A Transformation Story

“Alberta loves dancing and singing gospel songs,” said Mariah of her five-year-old granddaughter. “She helps me shop, and when I do the dishes, she rinses them. She always wants to help.” 

Since Alberta was eighteen months old, Mariah has raised her, allowing the child’s young mother to finish her education. Three years ago, Mariah was cooking over an open fire in front of her Liberian home when Alberta awoke from her nap. Still groggy from sleep, the little girl walked too close to the fire, falling near the cooking oil. It splashed over her left arm and leg, up her back and over the back of her head. The fire quickly followed. The little girl’s left arm was terribly burned, immobilizing its position at her side. Her leg, back and the back of her head were also severely burned and scarred.

For the next two years, Mariah searched in vain for someone who could surgically release Alberta’s arm so she could raise it above her head. The frozen arm caused much embarrassment for Alberta at her day care, where the children constantly taunted her and called her names.

Mariah is a member of the Eden Church in Liberia, where she coaches football for a group called LACES. This group organizes teams for boys and girls, ages 10 and 11, teaching them about Christ through sports. The team members collected enough funds to send Alberta and Mariah to the Africa Mercy, a hospital ship where the volunteer plastic surgery team released Alberta’s burned arm.

Because burned skin and nerves were cut during the surgery, Alberta spent several weeks in recovery. An infection added more weeks of recovery time. But her bubbly personality helped her to make many friends among the crew, including the physiotherapy team that coached her through new exercises and the medical team that gave her post-operative care. Much of that care was painful, but most of the time she remained very brave, generously sharing her brilliant smile and even singing while the nurses applied new dressings. Such behavior is very rare among West African children.

“Sometimes she would fall asleep while I was changing her dressing,” said Nurse Becca Noland. “I love that girl. She’s amazing!”

“I am HAPPY!” said the five-year-old as she approached the end of her stay. “I can play and go to school!”

“She’s going to remember this. I will remind her repeatedly of everything she has seen here,” said Mariah. “It’s a miracle of God that she can have this surgery.” 

Details in the Fabric

I was inspired to write this blog by something that a friend of mine here on the ship posted a few weeks ago. He was able to sum up an aspect of life here on the ship that is not always easy to convey (unless of course you have spent any period of significant time on the ship before) but is such a central facet of our reality that in order to fully understand what it means to live and work on this ship - it is something that needs to be shared.

I so often hear, as I remember saying to others myself before I came to Africa, that what we are doing here is 'amazing' work, 'life changing', 'living the dream' and all of those other well meaning phrases - which for the most part are true. Sharon and I have to regularly stop and take stock of just how fortunate and blessed we are to just have the opportunity to be apart of this vision, to be apart of something that is so much bigger than ourselves. That big picture dream, those very beautiful broad brush strokes are the life line that keep us going and got us here in the first place - and it is those stories that we so often send home.

However, there are also the fine brush strokes, the delicate details which make the picture what is it, the subtle nuances that often don't get talked about which make up so much of life here on this ship - and we have been finding to an increasing degree over the last few months that these fine details, the difficulties of living and working and playing and learning and eating and chilling and crying and laughing and so many more things, all within a tightly confined ship that we call home can really drag a person down.

We live in the constant tension of never being able to escape from where we are. If you've had a bad day, if something is getting at you, if you just need to be alone, away, isolated......then this 500 foot ship is all you have. Yes, you can get off the ship and walk, or get a taxi somewhere - but for any of you who have been to West Africa, i'm sure with a wry smile you remember just how relaxing, freeing or isolated you can be as a westerner out here.

