Dentists & Daddys

Whew! Finally sitting down to write a proper email. My brother-in-law, Vincent, gave me a journal for Christmas, & this is no ordinary journal..no, it's pages are already scribbled on in fact. On each page he put a word and picture & I'm supposed to write down my first thoughts and feelings about each subject. The first assignment was to tell myself about my first day...so having done that, i'll share it with you :)
Woke up early, grabbed breakfast in the community cafeteria, met the dental team in the reception area. This amazing team includes the 'chief' dentist, who is a Norwegian, a couple from the UK who are both dentists, several crew from different countries in Africa who help coordinate patients and welcome them into the clinic, an assistant from Germany, one from Holland, a gal from Florida who works in sterilization and our team coordinator from Canada/Virginia.

We all loaded up the supplies and food we'd need for the day and filled up 2 land rovers. Drove along the "beach road" for about 15 minutes through traffic that's harassed by construction, took a right hand turn onto a street that led to the clinic a couple blocks further down. It a beautiful new 3 story building that more than meets our needs. The ground floor acts as reception and waiting room where fellow Africans welcome and share Jesus with patients. Then the 2nd floor has a huge enclosed room surrounded by a covered porch. The room serves as our working space where there are 8 dental chairs, and one hygiene chair. Our hygienist is an elderly woman from Florida, we call her Mama Donna as "Grandma" in African = "Mama". We all got to the clinic and met our "day volunteers" who translate for the dentist and assist as needed. They are all from West Africa and speak at least 3 languages, French (the official language of Togo) usually 2 local dialects and English. All 6 of these guys are in their mid-twenties and hilarious, everybody jokes and teases. After brief introductions, one of the African crew members, Comfort, who welcomes the patients, led us in a song and then announced "God is good!" and we responded "all the time!" and she said "And all the time?" we answered "God is good!" She finished with, "Indeed there is NOT a time that God is not good." We repeat this ritual every day, i love it. Mariane, the assistant from Holland, prayed briefly and we all marched downstairs to get busy.

One of our first patients was a little girl, 13yrs old, who the team has been treating since February when she came to the hospital because her jaw was fractured when her father threw a rock at her. Because of this injury she had to have surgery to have 2 metal plates screwed into her jaw to hold the bones in place. After that surgery the area became infected and an additional surgery was done to clean the area. Then her teeth had to be wired shut in an effort to keep everything in place and she was forced to a completely liquid diet. This was done on April 9th...we saw her again on May 30th, about 6wks. Today we removed the wires and she was able to gently open her mouth, the area above & around where the plates were placed looked great! no infection and healing really well! Yet the teeth on that part of the jaw were still slightly mobile...reason for concern that the jaw is still not fully healed. Dr. said we could leave her mouth open but she must keep eating only very very soft foods and come back for another evaluation. While it was fantastic to see such great progress, it broke my heart, so many thoughts came flooding in as the realization of everything this little girl had gone thru rushed into my head..."What if Mercy Ships hadnt been here?!? If the bones hadnt been reset and surgery performed, the infection could have killed her! How could she go back to a father who had done that to her? How could a little girl process & deal with all that emotion and pain, not only from the injury and subsequent pain but also relationally with her family?!?" and I thought about my own father and have never been more grateful or humbled as i realized the contrast between this little girls father and mine. The contrast is night and day. I am so blessed and priviledged to be my father's daughter and my heavenly Father's daughter, I don't deserve either of their love or protection but I know I have both and I love them all the more because of this experience and realization.

There were many more patients that day...the team saw over 60. When the last patient was led out, mouth full of gauze, head nodding in a motion of thanks to all of us..we loaded up again and headed back to the ship. Again the contrast hit me as I looked on the other side of the road as we drove back. On one side is a beautiful beach, there were palm trees, people sleeping in the sand, some vendors selling various small items and taxis...but on the other...broken, dirty buildings, stuffed with people, shacks with metal roofs and piles of trash and rubble. Poverty. I sighed as i looked at all the people living, working and dying in this little strip of poverty i was driving by and knew there was a whole city behind it...a whole country and I felt very small. I think that's when God reminded me of where i was...yes this was all around me..but i was here! i could and WAS doing something about it..it wasn't pictures and memories anymore..i finally had the dirty scrubs on..the dirt on my crocs and the sweat..well all over! haha. He told me it was ok, that even though everything wasn't fixed, He had overcome the world and had brought me here to do what I could. He was pleased I had done what He asked me to do..come. Then today I ran across this verse,
"Let me show you where I live among my people. My name is God-with-you. I will wipe away all tears from your eyes, there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness. The world of the past is gone." It spoke to my heart exactly where it's at, reminded me that God is showing me soo many new things, but He's right here with me. That He has overcome the world, and that all these temporary things will be restored in the new world He will bring. And that joy replaced the sadness and motivated me to do what I can, now that I'm here...with God.

So that's what i wanted to share with you, there's many more stories from this week I'll jot down as I remember but this was the big "Lesson of the week" I didnt have much time to write, the internet here is sketchy so please forgive my scattered thoughts and imperfect grammar and punctuation! :)
take care and know God is with each of us even though we're thousands of miles apart.
lots of love from 'Toogie' in Togo