Things I miss, things I don't!

What I miss about America:
•Wal-mart
•Ice-cream!! (especially mint chocolate chip)
•Going to church and worshiping in a language I can understand
•The bathrooms (enough said)
•Taking care of my own house – yes, even cooking and cleaning!
•Driving down the road without feeling bruised from all the bumps
•The food, and how easy it is to get it
•My cell phone... oh yes, and the people I talk to on it! (so I guess really what I miss is talking to my far away friends and family)
•Getting together with friends... no translators necessary
•Wearing shorts!!!
•Being able to invite people over to my house
•Um, did I mention ice cream?

What I don't miss about America:
•Work (ok, maybe I do miss it a little bit...)
•Doing my own laundry
•Rude, unfriendly people
•Being so busy it's hard to fit in the really important stuff, like people
•The news – I haven't seen a headline since I've been here
•Traffic and commuting (a 3 minute walk to the hospital is nice)
•The obsession with stuff and entertainment

What I will miss about Africa:
•The huge smiles on people's faces just from saying hello
•The bright colors people wear
•The little babies tied to their mother's backs
•Being awestruck every time I see the enormous loads women carry on their heads, and feeling small that I couldn't even carry that much in my arms
•Afternoon siestas! Seriously, how can they manage a 2 hr afternoon break in the hospital here and some days at work I can't even manage a 5 minute one?
•The beautiful harmony and rhythms in church
•The fruit! Pineapples, mangos, bananas...
•The sweet, friendly people
•Being with my best friend (Stephen, in case you couldn't figure it out) all day long

What I won't miss about Africa:
•The potholes big enough to lose half your car in (I finally found a place with worse roads than Baltimore city)
•Sweating
•The smell of sweating
•Bugs – little ones, big ones, slimy ones, crawling ones, flying ones...
•Bargaining for everything I buy (Stephen would put this in the “what I'll miss” category, but not me!)
•Never being able to just blend in and be normal
•Feeling filthy rich
•My new best friend, Cipro (only fellow medical people or fellow travelers will understand this one, but I don't think I want to elaborate...)
•Malaria pills

You know you're in Africa/Togo when...

* There are more military personnel at the TV station than the border (because coups are the greater threat)
* You're excited to have a lizard roaming your walls because the bugs are worse than the reptiles
* A good machete is half the price of a small jar of peanut butter
* Kids love talking with you because you're a stranger
* A good road equals only a couple potholes every ¼ mile
* The woman carry more weight on their head than you could in your arms
* Your attempts at kicking a soccer ball are great entertainment to the local children
* 85 degrees with 85 percent humidity is one of your more comfortable days
* You're happy the electricity was out ½ an hour (instead of ½ a day)
* Your church service has more rhythm and harmony than most of your CDs
* Someone you'd consider anemic in the US is a candidate to donate blood
* Modesty (for women) means not showing any of your thighs, but clothing above the waist is optional
* You know people who never graduated high school, but speak 4 languages.
* Cats are a delicacy (no, I did not eat one)
* You are bored with diagnosing malaria, but your professors back in the states are stoked to make the diagnosis
* You've seen twins delivered by C-section without an MD in the operating room
* A shopkeeper insists he's not ripping you off because his sandals are made with “Italian plastic”
* A nine passenger van carrying 12 people is considered below capacity
* People run alongside a semi-truck going up a hill with cement blocks so they can stop the truck if it starts rolling backwards
* A simple greeting brings out a huge smile
* Your pictures of medical conditions are better than the textbooks
* You can buy Barack Obama boxers in the market (a few booths over from the fish)
* A shopkeeper knocks 20% off his “very-final price” (as opposed to his first “final price”)
* Dancing and drums are normal in a Baptist church
* You've been far more blessed than you have served, and “sacrificing” time and comforts to come is a great misnomer, because your joy is far greater than anything given up

Our Mango Adventure

We have returned safe and sound from our trip up north – and with quite a collection of good Africa stories to tell! We are in such a comfy environment down here in Tsiko (though that word is relative I guess – some may not call it that). Our trip up to Mango was our first real “rustic” African experience, and it was kind of fun!