I'm not all that sure why I am writing this? I guess to help you all understand a little more of what life is like for us here. Yes, we are part of a living, moving entity that changes lives. Yes, we get to see things which shake the foundations of a persons worldview and re-direct a purpose for living, and yes, for all of our frailties and faults, we can often forget that. We can lose our sense of direction and purpose and focus on things which, even as I write them I cringe at, but nevertheless are so very true for so many people who have been here for so long. We can focus on the fact that for 98% of our time here, we have no choice in what we eat, we can focus on the fact that there are only so many movies a person can watch in a week to pass time in an evening, or so many card games we can play. We often remind ourselves that if we do want to go out to one of the 5 or 6 ok restaurants in Freetown, it is more than likely going to take us 2 hours to get there, but 20 minutes back. And yes, we can always remember how so many friends have come and gone in the time that we have been here. But to top it all off, we remember how we should feel a lot more grateful for this opportunity that we are.

I guess I write this to help you to see that no matter where you go, there you are. That no matter how good things can be, human nature is to so often want more. And I guess I write this to help you to see that the life that we live out here on our floating home is not easy, it can be messy, it often is painful and it is still life.


In a matter of weeks it will be 2 years since I left England.

As I wrote that sentence above, I had to stop and ponder on it. 2 years......

Freetown

I dare not look at how long it has been since my last blog....and the phrase 'way too long' would probably be cliche. But either way.....here is my first Freetown Blog.

We arrived in this lively, colourful, busy, manic, congested (this list of superlatives could continue on and on) at the end of February, after a long sail up from Durban, SA - with a wonderfully surreal 24 hour stop off in Cape Town.

Freetown is the kind of place you don't describe, it's the kind of place you experience. In other west African cities we've been to, there are usually designated market areas. Here, the whole City is a Market, and the vehicles just have to deal with that. It can and regularly does take up to 3 hours to travel a matter of miles in a car - and more often than not - will be quicker to walk than drive anywhere. A few weeks ago we went out for pizza. We left at 5.30 pm (rush hour) and we reached our destination nearly 3 hours later. When we left, it took us 20 minutes to get back to the ship! 

Along with getting use to the uniqueness of the City, we are obviously here to work - and that so far has had its highs and lows. We held a mass screening, as we usually do, at the start of the year at the national football stadium a week or 2 after we arrived. It did not take long for the entire ship community to get a very large and painful wake up call to the desperation of poverty in this country and the heart breaking after effects of the brutal civil war that ravaged this land. There were many converging factors that took place on the morning of our screening - of which I do not need to go into detail. But there was a heartbreaking conclusion as the crowds of many thousands crushed and crammed and eventually broke down into a mass surge of people, resulting in groups of people getting trampled and injured, and eventually led to the death of one man waiting to be seen by the medical staff. Our screening had to be halted as we did what we could to restore some order and our medical staff did all that they could with the beyond limited means that they had at their disposal to aid the victims. Needless to say that we all returned to the ship in a somber mood as we had to face up to the events of the day.

However, some surgeries had been booked and we were able to begin our surgery schedule, and within a few weeks, we held another screening at a new venue and this time it all went to plan. So the Hospital has been up and running for 8 weeks now and we have already done hundreds of life changing and life saving surgeries. Our dental team have seen well over 2000 people and our eye team around the same figure. Tumors have been removed, cleft lips repaired, bowed legs made straight and club feet re-aligned. 

It is wonderful to see the changes in peoples lives and the relief on their faces as they come to terms with the knock on effects that their surgery will have on their lives. They can now work, go to school and most importantly - have the opportunity of a normal life within their community.

But it is, as always, sobering to take a step back and look at life - real life - on the streets, in the villages, in the communities of this City. Freetown has doubled in size within a matter of years since the end of the war, and the place just cannot handle that many people. There is not enough water to go around. The local government turn water on and off at different times of the week to different areas of the city, in hope that everyone has at least a chance once a week to get some water. There is not enough room for people to build homes, so the suburbs have spread up the side of the mountains that encircle the city. 

Clay houses build on clay foundations on the side of a mountain. 

Rainy season lasts a few months each year, and each year, everyone of the people who live on the mountain go to bed at night hoping and praying that their house will still be standing in the morning and that they have not been washed down the side in a mud slide. 

