catching up: a little bit of everything

Happy New Year (a bit late) from the Africa Mercy!!!

I don't know where the month of January has gone, but it's time to catch up on what has been happening around here in recent weeks!

Ponseti Ceremony

On December 17 we held a ceremony to celebrate the first 15 kiddos who now have straight feet (now they are wearing their braces and coming in regularly for checkups).

  

This is a huge accomplishment for the clinic and huge milestone in the kids' lives!  We wanted to take the time to celebrate and give glory to God for what He has done.  Mercy Ships hospital chaplaincy team came out and sang songs with us and shared a message of encouragement for the families of our patients.  LOTS of Mercy Ships crew came out to be part of the ceremony (even though it was blistering hot out that day) and we felt very supported. 

We danced, celebrated, sang, prayed over the kids and families, and then called up each patient by name to give them a gift.

This was also a very special time to recognise the work and dedication of our partners at Hopital Be.  They have come so far in their ability to treat clubfeet- they are the ones seeing these patients and putting on the casts each week.  As they have improved their skills, Nick has been less and less hands on with the training. This celebration is as much about their hard work and progress as it is about the kids.

They did a group photo of all the kids and their mamas, Nick and I jumped into one shot...

Little baby Serah's dad requested a photo of Nick and I holding his daughter, so that he can show her when she gets bigger.  Serah will never even have to remember her feet being anything but normal- I'm glad she got the treatment she needed early in life!

Christmastime!

We had a lovely Christmas on board with our ship family, Nick and I both love Christmas here.  Of course, we miss our families in Australia and America, but it's a really special time here on board too.  We get to take all the fun traditions from around the world and share a bit of everything- scandanavian Santa Lucia, dutch Sinter Klaas, Australian carols by candlelight out on the dock, and lots more.

Here's a few photos from our christmas day....

(In this photo we are wearing the hats from the bon-bons/Christmas crackers.  We don't really have these in America, but they do in Australia and the UK.  I found some at the local supermarket and got them as a surprise for Nick. Look them up if you don't know what I'm talking about.)  :)

Our dear friends, Harmen and Andrea, hosted christmas morning in their cabin and we did a gift exchange.

Christmas brunch is the best meal of the year on the ship!!! The galley and dining room teams do an incredible job!

We were able to Skype both our families on Christmas day as well.  Madagascar has better internet capabilities than most countries we work in; normally we can't Skype from the ship but this year we can and it is such a blessing!

Our stockings...everyone puts a shoe or stocking outside their door on christmas eve.

Logos Hope was our neighbor for a month:

Another highlight from December: the Logos Hope came and spent a month here in Tamatave!

The Logos Hope is part of Operation Mobilisation- and they use their ship as a basis for ministry as well.  Rather than a hospital, their ship is outfitted as a floating book fair and conference center.  Their mission is to bring "knowledge, help and hope to the people of the world".  They visit many many ports, in countries where books are not readily available or very expensive for the public.  

Books of all kinds are sold at very low prices on board- they materials for all ages: dictionaries, encyclopaedias, textbooks, cookbooks, kid's books, novels, as well as bibles and many other christian books.

Nick and I visited the book fair and bought some board books for the little kiddos to look at when they come to the ponseti clinic.  Of course, the most popular one with the kids is the one that makes noises :)  (Nick found that one)

Other bits of life...

Photos from along the road we call "beach road" which we take over to the clinic at Hopital Be.  Tamatave is such a colourful city with the pousse-pousse and tuk-tuks everywhere.

One of my new favourite places is the antique shop, it's very close to the port.  There is a bit of everything in there: malagasy handmade art, lots of things from France, things from world war II.  There is so much to look at.  The french man who owns it was happy for me to take a few pictures:

Sunset over Tamatave from a few days ago:

Thanks for keeping up with us!  Something to pray for- we are hosting a course in less than 2 weeks which is geared towards professionals from around madagascar who are already treating clubfeet.  We want to see these two days be the biggest benefit that they can be for the attendees, it is a rare opportunity to meet together and we hope that each one of them leaves with new and useful knowledge as well as being encouraged as a professional.  We are thrilled to have this opportunity to share God's love through developing the professional skills of Malagasy healthcare providers.

Thank you for your prayers and support!

If I did this right, there should be a super cute video of one of our plastics patients at the end of this post....we have some great dance parties around here! :)

Sometimes a dance party is just what the doctor ordered. #MercyShips
Posted by Mercy Ships on Friday, January 29, 2016

Meet our team! What is MCB?

Meet our team!