So Mango is... hot and ugly. It is the hottest place in Togo (think 120-130 F). The town is mostly brown mud huts with either corrugated tin or thatched roofs (not sure which is better), with a spattering of concrete buildings in various stages of decay – all with a liberal supply of trash and garbage surrounding them for decoration. The people there come from a number of different tribes such as the Filane, Tsikose, and Housa (yeah, totally guessing on the spelling there). These tribes are considered the lowest and most despised in this area, and most of them are some sort of Muslim, or Muslim/fetish combo. Mango is one of the largest cities in northern Togo, yet it has been completely ignored by the government and even most mission organizations. There is virtually no medical care available there. Though the town is Muslim, they begged ABWE to start a hospital in their town like the one in Tsiko, even knowing that it will be an evangelistic Christian hospital. The need there is tremendous, and the people are beautiful and just as sweet and friendly as they are down south. So a team of church planters has moved up to Mango to prepare the way for the hospital (named Hospital of Hope), and construction is underway on the site which should open in 2014. Stephen and I are really excited about what they are doing there, and are praying about whether it is a place that the Lord would have us come back to.

I know I made Mango sound like it's all awful, but it's not. The town is surrounded by savannah-type plains, and during the rainy season (which I think is from May-November ish) there is actually green grass and a spattering of trees – nothing like the stunning tropical jungle down in Tsiko, but beautiful in its own way. I believe the land is brown the rest of the year. Just outside of Mango there is a river and a dam, which has formed a large lake where hippos now live. So of course we went to see the hippos and happened to get some amazing views and pictures. Those things are enormous! It seemed like they were as big as a bus with their front teeth about the size of my entire body. They were so cool – as long as they were in the water and I was safely on the bank! =-) Oh yes, and on the ride up to Mango the people we were riding with stopped at a small wildlife preserve. It wasn't big enough to have large game like lions and elephants, but we did get to see things like zebras, antelope, crocodiles, wildebeasts, water buffalo... it was beautiful!

Ok, so a few good Africa stories. I grew to dread the bathroom up there... yes, the bathroom. The first night I went marching in there and flipped the light on to find a dead somewhat-smashed lizard (which I know had not been there an hour before) right by my bare foot, which I think I might have just stepped on. And there were about 70 ants (giant ants!!!!) crawling around all over it and the bathroom floor. Our hostess was on the phone with her grandmother in the US, so I determined I'd have to clean it up myself. Gulp. Well, almost by myself. My hero (Stephen) came in to take care of the lizard. I then scrub the lizard blood off the floor and begin to smash ants and chase them around with a broom I found, trying to sweep them down the shower drain (the shower was just a drain and a faucet in the corner of the bathroom anyway). Well, that seemed like a good idea until they started to come up the drain! Oh, did I mention I had shoes on at this point? I don't think I took those things off the rest of my time there. That was just the beginning of that shower experience – by the time it was over I had knocked the faucet off at least twice and completely tore the towel rack off the wall. I really don't know how I managed that. Also, I was told they had no hot water. That was a joke, because really they had no cold water – the water was whatever temperature it felt like being, and that was always hot! I was usually sweating just as much after the shower as before. Anyways... I admit I wasn't sorry to see our little simple, mostly clean, mostly vermin-free bathroom when we got back down here!

We had a few other fun adventures – like piercing a baby's ears and taking stitches out of a man's face. Like I said – no medical care there! The ear piercing would also make a good story, but maybe another post as this one is already too long. The trip back was also kind of an adventure. It went quite smoothly, but taking an enormous bus on crumbling African mountain roads with people who can't speak English can possibly present some challenges. I had two concerns, and therefore two prayers – that I would not have to go to the bathroom on the 8hr trip (squatting by the side of the bus like the African women just wasn't going to cut it for me) and that we would get off at the right stop. I am pleased to announce God graciously answered both! In all, it was a very exciting trip. It was exciting to see and hear and imagine what God is doing and will be doing in Mango. Please pray for this town, that God would use this new hospital to spread His gospel in a place where it has never been before.

P.S. - We will eventually post pictures, probably as a web album, but the internet is too slow here so we will have to do it when we get home!

Balancing the glorious and the mundane

I guess the mood to write hasn’t struck me very often this past week or two, because Stephen has done all the updating! Let’s see… I’ve been doing a lot of odds and ends the last few weeks. If anything, it’s taught me that life “here” is just like life “there”. I’m not sure if I can describe what I mean by that… I guess that all the mundane daily tasks of life still happen here. Much of the missionaries daily lives are taken up with ordinary things like paperwork, housework, maintenance, etc. Not everything is fun and glorious with inspiring results. The last few weeks Stephen has been busy with more of the fun and glorious stuff (though he might disagree with that) and I’ve been busy helping people with more of the mundane and ordinary stuff. It has made me think about what is more pleasing to the Lord. There is a surgeon who lives here 6 months of the year, and he just left to go back home. Before he left he was talking about how doing surgery always seems to be the more dramatic and glorious thing, but how he believes the nurse’s aid who shows kindness to a patient is just as much, if not more, valuable in the Lord’s eyes. Perhaps we sometimes have it backwards. Perhaps the Lord does not care so much about the result of what we do but the attitude and the motive with which we do it.