I've been on this ship for over 18 months now....and I still do not feel that I can yet process what I have seen. How people live here, how I lived at home. What people here are willing to do in order to get medical treatment, what we at home do when our taxes are raised a little or we have to wait a few hours. How people are happy and content that their house is still standing after the rains have come and gone to 

how we watch reality make over shows and 'wish' we had a house that cool, nice, beautiful or whatever.

I find it hard to process life in West Africa, I find it scary to think of life in the West. 

I hope that you can join me in being willing to openly live in this tension.

South African Adventures

We've been here in the Durban area now for four and a half months, waiting for work on the ship to be finished (which i'm happy to say is pretty close by now!) and it's been an interesting period. As most of you know, hopefully, the highlight of our time here was waaaaay back on the 14th Sept when Sharon and I got married; and as I think back over all that we have been up to since then, I begin to realise just how large of a blog this could become - so I am going to endeavor to make this as fun, informative and easy to read as possible! So hear goes........

SEPTEMBER:

Highlights; GETTING MARRIED, honeymoon in Zanzibar, 

Funny moments; Our first full day of married life I begin to feel even more under the weather than I had been the previous few days (no funny comments needed!). A few pivotal things happen that result in us deciding its probably best for us to visit the hospital. After a few quick tests they decide to keep me in over night - did I mention this was our first day of being married!? - run more tests and return the diagnosis as Malaria! A few simple drugs and within 48 hours and up and kicking again. However, nothing will top the moment that the Zulu and Indian nurses who are taking wonderful care of me realise that we got married the day before, look at sharon and exclaim in loud laughter....."what did you do to him????" 

OCTOBER:

Highlights: Visiting Morning Star HIV/AIDS day care centre and all of the wonderful people and children there. Going to a large cat breeding sanctuary and playing with the lion and tiger cubs. Staying with some old friends from back home who live in Johannesburg and hanging out with them, and to top it all off, going on Safari and seeing White and black rhino, buffalo, elephant, cheetahs, giraffe and many other animals!

Funny moment: As happens when animals are involved, funny moments are never far behind, but two really stick out. The first was on the safari when we saw two cheetahs - a young boy and a young girl - basking in the mid day heat. As we sat quietly and watched, it became quite clear that more was going on than initially met the eye. Our young female feline was trying, in vain, to arouse our romeo from his slumber - if you see where i am going!! However, young romeo was in no mood to play, and kept batting our eager little friend on the head in a very matter of fact way!

The second moment, which was not so much funny as intense, was when we by chance (as happens of safari) we came across two white rhinos in the midst of a territorial land disagreement. Nothing I say will quite capture the power and force that two large male rhinos exude when charging one another - especially when you are no more than 15 meters away.

November: 

Highlights: ......well I say highlight....november ushered in a new season of work, as we returned from our wonderfully long honeymoon. We returned to the base at Appelsbosch, which is where Mercy Ships has been housing the majority of the crew while the ship was in dry dock. I was working with the Land Rovers, as we took the opportunity to bring them up to tip top shape, as well as helping out in the Kitchen preparing the meals. We also had a few weekend trips away, to the beach, the mall, wine tasting and a very fun weekend away camping and hiking - with the odd cold beer and bbq steak thrown in there!

December: 

Highlights: December ushered in the Christmas period, with Sharon decorating our room with a little tree and things that she had made, the crew gearing up for our move back to the ship as well as getting excited making plans for the few days holiday that the crew got over christmas. We were lucky enough to go away to a World Heritage park called the Drakkensberg, which is listed for 2 reasons, 1) an area of outstanding natural beauty and 2) because the area holds over 1200 examples of cave art paintings that date back thousands of years. We also made it up to Lesotho, which for those of you who don't know, is a country the size of Belgium that is completely surrounded by south africa.

