2012 in nutshell - with a freebie

I do miss Christmas in the Northern Hemisphere. Down Under we have the end of the academic year, summer vacations and Christmas all rolled into one and it does make life rather hectic in the midst of loving the summer sun. It can be a struggle to stay focused on the true meaning of the season, but our Christmas Eve and Christmas morning services at our local church are a fabulous part doing that for our family.

This year it was made all the more special by Graeme’s participation in a combined churches Christmas Cantata and a portion of the choir sang at our midnight service. The other very special event was that my older sister Rhona was over from Australia to spend the holidays with us.

A major mile-stone was reached by Chelsea in November as she wore her school uniform for the last time. She has applied to a few universities to begin her nursing degree in February, so we all wait with baited breath for her exam results in mid-January. We are very blessed that she can live at home while studying, which is a massive financial saving.

At 20, Jason is entering the 3^rd of 4 years in a Communications/Business conjoint degree at AUT. He still loves working part-time with his clients with intellectual disabilities, and he has also been Disabilities Representative on the student board at his uni. He does come home with some funny stories!

Daniel also had a major “first” – his initial national exam. He heads into Year 11 this year, with 2 more years at high school before him. At 16 he is now the tallest man in the family, and at the rate he’s eating and sleeping we expect him to follow in the footsteps of both his Grandfathers and Uncles, and top 6 foot before he’s done.

Graeme’s and my event of greatest significance this year was entering our 30^th year in missions. We both joined Mercy Ships in 1983 (I then had 6 years in YWAM before we met onboard the Anastasis in 1990). It has definitely been food for thought and reflection. Our conclusion ....

  We feel incredibly privileged to be still serving in this mission to change the lives of the world’s poorest and most forgotten, for Jesus.

We are pretty flabbergasted as we call to mind all the dear friends who have and still financially support us as we trust the Lord to provide all we need to continue His work. THANK YOU THANK YOU!

It was rather a shock for this to be acknowledged a bit publicly recently. All glory to Jesus! http://mercyships.org.nz/assets/files/Central%20Leader%2019Dec12.pdf  It has been commented that the placement of this article next to a Wanted poster was not an accident! (Thanks to The Central Leader)

Oh and here's that free link to download Don Stephen’s book “Ships of Mercy” http://www.mercyships.org.nz/ships-of-mercy.php  Please bear in mind it was written with reaching a wide, general audience in mind with this remarkable story. We trust you are inspired.

Game On!

It’s felt like I was stuck in an X-Box game lately. Every time I made progress, another more difficult obstacle would suddenly appear to replace the one just conquered. Finally though, a champion arrived (yeah for Matt!) and defeated the techno- giant that was preventing me from accessing our Walls Treat Journal blog! Yeah! It was a long fight, but we’re back! I hope you missed us.

Since we were last connected, Mercy Ships completed a six month outreach in Togo, so I have added a summary and some surgery details for those interested. Check out the side bar.

Mercy Ships ministry focus since August has been Guinea - West Africa. (We are not in the Pacific, so nowhere near PNG). Thousands of people arrived for their conditions to be accessed on the Screening Day (pictured above), and after seven weeks of ministry in Conakry, we have already been able to transform a lot of lives. Thankfully, this is just the beginning. We’ll tell you more about that on our blog next time.

We find it hugely important to stay connected with how our work here is affecting the individuals that Mercy Ships is touching in West Africa. I would think it’s the same for those incredible people in our supporter team. Here’s just one story of a family whose world was turned upside down just a few months ago. It’s one of the most impacting testimonies we have encountered in all our years of ministry. Pop across and have a quick read http://mercyships.org.nz/family-receives-sight

As Graeme and I continue our roles here in New Zealand; recruiting crew as well as raising finances and awareness, it’s is really exciting to hear the stories from Kiwi crew onboard. We love hearing what our nurses and other volunteers are experiencing during their service on the ship. A significant chunk of what I do is writing that into articles for their local newspapers. You can read a recently published story here http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/papakura-courier/7435369/They-really-need-our-Kiwi-nurses

Striving with technology has been a common theme for us in the past few months, and among other things Graeme has been focusing on changing our Mercy Ships communication from hardcopy newsletters to a digital Enews format. It involved a lot of database preparation and we are very pleased with the end result. (You can sign up on our MSNZ homepage www.mercyships.org.nz). He has also been speaking at quite a few Rotary and other service clubs, and is particularly looking forward to preaching his first sermon in a while – so big thanks for Rev. Simon Cornwall for the invitation to Greerton Presbyterian next Sunday. We are really looking forward to it!

