*I never put up posts with no photos, but there's a reason for this one...no photo can truly capture the spark of God in humanity...
so I'll try with my words...
I walked into church this morning
in the wards and passed a boy with most of his head wrapped in gauze, a little
girl missing an ear, so many precious kiddos with their arms propped in braces
that hold their arms at a ninety-degree angle from their bodies, and I sat down
between two men with various amounts of dressings and stitches and IV tubes
coming out of their arms. Before actually coming to the ship, I remember seeing so many pictures and watching so many video clips about Mercy Ships and having to turn my eyes away
at times because the disfiguration of some of the patients is just so hard to
look at, but you know what I’ve discovered here? In person, I’ve never felt the
need to turn my face away when I go down to the wards. I look around and see
complete and beautiful humanity. I find that I want to look at them and smile at them and shake their hands
because no matter how much of them is covered in dressings and no matter how
many fingers have metal wires coming straight out of them, and no matter what disfiguration
they have, they are so clearly precious humans created in the image of God. It’s
impossible not to see that spark of God in them and I think that that must be
God taking my eyes and showing me what He sees, which is very exciting and also
very humbling.
We sing worship songs together,
some in languages we know and some in French and some in Fon and everyone does
what they can to worship. Some stand and the many who can’t stand sit. Some
clap and some, like the man sitting next to me today, just touch his gauze
wrapped hand to his other hand in the motion of clapping but making no noise…because
that’s what he can offer. We were told at one point in the service to give a
clap offering to God and I couldn’t help but think that his silent “clapping”
of his wrapped hands together must have made a beautiful noise in the ears of
the Father.
Today we talked though the story of
the Good Samaritan. Our Ward Chaplain told the story, which was then translated
and then we were instructed to retell the story to those around us. Those
around me didn’t speak the same language as I do so I acted the story out as
best I could with my fingers pretending to walk along the road, etc. to the
confused smiles of those around me. It’s a story that I’ve heard so many times,
but as we talked through that story today, surrounded by so many who look
rather beaten down like the man in the story, I wondered if we aren’t doing the
same as the priest and the Levite. When we see or hear or know about others in
need around us and finish seeing the news clip or finish reading the article,
and go back to whatever it was we were doing, are we not choosing to walk by
those who could use our help? That’s a big and scary question to me because I
don’t want to do that. I don’t want be like the Priest and Levite who looked
and then chose to keep walking. I want to choose to help, but it’s overwhelming
because there are so many in need of help. I suppose the Samaritan didn’t have
to help every person that day, he just chose to stop and help the one that God
literally put in his path. Then it becomes less overwhelming. I don’t have the
answers to this thought about how to love our neighbors, but it’s something I
need to think more about.
I am privileged to work on a ship
full of people that are choosing to see those beaten down around us and not
just walk by, but to do something about it. I think we can all make that
choice. Before I came here, when I told my littles in CA about the people that
the doctors on this ship help, I remember trying to find video clips to show
them of the patients and looking through clip after clip and deciding not to
show them most of the clips because frankly they had disturbing images of
patients with tumors that have taken over their faces and I didn’t want to
scare my littles. I don’t regret that choice because I do think there’s a time
and place and age for people to be exposed to certain realities, but you know
what I wish now? I wish I could bring some of the patients into my classroom of
kinders from last year so they could see these beautiful people in real life, because
pictures and videos can look disturbing and scary, but actually seeing past the deformity or tumor
to the spark of God within is so different and so wonderful. I wish I could
share that with them. My kindergartners onboard don’t have that choice of
turning away from the TV screen because they live here and they see these
patients in reality. And yes, when we walk down to the hospital together or
walk out to deck 7 where the patients are getting fresh air so we can play with
them, my girls cling pretty closely to me because it is a little scary
sometimes for those of us who aren’t used to being amongst all the hospital
gowns and tubes and dressings, but I know that it’s scary for those patients
who aren’t used to those things as well. I think it’s a wonderfully unifying
things for the patients and the kindergartners and me to know that none of us
probably feel totally at ease, but that we’re in this thing called life
together and God is taking good care of us all.
At the end of the church service we
all file out, some to go back to their hospital beds and others of us off to
call home and read or rest, but no matter what we’re doing next, the walk out
is one of my favorite parts. It’s a slow meandering down the hospital corridor
because there are so many in wheel chairs or on crutches in front of me and I
get to just walk slowly among them and smile and think and praise God for this
hard and wonderful place He has given me to be today.
