I don’t think I have ever had so many second thoughts about leaving a place before. I was able to spend the last week at our field bases training my replacement and saying my goodbyes. I don’t think I can express in words how much I have grown to love the people here. I actually think that God hand picked the greatest Mozambiquan’s and brought them all to work with Samaritan's Purse.
It’s a tradition that at your last staff devotions in Guija you must share some sort of great parting wisdom to people before you leave them. Well I have realized that I am lacking in the great wisdom department so I shared with them what they have taught me over the last year. I thought that I would share that with the rest of you.
Love, humility and compassion are the three main things that I have learned in Mozambique. I am amazed at the way our staff love on each other. It seems like they are constantly helping each other. If someone is struggling to get their work done, no matter what program they work for someone always seems to pitch in to get it done. But that doesn’t seem to stop with just work duties. If someone needs help in their personal lives there always seems to be someone stepping up to the plate to offer a hand. They truly serve each other. I have seen numerous times how they will put their own agendas aside to help others that need it. I have seen them rejoice together with births, weddings, accomplishments and also grieve together as family members die, homes are destroyed and losses are experienced. To me this is the love that God desires so much for all of us to live out.
One of the challenges in working for an NGO is that our national staff are often managed by young, inexperienced staff like myself. Many of our staff have been working for us since 2001 and managers come and go as their contracts expire. A new manager means that things will be changing one again. I can only imagine what thoughts would easily go through their minds. Things like “I am old enough to be your father, why should I listen to you?” or “You don’t understand how things work here, just do it my way”. Yet I have never heard or felt any of this pride from them. They have respected those in authority and have had patience with our inexperience and lack of knowledge. Yet as I leave they continue to express how much they have learned from me! If only the rest of us could operate with that level of humility.
Day after day our staff go out into the communities and see the people of their country suffering. They work with people dying from AIDS, families with only enough food to feed their children one more meal, and children raising children because everyone else in their families have died. They have a few resources to feed the hungry, give medicine to the sick and construct houses for those in need, yet the need still seems so great. I know they suffer when they have to decrease the amount of food to distribute because there isn’t enough money. I also know that they often feel helpless and overwhelmed yet somehow they are given the strength to show compassion to the people that they meet. It can only be God who continues to keep their hearts soft and keeps pushing them forward as the situations pull them down. Then at the end of the day they go home to their families and realize their own needs and see the suffering in their own families. I pray that I will have that same compassion in the midst of my circumstances.
So I left those wonderful people behind after more than a few tears shed but yet a pocket full of beautiful gems that I can only hope to hold onto and share with those in Sudan. I will never forget the impact that these people have had on my life and I truly hope that I can work with them again. I don’t say this as a nice Christian cliché at the end of my posting but I really mean it. Please pray for them. Please pray that they are able to hold on to those gifts of love, humility and compassion so that they can change Mozambique for God’s glory.
Friday, April 28, 2006
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Reviving of the Heart
I just returned from my two week ‘vacation’ in Liberia. This was not really a vacation to revive the body but it sure revived my heart. It was so great to spend 
the time with my parents and a dear friend. We laughed, we cried, we questioned this world we live in, and we celebrated all the work that God is doing in Liberia. I got to see all my favorite kids again plus meet a bunch more that have joined the TLP family in the last two years. When I arrived I was so shocked at all the work that has been done to the campus since I was there last. It’s so exciting to see your prayers and money actually accomplishing things in the physical.
One of our main duties while we were there was to hold a five day health clinic for the community. The greatest miracle was that we were able to see almost 800 people in those five days. The hardest part was turning away the other 200 that we could not treat because we ran out of medicine. My heart broke as I saw how sick people are there and what little options they have for health care. Because the government is still trying to pull itself together after 15 years of war there is no subsidies on clinic visits, tests or medicine. This makes it very difficult for people to afford to get treatment when they are sick. The most frustrating part of it all was to see that majority of the illnesses are due to drinking dirty water.
There were three very sick babies that we had to take to the hospital because they were in very serious conditions. One of the saddest stories was a little girl who we called Annie. She was a twin however the other baby died two months after it was born. Annie was never given a ‘special’ name so we just called her by her mother’s name Annie. Her mom seemed to show no emotion as she watched her tiny 6 month old baby fight for life. I can’t imagine the amount of pain that this woman must have
gone through in the last couple of months and she has just shut down so she could deal with all of it. But after a week in the hospital Annie (the mother) brought her baby to campus to show us how well she is doing. We expected that baby to die within the next day after we saw her but God had bigger plans for this little life and shocked us all by healing her.
The other baby that caught my heart was an 8 month old boy named Emmanuel. After a long day of trying to see as many people as possible but still having to turn away some at the end of it because we were running out of daylight (there is no electricity), we spotted this sick little boy being carried by his father and we decided to treat just one more. After we took his name and information I carried him to the doctor and even before I got there the doctor knew he had meningitis. Emmanuel would cry and stiffen his whole body and stretch his neck back. So we treated h
im with antibiotics and took him to the hospital for further care. Emmanuel’s mother died in childbirth and his father was left caring for three children all on his own. With only a small amount of money the father was only feeding him milk from a milk powder that was on the market for the UN soldiers. Formula is expensive for people in Canada, can you imagine the price of it for people in Liberia? It’s not an option. A couple of days after we took him to the hospital they ran out of the medication that they needed to treat him with. So we left Liberia praying that God would do a miracle in this little life as well. I know that the father’s life was changed as he was finally able to see his precious little boy treated after being turned away from three clinics saying that there was nothing wrong with him.