Family news – (how to make this fast enough not to be boring yet detailed enough for those who want to know?) ... Jason is completing 2^nd Yr of his Communications/Business double major and still loving it. He’s been working hard with IHC and World Visions and buying a car this week – yikes! ... Chelsea only has a few days left of High School! She’s very focussed on her exams and has applied to do Nursing at AUT next year She has just landed a job with the new Warehouse opening in our area, which is fabulous ... Daniel got his Learner Driver Licence last week, so APB warning for road users in Auckland! He is sitting his first national exams next month (School Cert/NCEA1) so those are both milestone ... I also have an uni exam for the Public Relations papers I’m doing (only 2 to go – yeah!), so while other four of us are in exam mode, Graeme is very sensibly leaving the country! Each year he attends National Directors meeting at the Mercy Ships HQ in Texas. Aside from all the important work stuff, it’s always a great time for him to network with so many folk he has served with onboard the ships overs the years.

Phew, so that's us. Next time it'll be shorter- I promise! 

Togo Field Service Jan - June

Mercy Ships  recently completed our fifth field service to the nation of Togo.  Due to a change of our annual schedule. this was a short, five month outreach. For those who are interested in the details of what was accomplished, please find a summary of the information below.

Eye surgeries                                               732
Eye services & treatments                  6,083

Max fax surgeries                                      281
Cleft lip & palate                                         34

Plastics & Reconstruction                        72       

General (eg hernia & goitre)                292

Obstetric fistula                                          49

Palliative homecare patients                14

Dental procedures                             10,518

During the outreach 1373 mercy ministry visits were made by crew in their 'off' time, and they distributed 321 bibles. It is estimated that at least 738 people made solid commitments to Jesus (that we know of)

Counselling was provided to 2,390 patients, and another 290 HIV counselling sessions.

We are placing greater emphasis on training and capacity building. During this time 22 African surgeons participated in mentoring programmes with our surgeons.

54 people were trained in organic agriculture

186 health workers, police, teachers and prisons personel were trained in mental health workshops
30 children attended a 5 day trauma healing camp

1986 church and community leaders and day workers attended leadership conferences

Be-Kpota Anfame Clinic was significantly renovated.

New notches on the passport

The Africa Mercy is nearing the end of the current field service in Togo, West Africa. Many of the medical staff including a number of Kiwis are now flying home. The shore projects are wound up. The school children have finished for the scedemic year and many of their families have taken holiday time to visit family and supporters 'back home'. As the finial surgeries are completed, many tearful goodbyes are said with the amazing folk who have translated, served, and worked alongside us in Lomé and further afield.

Later this month the ship sails to the Canary Islands (located between Africa and Europe) which is the nearest fully-functioning dry dock capable of taking us. Annual 'Warrant of Fitness' will be undertaken in the shipyard, then supplies for the new field service loaded, and an influx of new short term crew arrive.

Early August will see the Africa Mercy sail to the port of Conakry in Guinea, West Africa where our ministry will focus to serve the local people for ten months.

Would you please pray with us for all that's on God's heart to be completed before the ship leaves Togo, and for the new field service ahead? There are still some key positions to be filled to have a full crew ready to hit the ground running in Conakry.

Down in the mouth!

Last week in Togo, the Mercy Ships dental team treated their 4,000th patient since February. That announcement brought back a lot of memories for me – some good and some pretty awful really.

Perhaps strangely, it’s my third-world experience in the dental clinic that brings back the good memories. While the ship was in Ghana and Liberia, I ‘volunteered’ (how do you volunteer for something when you’re already volunteering anyway? Never-the-less…) to help out sterilizing instruments in the on-shore dental clinic once a week. It was a huge learning curve to identify all the various instruments the dentists and hygienists used, as well as to learn to process of sterilizing -all in a very challenging environment. For the duration of the outreach, Mercy Ships had been given the use of a couple of connecting rooms in the local hospital for our dental clinic (pretty routine). The hospital itself has irregular electrical power, only a few taps with running water, and no window – only cinder blocks for ventilation, and very minimal toilet facilities. Every day we set up our own generators to enable the dental team with clinical lights and to use their state-of-the-art equipment to treat the constant stream of patients seeking relief from their pain.

The most remarkable thing I came across was one day a man came in with extreme tooth pain and infection. I must say when Lawrence opened his mouth, the horrendous odour quickly spread throughout the room despite all the fans! Dr Keith, who has served in these conditions for many years, quickly identified an abnormality and sent Lawrence off to the ship for an immediate x-ray. The resulting story was astonishing.

The xray exposed a foreign body embedded in Lawrence’s jaw. Stunned, he told us about being attacked many years earlier, and how the culprits had stabbed him in the mouth. Sure enough, what was imbedded in his jaw was 2 inches of knife blade! It had only recently started acting up again after the initial injury. You can see it here.....

Dr Keith performed a simple 30 minute surgery under a local anaesthetic, and Lawrence was free from source of pain and infection. He took that blade home though!