Funny Moment: Without doubt, one moment stands out. We were staying in this tiny middle of no-where back packers when we went away for our christmas holiday. The last night we are there a monumental rain storm comes thundering over the mountain that we are in the shadow of, which forces all of the campers to huddle like damp refugees in the small common room that we had been hanging out in. As all of these rain sodden people come pouring in - pun intended! - a see someone who i instantly recognise. I say to sharon, im sure i know that guy, and after a few awkward moments of trying to figure out who and from where i know him, I 'accidentally' bump into him and we quickly figure out that we went to University together! Random as always, and yet another example of how I am my mothers son!

So, all in all, its been a great few months and I am once again massively thankful for the opportunity to be hear with such wonderful friends!  

Wedding Day

ok...well as blogs go, this is quite a biggy - and also quite late, sorry about that!

And as always, with big important events such as this, one feels the pressure to find the right words, and the right tone and all that jazz in order to convey the importance and significance of the occasion. However....I fear that this will probably all get lost at some point and instead you'l just end up with me rambling on as always (I just thought i'd give you the heads up!).

So....the wedding day, the 14th September 2010, but in truth, the story began a full 12 months to the day before that. 14/09/09 - tyler, Texas - this was where sharon and I first met, at an 8 week training course for mercy ship long term crew members. Those 8 weeks or so, unknown to us at the time (though a few of the girls would say that they already knew) began a journey that would change both of our lives forever and eventually draw us into marriage.

I wont bore you with all of the details of some of things that we were able to be part of in those 8 weeks, or for that matter the 12 months that followed; if you are interested though, scroll down and read some more blog entries - that will give you a good idea.

So, back to the wedding day. From the U.K. and the USA, via 8 countries, 10 flights and more miles than the circumference of the globe in 12 months, we find our selves in Durban South Africa. The ship is docked here for some generator work for a number of months and most of the crew got relocated to an old training college about an hour away from down town durban, in an area called the 'Valley of 1000 hills' (the clue really is in the name!).

And it was here, with many of our friends and family from the ship, as well as a few from home, that sharon and I got married.

There really are so many things that I could say, but I think that I will save them for another blog or 2. For now...the photo's will have to tell the story of our day.

In love, Mr. & Mrs. Williams

The sweet and the sour

I would like to tell you about Mawuli and Gratian, two people who will forever be etched into my heart and memory. I unfortunately do not have any pictures of these two wonderful people, so you will have to use your inner eye to see them as I tell their story.

Gratian is a tall, slim, kind faced and warm hearted man. He is a well educated man, speaking english well and teaching at the University in Lome. His wife, Mawuli, is 32, has short styled hair, a beautiful face and worked as an accountant. They have a 2 year old little boy.

Their story and relationship with the Africa Mercy goes back to February, when Mawuli began to feel a discomfort in her throat, which very quickly began to cause discomfort for her breathing. They had heard that the Africa Mercy was screening patients in their area, so came to one of the screening events. Mawuli had no large growth, no obvious deformity on her body; just this unusual entity in her throat. She was quickly brought to the ship for some scans on this troublesome area. 

As things happen, whether planned or un-planned, whether luck or guidance - that night, this growth in her throat blocked Mawuli's trachea. She had an emergency tracheotomy that saved her life that night. Her husband stood by the entire time.

Mawuli and her husband ended up staying on the ship for a full month, as scans, bi-opsy's and X-rays were done in an attempt to figure out if what was in her throat was cancer or something else. For a month, everything came back 'inconclusive'. The many different surgeons and supervisors had a very difficult decision to make, which they did. Mawuli had to go home - there was nothing more that any of the surgeons could do for her.

Harriet and I began to visit them once a week, to ensure that they were doing ok with cleaning and caring for her trache, as well as just spending time with them, being friends with them, talking and praying with them. One of the first things that Gratian ever said to us in his home, after we apologised for not being able to do more was, 

"No..no...no....you have, you have done something! 

You have saved our lives, you have saved our family."

Many weeks went by, Mawuli not becoming any weaker, just carrying on as normal. They visited many local and not so local hospitals in the search for someone who could shine light on this unusual situation - but all ended the same, confusion and uncertainty as to what was growing in her throat.

