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. :)