While Stephen has been in the hospital or clinic all day, I’ve been able to get a more well-rounded view of what life here is like – and I like it! I’ve been in lots of villages and markets, even a few of the people’s homes. We are different, but we are also so much the same in the truly important things. But I also really like being in the hospital, especially when Stephen and I can work together. Yesterday I got to follow a Togolese nurse (Mawuli) around so that he could show me the ropes in the hospital from a nursing perspective. Fortunately he spoke English – but it is still rather intimidating when I don’t know what I’m doing and he was under the impression that I did! For instance, how in the world do you run an IV without a pump? And how in the world do you mix medications? And how do you know when a baby ate last if it isn’t charted? And how in the world did I get stuck with giving shots and suppositories, two of my least favorite tasks of all time? ;-) Again, it’s so different… and yet so much the same. But you know, nursing is simpler here and I like that.

This weekend Stephen and I are traveling to a city up north called Mango. It is in a Muslim area, and ABWE is building a new hospital there (the town actually begged them to) which should be done in 2014. We are very excited about this project and what they are doing – we’ll try to write more about it when we come back. Pray for us – it’s an 8 hr drive on bad roads. Some people we know are driving us up, but we’ll be coming back by bus on Tuesday (sounds kind of adventurous to me!) We’ll try to post soon after we return, but I don’t think we’ll have access to internet until then.

3 Continents Down…3 to Go

As many of you already know, delivering babies is my favorite part of medicine. It is amazing how God has created human life and brings it into the world, and I continued to be in awe of this process. On Monday, while on call, I got to deliver my first baby in Africa…it never gets old and I always find it such a joy to take part in this process. Now, I can say that I’ve delivered babies on 3 of the inhabitable continents (also Asia and N. America). We’ll see if I can ever add to that in the future.

Lisa and I are continuing to enjoy our time. I’m continuing to serve in the hospital, and she has been helping out the last two days watching kids as the missionaries have team meetings. Can’t believe we are half way through our trip. Thank you for all of you prayers. You are in our thoughts too.

A Snake Bite

This hospital never has a dull moment, and I love bouncing around from C-sections to traumas to pediatric malaria and seeing such a wide variety of cases. Last Tuesday, a small, elderly man came in during morning rounds. He had been farming out in the fields, when he felt a pain in his left foot and looked to see a snake had just bitten him. His sons quickly brought him into the hospital...as well as the dead snake in a plastic bag. (A note on this from our hospital's treatment manual: “First try to determine the type of snake responsible for the bite... If the snake has been killed, ask to have it brought in to determine the type [which allows us to know if our anti-venom {rare and expensive} will work], but in general, it is not wise to try and kill the snake, since more people are then at risk for bites.” Hope none of you ever have to use this trivia).

We identified the perpetrator as a saw-scaled viper (I would post pictures if internet was faster...it was 3 feet long, and fortunately it was fully dead, because my pictures are from a few feet away). Its venom causes victims to bleed to death, and when the man arrived he already had some bleeding from his mouth and nose. Fortunately, the hospital's anti-venom covers this snake, though even when treated there is still the risk of bleeding to death and the patient must be watched for several days.

Later that afternoon, things finally slowed down. Our patient was getting his 4th vial of anti-venom because he was still bleeding. With the outcome of his bite still unclear, I realized that this man needed to hear the gospel that day. Even if his outcome was poor, he could still have eternal life if he accepted Jesus. Of course, most of you could probably guess speaking Kabie is not my strength nor is tongues my spiritual gift. Fortunately, after asking around, I found a nurse who spoke this man's language. Using him as interpreter, I began to ask this man about his spiritual beliefs. He had never heard much about Jesus but was interested in learning more. So I shared how the true Creator of this world was God, that God had made man, but man had rejected God by disobeying God. As I began to explain how God justly punishes men and women for sinning against him, my interpreter began to go ahead himself and share how God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins by dying on the cross and that if we trust in Jesus alone (not our own good deeds) we can receive salvation. After hearing this, the man said that he wanted to receive Jesus as his Savior. So we prayed with him, there at his hospital bed, and this man put his faith in Christ.

By God's grace, the man stopped bleeding and was discharged from the hospital yesterday. I had several opportunities to talk with him during his stay, and he continued to affirm his new faith in Christ. What a great opportunity to be a part of God's changing this man's heart and making him one of His children (and I am humbled that God uses us to play a role in salvation). One day, he will still face death, but a life in heaven with Jesus now awaits because of his new faith. I was struck by the ability of our sovereign God to take evil events and through His grace turn them to good. Through an unfortunate snake bite, God brought this man to our hospital so the man could hear of Jesus' love. Thousands of years ago, sin (along with sickness and death) came into the world by a serpent who deceived Adam and Eve; now God, in His sense of humor, used another serpent to start a series of events that brought this man to know His Savior.