A few tuesdays ago however, while we were driving out to another patients house, we had a phone call from the ship saying that Gratian had been in touch, that they were in the hospital and that Mawuli was not doing so well. We were on the complete opposite side of town, so decided to go and have a short visit with our patient and then head back to the ship for an up-date. This however was too long. There was a message waiting for us on our return to the ship. Mawuli had died.

It's always hard to describe ones emotions in those kinds of situations. Shock, numbness, dis-belief. All of these things were true for me, all of these and more. We went to see Gratian the next day at his home. His mother in law was the first person to greet us as we walked into their courtyard. She just hugged us, in silence, with tears in her eyes - she didn't have to say anything.

Gratian then walked in through the back gate. He stopped when he saw us, his head dropped; we went to him. He led us into his home, his small stone home; with one bedroom and one living room. He led us in, harriet and myself, along with 2 of our translators and another lady from the ship who had spent a lot of time with Mawuli while she had been onboard. 

He closed the door, turned with tears in his eyes, scuttled over to a chair in the corner and began to wail. His pain reverberated off of the walls and broke our hearts once more. We sat there, with no words, just the grim and painful reality of a broken world and one more broken family. After some time, he began to recount the story of how his wife died - this is not a nice story.

A number of days before, she had taken a turn for the worse, she had trouble breathing and was in great discomfort. Gratian took her quickly to the nearest hospital/clinic in hope that one of the doctors there could help. They waited on a bed in the hallway for the first day, each time being told that 'another doctor will come to see your wife.' They waited on the same bed the second day, being told the same thing. At the end of the second day, Gratian cornered a doctor in disgust to find out why his wife had not been seen.

"Why won't you do something?" The response he got..."Because your wife is already dead."

Mawuli was refused help, pain medication, even a simple hello. She was left on the bed. On the morning of the 3rd day, Mawuli's mother brought her son to the hospital. At this point of the story, Gratian is a sobbing wreck on in his chair, overcome with grief as he relives his wife's last moments. His next few words will never leave me.

" As she lay there, she put her hands all over the child. She was speaking, but I couldn't hear her words. She then turned to me and said, 'You have to take good care of the baby, that is your job now.' They are the last words she spoke to me."

As I sit writing this I can still feel the pain, the anguish, the brokenness that I felt when I first heard him speak these words. We sat in his room for hours. We sat in silence, we tried to share words of encouragement and hope, we prayed, we sat in silence some more. 

I have experienced many things this year. Many of those moments where life seems real, stripped back, good - in its purest sense, not that kind of, 'oow that's nice' good, but the 'this is how things should be good'. Oceans, whales, sunsets, climbing mountains, seeing waterfalls, getting engaged. Those moments where you stop and say, this is it. I'm sure you all know what I mean - those times where life gets stripped down and it all becomes real somehow.

I will always hold 'those' memories close to my heart. But I think I am also learning to embrace life on the other end of the spectrum. The spectrum that Gratian was on. The side that we don't like so much, because it hurts, because it's a place which is painful to go. Maybe culture has made it taboo, maybe our experiences have led us away from a place of trust, maybe we have just never been taught that life is all around, even in pain, even in death, there is still life; real, raw, exposed, naked - but life. 

This is a journey that I am still learning to walk. There are things that I still don't understand, still questions that I have. But I still trust that even in death, even in those moments of pain, despair, brokenness - our loneliest times, there is still life, there is still hope.

Gratians story is your story and my story. His loss is yours and mine. Maybe you can empathise with Gratian right now, maybe you just need to wait. But may you and may I continue to be willing to find life in death, hope in loss and trust that ultimately this life is a stepping stone to something more and that God is good.

A journey of a life time

This title may seem a little presumptuous, and that would be fair enough to think, but - wait until you have heard this story!


Let me tell you the story of Abel. He is a pretty normal 10 year old African boy who lives out in the country. He likes to play with his friends, he loves to play football, he has a very large family - pretty normal african little boy.


