There is so many stories from the ship and i like to share a few of them. What i love most is the stories about transformation of patient but also how God touch us as crew and the stories why we are here. It is amazing to see how much the patient trust us and it suprice me every time i’m onboard how much peace the patients have to lay down in peace on a surgery table. They are so brave and I adore or patients more that anything else.
Mercy Ships charity is about restoration, a ship full of love and care and how God restore our hearts in different ways and bring hope in our heart, God can change the weather and God can also help us to go from a camp of disappointments to a camp full of hope.
We are many crew and daycrew onboard and I hope many more Africans will come and work with us in the future. We are a hospital ship and our mission is to help the poor, with different professional surgeries, free of charge. We know that without God’s hope and healing in all this, we are very small.
Five weeks of eye surgeries went really fast and actually, it was only 4 weeks for me ( got Covid and was isolated the first week). We have had a great team this year and i’m so thankful for my OR manager team and teamleader collegues that I have worked close to. I have been the team leader on paper, but the reality is that we have been three ladies in the same age, who have worked very close together, share working loads. We see the same things because all of us have a ophthalmic background. It is so helpful to be a few together when we train new nurses.
We need a villige to do this and i’m so thankful for every person who are here in the right time and in the right place. it is many departments and people onboard who are involved in this “Eye villige”. We need program designers, a screening team who prepere the way for the Eye screening, people who do eye examinations, pre and post operative care, a eye surgery team, sterilization team, medical supply team, management team, administration team, finance team, Gally and dining room team, board members and program designers.. transportation team, security, technical crew, biomedical technicians. Plumber, electrician, HR and the recruting team… national offices and all cooperation and donations.. and beyond.
The ophthalmic operation team always had lots of training going on onboard and also some courses offship in the past and the focus for this shorter field service have been to find our way to work onboard this new ship. It has been lots of “first time experiences” but we are so very thankful that everything goes well and has been so well prepered.
I have spend time to train a local nurse, Abdulaye Konte and he needed bastic training. He scrubbed in after two weeks and was independent after two days. It was amazing to see this man recive all teaching and tips so well and he soaked in all knowledge he could get and he was keen to learn more. This is what i love to see!
A blind 18th years old boy recived sight after his first surgery. Noone know how his prognosis was but he recived sight so the surgeon decide to do his other eye as well. It was a success and he can see well now.
Before we bring in the eye patients, we go through a checklist to see that everything is alright and prepered for surgery. The pre operative nurse check the medical status and put in four sets of dilatation eyedrops, to have a big pupil before surgery. When everything is ready, we always ask the patient if we can pray together before we go in to the operating room. Everyone i have asked, have said yes. They open up there hands on there lap and when i start to pray, all the other patients in the line do the same. The room become a prayer room and we pray together. Some patients pray load and some continue after I finnish my prayer. Some words that I use most is Salam or Shalom, God to bring peace, Isa, recive sight, God will bless your family and a God will give you a bright future. God is good and he will come with his healing over this patients eyes snd heart.
The OR team went out for dessert on Wednesday evening to celebrate this five weeks as a team effort. The restaurant we went to is called Chocolate bar and everything you order there, have lots of chocolate in it. Some friends found this Chocolate restaurant for some time ago and I love this little place. We was 19 people around a big table and everything we ordered, was so big and ritch and could easy be share. I had a vaffle with soft cheese cream, strawberries and chocolate.. and a shared it with one of out daycrew, it was so good.
We had four days of pediatric surgeries this field service as well and the youngest patient we had was 10 month and the oldest was 7. They all had cataract and everything went well. It is very special to help kids and for them to recive sight, because they now will have a future with a hope. This surgery will change them forever but it will also change the family. One of the 7 year old boys come together with his mother and his baby sister, when the surgeon exam him, Dr Paulius notes that this little baby also had cataract in both her eyes so our OR manager add her as well on to the surgery schedule. To have as many kids was not planned but we had the right crew and experience onboard to help this little baby too. I was so thankful that we could help this kids and I remember that my eyes was very teary when I heard about this fantastic news that we could order more supply on short notice and help this children.
