chew on that side of my mouth now!!! Thank you SO much for all of your prayers, looks like they worked. The tooth is still cracked, but it only causes pain when I chew on very hard things and hit it just right. Dag said if it was his tooth he would just leave it and if it does start causing constant pain I can have it worked on. I must say this was a huge relief after watching so many people have teeth extracted the day before, I had started imagining the worst... but God is good and I still have all of the teeth that I came to Africa with. :)

update sent home...

Bonjour Friends and Family!

Crazy to think that September is already here and school is back in full swing, especially since this is the first time in 22 years that I will not be going back to school. Hopefully the heat wave that comes with summer has passed and the chill that comes each fall is back in the air... at least that's what I imagine as I happily write this to you from the cool confines of the midships lounge on board the Africa Mercy. Outside it is hot, muggy and humid, but I have been told this is the coolest it gets in Benin. I never appreciated the fresh air that we have at home, in fact I probably complained about the smog more often than I was thankful, but oh what I would give to take in a lung full of fresh outdoor air. The next time you walk outside and you don't smell gasoline, an outhouse or any other foul odor say a little thank you to the Lord, for clean air really is a blessing.

Other than dank air, my time on the Africa Mercy thus far has really been an enjoyable and unique experience. I have finally settled into the coming and going of people on the ship and LOVE my department. I am quickly becoming good friends with the other girls, and my biggest problem is that we're constantly baking which also means we're constantly sampling (you can't serve something you haven't tried, right??) But that just motivates me to get off the ship to exercise, something that has become my outlet from the ebb and flow of daily life here. I have even had the courage to practice with Mercy Ships very own football (soccer) team!!! I have never played football before (unless freshmen year PE counts??) and I am not sure anything can compare to playing football with a group of Africans on a sand field. It has been a very fun experience and is something that I look forward to on a weekly basis. The team even has a coach who played for his national team and has given me a few pointers to the game. :)

Thank you to those of who that prayed for the little baby that I shared about in my last update. The 9 month old baby boy passed away several days after I sent that e-mail. Apparently he had been sick at birth and the father would not accept the baby as his child and refused to mark the baby's face with his tribal marks (something that families do here to show their acceptance of their children). Over the time that the family was at Africa Mercy receiving care from the nurses on the ward the fathers heart was touched by the love and compassion that was shown to his family. The father was so moved that he held his baby boy for the first time, and it was then that the baby passed away. The Lord used this little boys condition to bring his parents to Mercy Ships and as a result both of the parents heard the gospel and accepted Christ as their personal savior before leaving the ship and the father could accept his son in spite of his ailing physical condition. The father told one of the nurses: "Thank you so much. Now I know why you are here and now I know how Jesus loves." What an incredible testimony of the Holy Spirit and how he moves and works in our hearts and through our actions!

I have recently been challenged with the truth that we are Jesus' hands and feet to the world. What an incredible privilege it is to be the instruments that He uses to express his love to the people he brings into our lives!! And what a wide variety of instruments there are!! My time here has been much different than previous missions work that I have been involved in because I am behind the scenes as a hospitality hostess rather than on the front lines of sharing the gospel or helping the sick. This has been challenging at times, but a very valuable lesson to learn that each member of the body is just as important as the other, whether it's a nurse on the ward working with the sick, a deck hand painting the side of the ship or a cook in food services. Mercy Ships is a ministry that relies on a wide assortment of people possessing many different gifts and skills, but all are crucial to making the mission of bringing hope and healing to the lost possible.... and each of you have made it possible for me to come and be part of this mission as well!!

Thank you again for your love and encouragement.

grace & peace.

Sisters of Charity.

One week ago I was able to take the morning off of my hospitality duties and go with a group of women from Mercy Ships to the Sisters of Charity orphanage here in Contonou. Before going we were told that there are babies and mostly children 3 years and younger. There are a couple of kids who are older, like 6 and 7, who cannot be adopted because they are HIV+. I am not sure why those children cannot be adopted as 40% of the children are adopted by families in France and Italy and the other 60% are adopted into Beninoise families. But the kids there have been abandoned by their moms, some were found in the marketplace after being taken there with their mom and then being told to wait as their mom would go shopping and she would never return. One child was found tied to a tree with a sign around his neck saying: "HIV+". Upon hearing their stories I was excited to be able to go and spend a morning with the kids.