Oh...wait.....let me show you a picture of Abel when he first came to the ship a good 4 months ago;

ok..ok....maybe i was a bit un-realistic when I said he was a normal african boy.

While Abel was still a toddler his muscles stopped growing, but his bones had not. As a result, his legs were not growing correctly because there was so little musculature to direct them. They began to bend backward at the knee, forcing his upper thighs out behind him. His parents took him to three different doctors, but none of them knew what to do for him. I mean, can you blame them, when was the last time you saw something like this?

Despite this condition, the resolute Abel learned to lean forward, correcting his balance enough to walk, climb and do just about anything any other active boy can do. He even became the goalkeeper on his football team. 

So, Abel grows up like this, making the most of his situation, putting up with the somewhat expected mocking remarks and strange looks of some of the members of his community. I mean, lets put this into perspective. In an environment where EVERYTHING is spiritual, every blessing, disease, crop, dream, person....when you put a boy who looks like abel into an environment like that, what else would you expect? 'Surely he is evil? He must be cursed?'

So, back track to March 2010, what were you doing in the first week of that month? Do you remember? Anything stand out? Did you make any life changing journeys? Well...Abel and his father did. They travelled 6 hours south, to the City of Lome, to the Port, to the Africa Mercy. They travelled up the gangway, down 2 flights of stairs to deck 3. They walked along a corridor, turned right into a busy ward, sat down on their bed, and waited.

Within two days, Abel had been operated on. He awakes to find his legs, out straight before him, in thick casts - and now his legs were white!! (quite a shock...especially when you are black!)

So, after 3 months of physiotherapy at our hospitality centre (a clinic where our pre and post op patients live and wait) Abel was ready to go home.

Now, this is where the journey gets fun. I was overjoyed to be given the opportunity to drive abel, his father and 4 members of our Communications team the 6 hours north back to Abels village. Now the first two hours, very easy, an amazingly smooth straight road out of Lome, directly north. We then come to a small town where we turn right and our road stops.....literally. There is a track, if you can call it that, that went on for 4 hours. Now again, context, this was towards the end of the rainy season, so this track, at times, was more like a swamp. 

We bounced our way along, sometimes finding a smooth section, most of the time dropping down pot holes that would eat most cars in the UK. You knew it was getting rough when we come to pass large trucks that were half consumed by the sinking mud in front of us. For about 1 hour of the journey we were going less that 10 kph in the lowest of low range gears, simply trying to make our way through.

All this time, in the back of the Land Rover sat Abel, huge smile on his face, laughing all the way, excite to see family and friends again and to show off his new legs.

And Eventually, after the grueling journey, we arrive at a small, out in the sticks, truly comic relief looking village. Our Vehicle quickly became swamped in children running along side, banging on the side, laughing and jumping, trying to see the funny looking white people and their friend Abel.

So we reach Abel's house, turn off the engine, open the doors and we let the prodigals climb out and set foot back onto their home dirt. For a brief moment that will live within me forever, for what would have been less than a few seconds but seemed to stretch out for minutes, there was silence. Silence from around 100 faces, wide eyed, opened mouthed, shocked faces - as Abel steps out of the land rover looks around him, and takes a few steps forward to greet his mother. SILENCE. 

But, this is Africa....and silence doesn't last long. 

Shouting, jumping, singing! Arms waving, hugs all round, kisses and so much more - joy was as tangible as the heat in the air and the red dirt on our feet. Abel, the little boy with backwards legs was home - and a miracle had happened. I could pick up that there was a phrase being said over and over again, so I asked our translator, "What is everyone saying?" Her responce? "God is good, God is good, God is good!"

There are so many little things that happened during our brief stay there, but I will be unable to convey the atmosphere of the place. I will let some pictures try and do the job.

Abel reunited with Mama.

Amazed faces of a hand full of the villages children

A quick pic with the close family.

The Centre of attention!

We say very easily how we got to change the life of one little boy, but that is not the full story. This little boy, and his testimony, HIS story, has the power to change a village forever. "God is good, God is good, God is good..."