The surgeries for the small kids always take longer time than adults. We normally do three kids / day and that is a full day of surgery. The kids need an anesthesia provider and a anesthesia assistent. Josefin L from Sweden worked with us in OR 5 and it was nice to be two Swedish crew who work side by side but ofcause with different professions. I had the great privilege to work together with lovely people this field service… I’m so blessed. I love to work with different nationalities, crew from Australia is so lovely and easy to work with. I recognize that the best way to work in this environment is to be a team player, plan well, continually communication with the team is very important and to have some fun too..
Thursday was our last day in OR and it was a full day as the other days. It is good to be busy and the team have really work hard to go through the program to finnish it in time.
When we have training, everything slow down and we know it is important to also take time for training, for us to leave knowledge behind when the ship leave the port.
I went out with my friend and collegue Natalie for dinner our last day and it was good to chat and catch up before she left. Natalie are one of the Aussies and she have been the second teamleader in the room. It has been really good for me to not feel alone with ophthalmic experiace, we have been many more with eye experiance this this year and it has been a great blessing to me.
We had a gathering that we call celebration of sight on Friday May 12th. It is a time when we invite all patients and caregivers from the first week, to celebrate restoration of sight. It is always a great time and my friend Clementine lead this event. It was really good and Koffee shared the bible verses about the blind man Bartalomeus and lots of the patient interact with his story. Bartalomeus was a blid person who begged for help and said to Jesus.. Jesus, have mercy on me. The thing is that many of our patients recognize themself im the story. The most beautiful thing in this story is that Jesus ask him “What can i do for you”, Jesus who is the master, become a servant in that moment. This is very powerful and use to touch the patients very much, specially the muslims. The story give another perspective who Jesus are. He is the king, but a servant king who like to help the other people, mostly the poor.
We also have lots of testimonies during celibration of sight. Most of this testimonies was full of thanksgiving and gratitude for Mercy Ships work and for our love and care. One older man stand out, he began to say that he expected to get some food at this celebration… fear enough.. he was hungry. I have never think about it in that way but ofcause, we should have some food prepered.. but he continued to say, “I got food in another way today, through the text from the binle that you just read”. He said that he had complained for his wife and she was tired of his talk and said, just go to this screening, I don’t want to listen to your complain any more… just go! He experienced help and was so thankful for iur love and care he felt, and he recived sight.
Thank you all onboard who have been involved in this five weeks of surgery! Special thanks to Merryl, OR manager, Kylie, OR clinical supervisor, Natalie assistent team leader and Justine OR ophthalmic nurse. Thank you Keren Furmaister, hospital director. Thank you Jennie who covered as a ophthalmic team leader my first week.
I couldn’t do this without you guys! Thank you God for your peace in the room.
”Then Jesus took the Twelve off to the side and said, “Listen carefully. We’re on our way up to Jerusalem. Everything written in the Prophets about the Son of Man will take place. He will be handed over to the Romans, jeered at, ridiculed, and spit on. Then, after giving him the third degree, they will kill him. In three days he will rise, alive.” But they didn’t get it, could make neither heads nor tails of what he was talking about. He came to the outskirts of Jericho. A blind man was sitting beside the road asking for handouts. When he heard the rustle of the crowd, he asked what was going on. They told him, “Jesus the Nazarene is going by.” He yelled, “Jesus! Son of David! Mercy, have mercy on me!” Those ahead of Jesus told the man to shut up, but he only yelled all the louder, “Son of David! Mercy, have mercy on me!” Jesus stopped and ordered him to be brought over. When he had come near, Jesus asked, “What do you want from me?” He said, “Master, I want to see again.” Jesus said, “Go ahead—see again! Your faith has saved and healed you!” The healing was instant: He looked up, seeing—and then followed Jesus, glorifying God. Everyone in the street joined in, shouting praise to God.”
Luke 18:31-43 MSG
With much love
/Anneli
Mercy Ships Anneli 