Sunday 14 September 2008

Winter slump

Winter slump….

Queen of procrastination… that’s me! I’m back in the Liberia winter slump when it rains most days and I faff around all day and don’t end up accomplishing too much!  I manage to somehow let each weekend slip by and before I know it, 3 months has gone by without writing as much as a teeny snippet! Sorry for that… I still love you!

Totally blessed…

I had a great birthday on board back in June, full of lots of love and reminders of amazing people in my life. It was raining (of course) so after cake, a few of us jumped around in the puddles outside and made rain angels! It was great fun! I also had a sneaky visit home for 2 weeks in July to fit in a few cuddles with the little people in my life and to wish Mum and Dad a Happy 40th wedding Anniversary. It was too short but great to have a bit of time out. So to all of you who I continue to miss so much, I am soooo looking forward to coming home in October for 3 months. I already have a few adventures planned to catch up with friends I haven’t seen in far too long and look forward to making more! Then I’ll re-join the ship in Tenerife in mid January, before sailing to Benin where we’ll be for 2009. Benin is French speaking and home of Voodoo so I’m looking forward to new challenges ahead…

Surrender…

 I’m in a constant whirl of saying goodbye to precious friends in this place. It was doing my head in a few weeks ago, and still does if I’m honest. It’s incredibly draining living in a world where your friends come and go so quickly. I’m happy here for a time longer but for the first time in a while, I realised that living here is taking its toll and I look forward to a time of more stability with relationships at some point. It’s pretty painful with weekly goodbyes… one of our first questions when we meet someone is, ‘.. and how long will you be staying?’ if the answer is any less than a couple of months then the conversation tends to dwindle! It’s too draining to get involved in relationships that are so short. It’s bringing me to a place where I feel God wants me to totally surrender everything I have… and that hurts. Yet I know deep in my heart that if I give up my ‘right’ to have stable, cosy friendships, God will surely reveal even more of His goodness to me. If I don’t, it’s like I’m holding something back. But it’s a journey and I‘ve certainly not made it to a place of total surrender just yet…

Pure joy…

That’s what I felt last week as I drove out to a newly built orphanage. The orphanage I have been visiting for the last year and bit has been struggling to find the cash to pay for their rent for a while now. That’s why a couple of friends of mine were inspired and called to do something pretty amazing. They gave up living on this cosy ship and decided to go to the extreme – to build the orphanage a place of heir own. It’s been great watching the buildings go up and to imagine it full of squealing children! So last week we packed the land rovers full of excitable children, together with all their belongings and set on our way. As we approached their new home (it’s about 45 minutes drive away) they were singing, ‘Hellooooooo, we are coming…. Hellooooooo, we are coming’ and it got louder and louder… and more and more joyful the nearer we got until it was ringing in my ears and I honestly thought my ear drums might burst!! The days I go to the Orphanage to play, have my hair braided, body clamboured over and come back home feeling sticky with sweat are always my more fulfilling Saturdays!

It’s also been a joyful time on the ward these last few weeks too. We’ve been operating on ladies with VVF (problems sustained during prolonged labour due to the lack of medical help available and the baby usually ends up dying and the mother is left incontinent). Often when we do this kind of surgery it can be a heavy time emotionally because surgery is not always able to offer total healing and the ladies can go home feeling very disappointed. However, this time most of our ladies have gone home ‘dry’ and healed and the atmosphere has been full of lots of joy… I’m so thankful to God and thank you for your prayers for them.


Desperate…

So, I‘m just looking out of my window and can see this guy hanging off the jetty opposite with barely any part of any limb attached to keep him from falling and he’s sawing off a piece of metal that he’ll presumably be selling for cash sometime later this afternoon. Talk about desperate. I thought I’d seen desperate, but this is another sight that forces me to look at myself in my cosy cabin with my lap top on my knees… something’s not right. What is it that seems so ok to live a life that is half hearted in terms of being radical, meanwhile someone a few metres away is struggling to even feed his belly for the day? I’m convinced God has called us to live radical lives that are sold out for Him but somehow compromise seeps in so easily. I’m preaching to myself by the way… Live simply so others may simply live… it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately and know I’m going to be challenged with once again during my trip home.



Well, I think that’s all for now, enjoy the new pictures too… see you very soon. Bucket loads of love, KWW