It's been a month!

     I can't believe that today I've been here a month already. What an adventure, experience and opening of the eyes. I thought I had seen poverty and hopelessness, and I am not discrediting what I have seen in the past, but this is a whole 'nother level.

     Did you know that the average life expectancy for Sierra Leone is 45 years of age? 45! It's because the infant mortality rate is triple that of the nearest country on the list. Which means that the monkeys we saw in the sanctuary have a better chance of makin' it than the children we passed on the streets on the way here. It breaks your heart. It is a hard prayer to pray, to ask the Lord to break your heart for what breaks his. Actually, you pray it in ignorant bliss and good intentions and then he opens your eyes. Oh Lord. I had a moment of complete breakdown this week just crying my eyes out for those outside the ship - what is to happen to them? Unless the Lord intervenes and I mean, in a big way, what is to become of them? There are 5 major hospitals in the country. Five. And about a dozen or so provincial hospitals. I mean, if the ship is part of the answer, and I believe it is, great, but soooo not near enough. How do you even go about changing people's minds and educating them on the truth of how disease is spread when they stand and argue with you that HIV/AIDS is a myth perpetuated by Americans to keep them subjugated and scared. That germs don't exist because whoever heard of such a ridiculous thing as being so tiny that you can't see it.

What is with the penchant of throwing acid in each other's faces? What is with the throwing children into fires? Maybe I've become desensitized to it at home, we still attack each other, with gun violence being a common enough thing, so the difference is what gets me? Talk about needing Jesus.

So thank the Lord that we can be here for those children with those burn contractures, but how much more important that they come to know the Lord.

A prayer request you can all be active on: One lady came to us with a facial tumor who had tried many, many things to get rid of it, including going to the local witch doctors who tried quite a few hideous experients on her to take it away (as well as all her money). She came to the ship and was able to have it removed, and also came to know Jesus on board. Hallelujah! But she will now be going back to her village where her family has been warned that she will now be killed because she has "shamed" the witch doctors. We might never hear what has happened with her, and there is no option to not go back. She is overcome with joy yet there is this real threat. Please keep her in prayer.

The stories like this abound. Another prayer request: Please pray for the healing of wounds on board. The level of filth off ship is staggering. I learned in the MTW disaster relief training why this is probably going on in a lecture on water safety. The streets are also the toilets. It partially gets washed away by the streams, part of it dries, turns into the general dust, blows into everything... even wounds. So wounds take a looooong time to heal here. Even if crew get cuts on our feet, they just don't heal without antibiotics! Everything onboard gets bleached many, many times a day, but it's still a problem because you can't keep patients until their wounds are all completely healed, so we see lots of readmissions with wound infections.

There! You have your homework! I expect all these patients who've been here awhile with these wounds to go home soon, so thanks for your prayers beforehand, and thank you Lord for their healing.