Hello from increasingly hot and steamy Africa!  Each week things seem more stable as we settle into a routine of sorts.  Each week something special happens to make the week stand out from all the others. 

Let's go for the special stuff first. 

Last week the founder and president of Mercy Ships, Don Stephens flew from his home in Colorado to take a meeting with the President of the Congo along with the managing director of the ship and our government liason.  They had the misfortune of flying in just after this nation had a horrific tragedy where there was a huge explosion and fire where many hundreds of lives were lost.  Despite the nation reeling from the tragedy and the national day of mourning the president and his advisors kept their meeting with Mercy Ships.  This tragedy reinforced the huge need Congo and their neighbors in the central Africa region have for access to health care.  Apparently the reputation Mercy Ships has has travelled throughout Africa and the Congo is very interested in partnering with us to build a river going hospital ship / barge that can travel into the interior of Africa!  This is indeed exciting news when you consider that 20 years ago Togo was the only country in Africa willing to take our ship and our help when it was offered.  Suffice it to say many people on the ship are very excited to see God working in the Congo and using Mercy Ships to be a part of that work.

After this group came back to the ship Don spent several days meeting people, talking to old friends and going on ward rounds.  This, of course meant he spent a fair amount of time with Peter as he spends most of his time taking care of the ward patients.  Don was very interested in hearing about Peter's unique training that the Navy has provided him on hospital ships.  There were multiple pictures taken of the both of them however none have been posted on the marketing drive so I will hopefully have something to post in the next week or two. 

But, the other fun thing that happened this week was with the eye team.  Each week a group from the ship gives a short presentation to let others know what they actually do and how they contribute to the overall mission.  Friday it was our turn to give a little "dog and pony show".  Not knowing what our boss wanted to do for this - usually a power point presentation - I downloaded a bunch of pictures that were taken of the team in action. 

Naturally, he had a different idea and we did a skit depicting all the stages a patient has to go thru in order to regain their sight but since I have the pictures I might as well put them out into the blogosphere.  The skit was a hit and our videographer was there to record it.  No idea if I'll be able to get a copy of it but if I do you can be sure I'll post a copy so you can see a keystone cops version of the eye team. 

About 1100 people showed up on this day

So - twice a week the team goes out to a local church to screen people that have eye problems. The people are very, very patient and quite orderly as long as you take them in order. As you can see below one of the day workers uses a megaphone to address the crowd and tell them what our workers will be doing.  We have amazing day workers that are all fluent in at least three languages and multiple local dialects.  The man next to the guy with the megaphone is a security guard.  We always have at least two guards to keep the peace with so many people!

The screeners evaluate each person in the row.  As the row is seen their chairs are removed and the next row is asked to stand up.  In this way we don't have people jockeying for the vacated seats in front.  If someone has a problem that we are currently offering surgery for they get a card to go into the building for further evaluation. Those that don't have a surgical problem that we can help are told Mercy Ships does not have anything to help them.  It is amazing to see some of the problems these people have and is often very difficult when we tell them we cannot help.

Once the patients go inside there are several stations set up to screen their vision and get their information.  Surprisingly, it is the basic demographic information gathering that takes an inordinate amount of time to gather.  Most of these people have as many as five names.  They have "secret" names that only their family uses - I guess like a nickname perhaps.  Formally they use names that are given to all males or females on the day of the week that they were born.  So - Koffi - means this man was born on a Tuesday.  Yup- we get alot of Koffis.  Then there's the birth dates.  Many have no idea when they were born so a date is usually made up since the computer requires a date, of course.  Probably the most difficult is contact information.  Most do not have a phone so they have to give out a friend or relative's phone and addresses are nearly unheard of.  Many list "Near the market" as their address.  It's pretty nutty and they take a long time to divulge the information since even thinking about these things is quite foreign to them. 

Once the patients here are confirmed to have a surgical case that we can do something about they are given an appointment card to come to the ship the following week for a more intensive examination.

The eye tent dockside next to the ship

The patients are shuttled from outside the port to  the ship where they wait under awnings for us to call them into the tent to be examined.  Of the 100s of people at the screening day about 70-100 will be surgical candidates that we can help.  Once here they go thru multiple stations to get all the measurements needed by the surgeon to make sure they are OK for surgery and what sort of lens they need to put in their eye so they can hopefully see again. 

Here I am taking blood pressures

Scheduling for the OR on the ship

Once the patient goes thru all the stations I take their blood pressure and review their medical history and determine if it is safe to do surgery on them.  It is amazing how incredibly high most of their blood pressures are!!  Honestly - we would hospitalize most of these people if they walked into an American ER with pressures as high as I see on a daily basis.  Once they are scheduled they are given a patient card with a surgery date for them to come back and have outpatient surgery.  We see them again the day after their surgery, two weeks later for a post op visit and then six weeks later for laser surgery to ensure their cataract never comes back again.  It is a whirlwind with so many patients it's nearly impossible to have any real personal contact.  But every so often a patient lets us know how grateful they are so it really warms your heart.  In the end I feel like I'm getting to participate in a bone fide miracle so it helps keep me going.  And I'm getting to see more bits and pieces of Lome' each week so it keeps it interesting. 

As a teaser....next week I'll report a bit about Peter's trip to Texas and my part in the ship's musical!  Have a great week and thank you for your continued prayers on our behalf.