When we arrived the children were all in a courtyard area sitting on a mat waiting to receive a morning snack. Naturally some of the women from our group sat around the outskirts of the mat and within seconds had a child, if not 2 or 3 in their lap. I lingered in the back standing waiting for the snack time to be over, but after a few minutes I took a seat as well and before long a little boy made his way over to me. I couldn't help but notice an interesting smell coming from the little guy, but didn't really think twice as he eased his way on my legs with his crackers in hand. Suddenly I felt something warm and wet on my lap, at first I wasn't sure how to respond, after the initial shock of the situation wore off I lifted the boy from under his arms to reveal a very wet bum and a very wet lap. It was then that I realized there are too many orphans to address the difficulties of potty training on a 1-1 basis, so when you gotta go, you go. And diapers are out of the question because of the expense and the difficulty of washing that many cloth diapers. I tried setting the little boy on the ground next to me, but he was insistent on sitting on my lap. By the time I had accepted the fact that I was covered in urine I had 3 large wet spots all across my skirt from my attempts at sitting next to the boy instead of him in my lap... but in the end he won and I realized that skirts can be washed and this boy needed some loving.

After snack we (meaning the African ladies with us) sang songs and danced while walking in a circle with the children. At this time the sick children and some of the babies were brought out as well. I was able to hold a couple of babies, one that had a skin condition and I think some kind of infection, the other was VERY malnourished... but man oh man did those babies just love being held. The women from Mercy Ships also brought a parachute and everyone gathered around the parachute or ran underneath as it was lifted up and down. The kids LOVED the parachute! Then we helped the Sisters feed the children lunch before heading back to the ship.

I am so thankful for my experience at the orphanage and am so amazed at the Sisters who serve at the orphanage and have dedicated their lives to those who have no one to love them. The head Sister who runs the facility is from the South Pacific and from my brief encounter with her I was so blessed through her positive attitude and willingness and desire to serve the little children. She is most definitely a light in Contonou, Benin.

Little Benin Factoid: The country's national religion is Voodoo mixed with animism, but because of Christian missionaries that came Christianity is found in the cities, even in some of the countryside. But the Beninoise do not put their faith alone in Jesus for salvation. It is quite common to find a national who is a Catholic in the morning and practices Voodoo at night. Or they will go to the church to seek prayer for whatever problems they may have, but will wear their enchanted Voodoo necklaces to keep evil spirits away. Voodoo is so engrained in their culture and everything about their lives and they live in such fear of evil spirits it is common for the people to practice a variety of religions. At the football/soccer game I went to on Sunday there was a witch doctor walking up and down the front aisle, complete with his yellow, green and red paint along with his normal ritual clothing in support of Benin, yelling at the field. Please pray for the people of Benin to have their eyes open to the truth and for God to work through us to show the people here that He is Lord over all and has conquered death and they can live in confidence and not fear.

WTA.

Welcome to Africa. This is a abbreviation that we frequently say when the ways of the Western world are different from what is experienced on a day to day basis. For example, "I'll see you there at 5." Really means "we'll probably be meeting close to 6." This little phrase is frequently a part of our verbage on a day to day basis... just a little explanation in case it slips out from time to time in my blogs.

Well... with that said, man I am not good at blogging, but I have been thinking and intending to blog a lot lately and want to work on it...

I am going to start with yesterday. Yesterday I went to the World Cup Qualifying game between Mali and Benin, which needless to say, was quite the experience. We paid 5,000 CFA's (that is about $10 USD) for VIP seats which meant we had plastic white lawn chairs that were under an overhang providing shade instead of being on cement benches without shade. It was quite nice. I was almost mid-field in the front row. I was thankful for that front row because as 4pm (the start time for the game) drew closer people sat on the stairs up the aisles meaning that you can't get down from the upper seating, but by the end of the game there were even people sitting in front of us on the ground, I don't think the fire marshall would have approved, but thankfully Benin scored in the last 3 minutes of the game making it a tie game at 1-1.... we were a little concerned when the time was running out and Mali was ahead as the crowd was growing more agitated. It was at this point that my friend Megan turns to me and says: "you know, we are in the one place all of the guidebooks tell you not to go." But come now, who could pass up a world cup qualifying game?? It really was a unique and fun experience... especially when the Beninoise man (man from Benin) behind me starting slapping my back when we scored a goal. Funny to think that just a few months ago I didn't even know where Benin was in the world and yesterday I got chills as I heard a stadium filled with complete strangers sing a national anthem in a foreign language and I welled with pride and screamed with joy when we scored the tying goal. I think I may even buy a jersey. ;)