This is the Mercy Ships Medical Capacity Building department (MCB).  MCB is the term we use for any Mercy Ships program that is investing teaching, training, mentoring, classes, etc. into the local healthcare system.  We have the unique opportunity to using our floating hospital as a training platform.  Most of you who keep up with our blog already know that Nick and I are involved with the Ponseti Clubfoot Clinic, where Nick is heading up a program to teach clubfoot correction at the local public hospital, but did you know Mercy Ships MCB also runs the following programs...this is a busy department!

Video:

OBF (Obstetric Fistula) Mentoring Project:  Our amazing friend Amy is leading this one- Mercy Ships is mentoring a group of local nurses in the specific care of women with childbirth injuries.   

To learn more from Amy about the project click here

And READ THIS AWESOME POST from Amy called "kings and queens" on the impact it is already making.
  

Sterile Processing Mentoring Program: This one's led by our friend Christina, she teaches about sterile processing (how to safely clean and sterilise the instruments used in the operating room). Awhile ago, I wrote this post about my involvement in her program in Congo and the profound effect it had on me (so much that I went off and became registered as a sterile technician so I had some knowledge in that area too).  This is so, so needed. 
Click here to see the webpage for Christina's organisation.

Biomedical Training Course: This is another often overlooked but desperately needed area for development.  Biomed technicians are responsible to maintain and repair hospital equipment. All to often, simple repair needs mean that essential hospital equipment stands around unused and collecting dust. 

Mercy Ships WHO Checklist Team: I love this project! Quote from this Mercy Ships blog post: "The World Health Organizaiton (WHO) Safe Surgery Saves Lives Surgical Safety Checklist (aka. the Checklist) is a simple tool that helps the surgical team to improve safety in surgery and has been proven to decrease operating room mortality by nearly 50%, as well as significantly decrease surgical complications and infections.

It doesn’t require fancy equipment or expensive drugs; meaning it can have as large of an impact in Dallas or Minneapolis as it does in Beijing or Nairobi or Toamasina."

Courses: Mercy Ships partners with other organisations who have established excellent curriculum for low-resource environments.  The courses are run 4-6 times each during our 10 month visit, examples are: Essential Surgical Skills, Primary Trauma Care, Essential Pain Management, and courses focusing on safe anaesthesia for children and pregnant women. 

One last link to another article, this one from Dr. Mark Shrime, one of the maxillofacial surgeons who often visits the ship. Quote from his article: "Currently, infectious disease interventions are the main focus of global health policies, because many countries lack the personnel and infrastructure to carry out surgical interventions successfully. Despite the fact that nearly one-third of human disease is amenable to surgery, it remains overlooked in much of the world....To put this in perspective, H.I.V., tuberculosis and malaria — which have captured the global conversation — currently make up less than one-tenth of the global disease burden, combined."

Taking steps towards change within a healthcare system is a huge undertaking and requires immense amounts of partnership and patience. Within the Mercy Ships MCB department, we have the opportunity to carry out Mercy Ships's mission of bringing "hope and healing to the world's forgotten poor" within the context of serving local healthcare professionals.  We see God doing marvellous things through these programs- there is something so good and right and beautiful about coming alongside local departments and saying "we believe in you and want to invest in you and the work you do". This is an opportunity for hope and healing, too.

Here's a few glimpses into the training that happens each day we spend out at the Ponseti Clinic.  We love the team we get to work with and really care about their work as professionals and each of them as individuals.  It is a privilege to come alongside them for these months and work together so that families of children born with clubfoot in this region can find good treatment!

And here's a few bonus pictures of some cute kiddos!  Every day when the patients come in to get a new plaster put on, the mamas soak off the old ones in a bath tub outside the clinic.  The mamas have to be so committed to this treatment, it means coming to lots of appointments and carrying around their child with heavy plaster casts on their legs for weeks.  When one mama's baby finished treatment and the final casts came off, the mama exclaimed "oh he's so light to pick up now!"

We really enjoy getting to know these ladies and rejoicing with them on the progress in their children's feet!

We have a ponseti baby doll which is really popular with the kids, here's Toto playing with him on the day his last casts came off and he got fitted for braces.

Here's Toto trying out his newly straight foot!

home sweet cabin 4428

Here's a quick look inside the lovely cabin we get to call home! :)

Life is so different here on the ship with a couple's cabin- I'm still not 100% used to having so much storage space!  

Our window is a bit foggy (I can't clean the glass on the outside :)) but the view is beautiful!  We can see looking across the water towards the shore- we can almost see the ponseti clinic.

I bought the tray on the right shelf here in Tamatave at the handmade goods market- I use it to get breakfast for us each morning.  I love the different colors of inlaid wood making the design.

We brought the chalkboard and a few other things with us from France to make our cabin feel like our own.

"I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength"

Good reminders on the wall :)

Thanks for reading our blog and sharing this journey with us!