At the door I stop for a quick check- phone, keys, pen, notebook, water, granola bar. The alarm rings again. 705. My feet carry me up to hospital mindlessly.
My day starts in the kitchen: point of contact.
In proverbs of says of the ideal woman: the heart of her husband trusts her. Well, I think it can also read, the heart of her overseer safely trusts her.
That's Lucy. Lucy runs the hospital feeding program. Lucy is trustworthy. Together we sort out breakfast for the patients, relish for the noon nshima, what children are needing milk, who is coming for a daily egg, daily supplies to run the kitchen: oil, matches, charcoal, washing powder, washing soap... I know what I put out she will use for the patients. I know she will gather the moms of our malnourished kids around her and teach them what and when and how to feed their sick babies. I know because of her diligence we will see miracles.
And I remember why I am here. To be part of making a difference in lives here in rural Africa.
After kitchen is ward rounds. As a team we go around to each patient in the hospital and review their case and their current condition. Are we helping? Have we missed something? Some days it's long, some days I struggle to keep on task instead thinking and planning all the things I could and should be doing: language lessons, Bible study, visiting this one and that one, cleaning the termite hills that keep popping up around my house, even just washing the dishes...
But an interesting case story often brings me back to reality.
You see this child: two months ago she was on her death bed. Stick thin and so weak with a swollen bloated abdomen. Barely able to draw a breath. Mom spoon fed her milk mixed with her medicine while we struggled to keep a functioning cannula dripping fluid into her tiny dried out veins. Today she wanders out of the kids' ward with her chubby little sisters to greet me in the corridor. Still stick thin, still huge belly. But, still alive. A huge smile rests on her face. I can't believe she is still here! And, after two months of being away, I can't believe she still remembers me!
You see this lady: because of a tumour her jaw extended to her chest. It was most pitiful to see her. Chitengi draped over her head, her arm lifted to use the chitengi as a shield to hide her deformed face and her shame. Kukata. It hurts. We started chemotherapy just before I left. Two months later, I've sat down to give her round number four of chemo. The face I smile into today is as beautiful as it was deformed nearly three months ago. I can't hardly remember what she looked like before I left. Now she is simply lovely!
You see this man: he died four months ago but he's still here today. He came to Chitokoloki a few months after I first did. 22 years old, he was in a road traffic accident and fractured his T12L4, effectively paralyzing him from the waist down. He's lived with us ever since. Surgery for an abscess in the abdomen nearly finished him off. When we reversed him after the procedure, he didn't wake up. We arranged shifts to watch him over night in theatre, keeping him on the ventilator to breathe for him. Twelve hours later we managed to extubate him and shortly after that he was awake enough to be chatting with his family
You see this baby: her mom died and her father's sister, nursing a five month old child of her own, took on the care and feeding of this fragile premature half orphaned child. How much excitement there was the day baby girl Gracious finally weighed in at 2.0 kg and auntie turned mummy could take her two babies home.
We are seeing miracles here.
But you see this woman: through all of this she is being changed. I think this is the biggest miracle of all. Our Father, in his loving grace, reaches down not only to heal the sick but to change the heart. My heart. Your heart.
This isn't about me. This is about Him. This is about His grace. This is about simply being a channel to let that grace flow to the hurting, the needy, the destitute, the outcast. In short: us.
We need His grace. I need it as much as the patients whose broken bodies I tend. My body may be whole at this time, but my broken soul is in desperate and constant need of His forgiving grace.
This is the greatest miracle of all: that my sin can be forgiven; my brokenness can be made whole; my selfishness and self centredness can be made unselfish and God centred. That God can be willing to use me to channel His grace to a hurting broken world.
It's evening now, the rain patters the tin roof, the thunder rumbles, sometimes crashes overhead. I am exhausted from the events of the day. The sick, the children and the grandparents, the needs and the requests, the constant interaction with people. I'm praying the phone doesn't ring tonight needing a team for an emergency surgery. But knowing if it does, or if I wake to the alarm tomorro morning: His grace, the same grace I'm learning to channel out to the people around, that grace is still the same and its still enough.
My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in your weakness