So pray for this man and his new salvation; and praise our God who is lovingly at work to bring men and women to Himself!

Children everywhere... and 225 kool-aid cups

It turns out Sunday afternoons have been a good time for reflection... they are nice and quiet, and usually the hardest decision is whether to take a nap or go to the pool! (yes, they have a pool here... it was donated by a US pool company, and in heat like this it is wonderful)

This past week has been eventful. For one thing, the hospital has had so many deaths – and too many of them children. There's been a lot of malaria (especially cerebral malaria), a lot of stillbirths, and a lot of trauma. On a normal month they average 12-13 deaths here, but we have topped that just in the past week. I won't forget standing with one young mother, trying to comfort her in some way as her 1 yr old baby lay dying from malaria. I knew the baby would die before the mother had figured it out (based on the babies blown pupils, low pulse ox and heart rate, and the futility of bagging a baby like that indefinitely). At first I was amazed at her composure, but when she realized the baby was really dying she fell apart. I helped hold the mother until the chaplain came and walked her away. Death may be common place here, but they love their children just as much in Togo as anywhere. In fact, in some ways perhaps more – the commitment and care families show to their loved ones is something I often only wish for at my hospital back home.

Yesterday there were 5 births – all of them by c-section. Stephen and I were present for 2 of them. In the first one we received the baby, and together got to suction her, dry her, cut her cord, do her exam, etc. I'm no labor and delivery nurse but that has become one of my favorite things to do here! The second delivery was twins. Dr. Ebersole (the pediatrician) told me “you take baby A, and I'll take baby B – baby B is always in worse shape”. Famous last words. Well, it turned out Dr. Ebersole couldn't be there so while Stephen did the delivery with Todd, the surgical physician's assistant here, Jeff (the other medical student) took baby B while I took baby A. Of course it was baby A who decided to be blue while baby B was perfectly fine! Jeff helped me out with her, and though it took her awhile eventually she did figure out how to breath and the mama had two healthy little girls. Nothing makes you appreciate God's handiwork more than seeing it so closely in newborn life!

Every Wednesday the Ebbersole family has a kid's Bible club in their home. So I think to myself “Ah, that's familiar ground. I've done lots of those!” Right? Ha! This club started with one little boy from Adeta (one of the larger villages a couple of miles away) who was brought to the Lord by this family. They started having him over weekly to disciple him. Of course he invited his cousins, who invited their friends... long story short, there were 225 children who came to the club this week! This family single handedly buses most of these children over to their house from Adeta every week, where they invite them inside (though now they are of course spilling out the doors), single Bible songs, play games and have kool-aid and cookies, and of course are taught the Bible. The classes are divided into little kids, big kids, and those who have accepted Christ and are now being discipled. While of course some of these kids just come in order to get inside a “yovo” house and get a “yovo” snack, so many young lives have really and truly been changed by meeting Jesus Christ at this club. Most of the afternoon I spent just in awe at the sheer volume of children, and as I poured kool-aid into 225 cups and in the process flooded Mrs. Ebersole's kitchen with red and purple punch, I could not help but think of the kids clubs I had done at home and feel humbled. What a difference in response!!! And I confess that a good part of me was wondering if it was really necessary to serve every child kool-aid, but I realized later they did it because they were determined to make a gesture of hospitality and generosity that would be meaningful to these kids. I was also humbled by Mrs. Ebbersole opening her home and life like this. It would be so difficult for me to open my life to that kind of chaos, and here she was willing to do it week after week because she loves Jesus and loves children.

Along those same lines, one of the best things about being here has been getting to pick the brains of the missionaries. All the families here are so different, yet what a pool of wisdom that we get to glean from for a little while! I was able to spend Tuesday driving to Lome with Jennifer, Beth (fellow short termer, nurse, and doctor's wife) and 2 of Jennifer's kids. Jennifer's husband is a surgical physician's assistant, and they are about to move up north to where ABWE is building a new hospital in a Muslim area. I learned so much from her- about being a wife and mom here, about reaching out to women, about learning a language and supporting your husband's ministry. And yesterday the Ebersoles took us and Jeff to the market in Kpalime, and then out to dinner. I respect this family so much for their continual sacrificial giving! Perhaps more than anyone else, their home is continually open – it seems there are always Togolese going in and out of their home. In so many ways this place is a model for us- a model of evangelism, a model of compassionate ministry, of giving. We want to emulate this – whether back at home or wherever in the world we end up – perhaps even here!