Helping people like Lawrence receive such significant healing was a source of healing from my own bad experiences as a child. I had a hereditary condition which meant the enamel didn’t form properly on my baby teeth, so I had a huge number of fillings. Small child, slow drills, no pain relief; you get the picture. Should I mention I was actually banned from all the dental clinics in my area because I’d bite the hygienist's fingers? It is really significant to me that while I’m still abit of a nervous patient in the dental chair , I have been significantly more peaceful since I helped in the clinic (haven’t bit anyone’s fingers in years now ! J). God blessed me with emotional healing while I was intent on bringing physical healing to others. Now, isn’t that just like God?!

In Liberia there is only one dentist per one million people! The patients queued from the early morning hours, and were admitted to a waiting areas where one of the local translators would provide oral hygiene instruction. They’d also watch the Jesus film in their own language while they were waiting. Their history was taken, then they’d be placed in one of our four  mobile dental chairs (mobile I the sense they were moved at the end of the outreach, not while the patient was sitting in it!) Mostly people had extractions, but often there were some very complex procedures to be done by the dentists. People’s teeth were so strong from eating tough food all their lives that it was physically exhausting for extractions, and sometimes the results of untreated cavities and fractures became literally life-threatening  because of infection.

Family Ties

We just gotta love those airpoints! Easter was a really special time for our family as we were able to attend a Jason-Smith family wedding in Australia, which was also a long-overdue extended family get-together. Such a special thing for our kids to hang our with 'the cussies' who are all young adults. As we are always spread throughout the world, it was a very rare event - last time Daniel was only 1 year old! It was a totally fabulous time.

The girls heels make this photo a bit deceptive, but the 3 lads all tower over us and we expect Daniel to take the lead very soon.Where has the time gone?

We were also able to get up to our old haunt Newcastle (NSW, not Upon-Tyne) and spend a little time with friends, supporters, and our sending church. Awesome!



Celebrating Sight

Yesterday on the dock beside the Africa Mercy in Togo, there was a Celebration of Sight. Patients who recently had cateract sugery with LAG laser treatment returned to the ship for a final check up. These men, women and children had received a mircale - their world of darkness was no longer! The

festivity is always in fabulous African style - the compelling beat of African drums inspiring dancing and clapping; an outpouring of joy over a changed life and a new future!

Globally, one person goes blind every five seconds—and one child loses his or her sight every minute. Of the 45 million blind people in the world today, almost half of them could receive their sight through a short cateract operation.

Our Chief Medical officer poignantly observed that every time a person's sight is restored, at least 2 people's lives are freed; the person who was blind, and the person who needed to lead them 24/7. (The nations we serve have no disability accesses, ammenities, or welfare benefits. The sightless are completely dependent).

 "The lame walk, the blind see, and the gospel is preached to the poor'.

1,600 patients booked

Screening Day. The ship is empty bar the on-duty crew as every person is assigned a role to help with the enormous task of facilitating the medical screening the thousands of people coming to seek help from the Africa Mercy in Togo, West Africa.

The ship arrived into the port of Lome in late January for our fifth field assignment in this desperately needy nation. In order to find those we can help, advance notice is given of a mass screening day, and this time 3.500 people came seeking help from everything from headaches and minor wounds, to tumours, blindness and incontinence.

You can catch a 90 sec glimpse into the heart of the day here                                  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwrBKTbhaCc
The task is gruelling; emotionally, physically, spiritually. Initial descriptions with sometimes several translations from tribal to local language then to English, those we can help have their history taken under even more challenging conditions as people with minimal education and much superstition attempt to describe their symptoms. Those suffering from conditions like cataracts, club feet, cleft lip, tumours, contractured burns, and obstetric fistulas are the ones we can help as these are our dedicated surgeries. Surgeons examine, blood tests taken, patient ID photos made. Sandwiches and water are passed out to people in the impossibly long queues. Hugs and kind touches reassure frightened people who have been physically isolated by their conditions sometimes for years that God loves them and hope is on the way!

Hope On My Horizon

Parachute Music Festival 2012, 20,000 punters. No, not performing (Hahahaha) we have the privilege of working alongside singer/songwriter Peter Woolston who has written a powerful song called Hope On My Horizon for Mercy Ships NZ, and at Parachute we ran a Sing2Win competition for some fabulous new talent to audition for a part to sing on the chorus of the soon-to-be released album. Exhausting, exhilarating, and wonderfully fun ... we are ready to open the People's Choice X-Factor voting portion on Saturday Feb 18th at http://peterwoolston.com/sing2win/ , so why not check it out?

Kolkota

How many people can you get in a train? ALL of them! Between accidently sitting on the women's side of the bus, missing his train stop and being momentarily lost 7 hours outside Kolkata, and learning to hail a rickshaw ... Jason's orientation to India's teeming culture has been exciting as well as a little stressful at times. Oh how very strange it is to be on the OTHER side of sending young people into missions!