Those five days in the clinic were long days and all the team amazed me with how hard they worked in the midst of the Liberian heat, the noise and the limited space and resources. But God always leaves room to have fun as well. I enjoyed learning the Liberian English and expressions as they described fevers as their skin being ‘hot like pepper’ or their dizziness as their ‘eyes be turning’. One night we had rain and what do you do with 50 kids and lots of water? A water fight is in order. We laughed and screamed as we dumped the cold water on each other and made sure that everyone on campus was soaked by the end of it.
My time there made me realize once again why I am here. My heart breaks for the lack of options that people have here. They can’t receive the health care that we have easy access to, education is limited and poor at the best of times, food is on everyone’s mind as they fight for survival and the water is contaminated and makes them sick. Yet the heart and passion here for life and relationships is very much alive and thriving. I love to be able to somehow assist them in their daily fight as they teach me how to love everyday of this life that God has blessed me with. This was a refreshing time for me as I returned to Mozambique for this last month here and head off to Darfur on May 4. Please continue to keep me in your prayers as I prepare to head into this next adventure. Love you all and miss you so much.
the time with my parents and a dear friend. We laughed, we cried, we questioned this world we live in, and we celebrated all the work that God is doing in Liberia. I got to see all my favorite kids again plus meet a bunch more that have joined the TLP family in the last two years. When I arrived I was so shocked at all the work that has been done to the campus since I was there last. It’s so exciting to see your prayers and money actually accomplishing things in the physical.
One of our main duties while we were there was to hold a five day health clinic for the community. The greatest miracle was that we were able to see almost 800 people in those five days. The hardest part was turning away the other 200 that we could not treat because we ran out of medicine. My heart broke as I saw how sick people are there and what little options they have for health care. Because the government is still trying to pull itself together after 15 years of war there is no subsidies on clinic visits, tests or medicine. This makes it very difficult for people to afford to get treatment when they are sick. The most frustrating part of it all was to see that majority of the illnesses are due to drinking dirty water.
There were three very sick babies that we had to take to the hospital because they were in very serious conditions. One of the saddest stories was a little girl who we called Annie. She was a twin however the other baby died two months after it was born. Annie was never given a ‘special’ name so we just called her by her mother’s name Annie. Her mom seemed to show no emotion as she watched her tiny 6 month old baby fight for life. I can’t imagine the amount of pain that this woman must have
gone through in the last couple of months and she has just shut down so she could deal with all of it. But after a week in the hospital Annie (the mother) brought her baby to campus to show us how well she is doing. We expected that baby to die within the next day after we saw her but God had bigger plans for this little life and shocked us all by healing her.
The other baby that caught my heart was an 8 month old boy named Emmanuel. After a long day of trying to see as many people as possible but still having to turn away some at the end of it because we were running out of daylight (there is no electricity), we spotted this sick little boy being carried by his father and we decided to treat just one more. After we took his name and information I carried him to the doctor and even before I got there the doctor knew he had meningitis. Emmanuel would cry and stiffen his whole body and stretch his neck back. So we treated h
im with antibiotics and took him to the hospital for further care. Emmanuel’s mother died in childbirth and his father was left caring for three children all on his own. With only a small amount of money the father was only feeding him milk from a milk powder that was on the market for the UN soldiers. Formula is expensive for people in Canada, can you imagine the price of it for people in Liberia? It’s not an option. A couple of days after we took him to the hospital they ran out of the medication that they needed to treat him with. So we left Liberia praying that God would do a miracle in this little life as well. I know that the father’s life was changed as he was finally able to see his precious little boy treated after being turned away from three clinics saying that there was nothing wrong with him.
Those five days in the clinic were long days and all the team amazed me with how hard they worked in the midst of the Liberian heat, the noise and the limited space and resources. But God always leaves room to have fun as well. I enjoyed learning the Liberian English and expressions as they described fevers as their skin being ‘hot like pepper’ or their dizziness as their ‘eyes be turning’. One night we had rain and what do you do with 50 kids and lots of water? A water fight is in order. We laughed and screamed as we dumped the cold water on each other and made sure that everyone on campus was soaked by the end of it.
My time there made me realize once again why I am here. My heart breaks for the lack of options that people have here. They can’t receive the health care that we have easy access to, education is limited and poor at the best of times, food is on everyone’s mind as they fight for survival and the water is contaminated and makes them sick. Yet the heart and passion here for life and relationships is very much alive and thriving. I love to be able to somehow assist them in their daily fight as they teach me how to love everyday of this life that God has blessed me with. This was a refreshing time for me as I returned to Mozambique for this last month here and head off to Darfur on May 4. Please continue to keep me in your prayers as I prepare to head into this next adventure. Love you all and miss you so much.
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