Jason has divided his time in Kolkata working with ministries that help street people in various ways. Asha Bari is like a day care centre for street kids so they have an alternative to wandering the dangerous city streets all day. The photo on the left is of a wee boy who loved blowing bubbles with Jason.  who helped feed and bathe the kids attending for the first 3 weeks he was in Kolkata. In the weekends he helping out at the Mother Teresa Sisters of Charity home, mainly washed the orphans clothes (by hand ! Hope he doesn’t lose that skill!). For the latter 3 weeks he is working with a FairTrade project called FreeSet which provides employment for women wanting to get out of street prostitution. He has been doing some graphics work, and a lot of manual labour. He was very pleased to have been able to take a few days out of the city to visit a World Vision project, as he is works part-time with thecharity here in NZ. A lot for him to process, and we can’t wait to hear all the tall stories when he gets home late February, ready to begin his 2nd year at Uni studying Communications
.

Giving Glory to God

The Africa Mercy spent 2011 in Sierra Leone; a nation where 1/5 children still die before their 5th birthday, and 1/8 women still die in childbirth

During the field service Mercy Ships completed :

• more than 3,300 life-changing surgeries (including cleft and palate repair, tumour removal and orthopaedic surgeries) for more than 1,400 patients

• more than 10,000 general medical consultations

• more than 34,700 dental treatments

• more than 2,600 eye operations (including cataract surgeries) and more than 17,800 eye consultations.

More than 36,000 people directly benefited from the help received!

• In addition: Mercy Ships offered Basic Health Training (covering topics like nutrition, hand washing, wound care and dental care,) to more than 12,600 people in villages and clinics.

• Sixteen students from local organisations were trained in organic farming methods.

• More than 450 local health care professionals were coached and trained in their area of expertise (anaesthesiology, midwifery, instrument & equipment sterilisation, orthopaedic and reconstructive surgery).

Firsts

This year begins with a brand new experience for us - being at the OTHER side of sending kids into the wild and woolly places of the world, where the needs of the poor are desperate and immediate. Jason, our eldest, left today to spend 6 weeks in Kolkata, (Calcutta) India working amongst street children. We are delighted, proud, nervous and above all grateful to Jesus for planting this desire in his heart. We know he will be a changed young man when he returns, just in time to go back to Uni in February.

After a busy 2011 with all the sports activities, academic challenges, and youth groups activities Chelsea and Daniel have enjoyed down time over the summer holidays. The absolutely rotten weather has given them a bunch of time to blob out, but with highlights of friends and family visiting from Australia. Chelsea begins her finial year at high school in January, loves playing guitar, and hopes to play again with the girls First XI soccer team. Daniel begins his first national exams (NCEA1) - do they have an X Box subject? He's loving playing both his drums and tennis.

This less than delightful weather over Christmas did mean that Graeme and I were very happy to get on with our DYI house projects, and achieved another first - painting the interior of our very own house. It may seem like a small thing to be so excited about, but it was a delightful first for us. It even turned out OK!

We have some  exciting events coming up this year in our work in New Zealand with Mercy Ships, the most immediate being a PR event at the end of the month at Parachute - Down Under's biggest Christian music festival. With 27,000 expected attendees the exposure for people with a heart to serve the poor is tremendous.We are trusting God for people to sign up to volunteer onbaord as wellas to support this work with Africa's poor finacially.Either way, they become part of something life-changing for people with little hope.

Our lives have been radically impacted by God's heart for the poor, and one of the most incredible things we have experienced is now seeing our children also stepping out determined to make a difference in this arena. Go God!

Reflections

Our ministry focus and attention in 2011 was on the visit of the Africa Mercy to Sierra Leone for 10 months of the year. It was Mercy Ships 5th visit to this West African nation still struggling to recover from a decade-long civil war. The atrocities committed and the scars on the bodies and emotions of the local people are ten years later still a weight and a burden for many. Even before the war it was one of the poorest nations on earth, and our determination is to be a part of God's answer in bringing both hope and healing.

All previous visits have been made by the former flagship Anastasis, and this was the first visit for the new hospital ship Africa Mercy. It was a hugely impacting time. The exact statistics of the field service in terms of surgeries performed and how people were reached are to be released in a month or so, but we do know that the increased capapsity of the newer ship means we can help twice as many people as we could with all the other previous Mercy Ships put together!

Our family sat around the meal table the other day reflecting on the year past on a personal level - the highs and lows, and most significant moments. It's been a hard one on some of our family who live in the Christchurch area where, since September 2010 they have experienced close to 10,000 earthquakes and aftershocks. Graeme's elderly parents are in a rest home and while they are safe and cared for, it is very stressful for them and all the other folk living in the region. We that God that neither they nor my brother, who lives on a farm in the region but works in the city, have been physically affected by the major quakes.