Hope's Hands

Lydia trudged up the steep white stairs and closed her eyes to revel in the morning sun streaming through the steel framed, deep set windows. She took a deep breath, trying to absorb the peace of this rare, sunny haven aboard the Africa Mercy. She lived down on deck 4 where there were very few windows. She loved the home she had found on this ship. She screwed up her nose disdainfully at the fluorescent lights that lit most of the ship. It gave her appreciation for the parts of the ship that actually had windows. Today, she was going off on an adventure into Lome, Togo!

Togo a land where the French and Germans had colonized. A land of people speaking French, German, and many local dialects. What was she doing here? No college degree. No language training. No in-depth Bible knowledge. Shaking her head, she tried to rid herself of the agitated thoughts as a dog would shake off the bath water. She whispered, “This is important! I can do this!” There was a rock in her stomach that made that hard to believe.

“Good morning Demarus,” she murmured to one of the nurses who was heading out of the dining room and up the second white stair case.

“Good morning, how are you?”

“I’m fine,” Lydia responded forcing herself to smile. “How are you?”

“Fine, thank you. Hey, blessings on your time with the screening team! It is an amazing experience! It definitely is challenging to see all of the people with such mind-blowing deformities, but it gives you a clearer idea of what God is doing through Mercy Ships.” Demarus looked Lydia in the eyes and smiled. It was as if she was capable of seeing the storm in Lydia’s mind.

“Thanks, Demarus! I needed to hear that!”

“You’re welcome!” Demarus continued on her way with her Bible in hand.

Lydia headed into the dining room which easily seated the four hundred plus crew members. A slight smile graced her face as she listened to the low hum of the breakfast audience. Every once in a while, the hum would be punctuated by a boisterous laugh from the Chief Engineer. “Our four hundred seventy crew are the heart and soul of Mercy Ships!” Chief Tom pounded his fist on the table with enthusiasm. Without missing a beat, Lydia could join him in his speech that he gave to every new person who sat down at his table. “Our surgeons couldn’t help the people of Africa without the dedicated engineers keeping the lights on. The dear nurses couldn’t speak comfort to a scared baby with the cleft lip if it wasn’t for our faithful dining room stewards keeping the dining room clean and serving us food. Yet more importantly, Mercy Ships would only be another organization stitching people up if it wasn’t for the crew’s whole hearted commitment to LOVING GOD!” No need to look, Lydia raised her right fist into the air shadowing Chief Tom’s motions. “LOVING AND SERVING OTHERS, being people of integrity in all we say and do, and being people of excellence!” Since Lydia worked in the dining room, she had heard the loud spoken chief engineer give that speech countless times while making coffee, sweeping floors, or wiping down counters.

“Uhhh...” a small nervous cry escaped her lips when she glanced at the clock mounted on the glass wall that divided the dining room into halves. She could sense the second-hand ticking. She scurried over to the food and drink lines. The way the lines were set up created a horse shoe in the front of the dining room. She quickly made herself a peanut butter sandwich and sat at one of the front tables to scarf it down. She had the sandwich finished in a surprising amount of time for such a sticky substance.

She walked in behind the horse shoe and into the dish room where she found one of her teammates stacking the plates in the shallow, pronged crate. “Mar-ty!!!” Lydia sang in a goofy voice. She set down her breakfast plate on the stainless-steel counter trying her best not to reveal her jittery hands.

“Morning Lydia, how are you?” The bald chaplain from San Fransisco asked as he hosed down the dirty plates.

“Scared and overwhelmed by the prospect of going to screening today,” she finally admitted. There was no use denying it. She was in desperate need of prayer. The small, Minnesota, country girl inside her desperately wanted to run back to her cabin.

“Oh,” Marty stated in an understanding tone.

Lydia had been with Mercy Ships for almost two years, and had yet to be at a screening day. Screening Day...Lydia was thrown into thoughts that she wasn’t quite sure how to put into words…A day that for many had been long awaited. It was a day that had been advertised for weeks. It was a day that could very well launch a person into a new beginning. One that would be of living and not just surviving. Children who couldn’t walk to school because of painful club feet and had to forlornly watch from the sidelines as their friends played games that they couldn’t join because their clubbed feet prevented them from running well. For some, even, it was a matter of life or death. A matter of being given a better life, or dying a slow, excruciating death of starvation, suffocation, and rejection. Men, women, and children suffered rejection because others thought they were cursed or possessed with a demon because of facial tumors that made it impossible to eat or breath.

Marty looked down at her with empathy as she finally started thinking out loud, “I’ve seen pictures of screening day: the grotesque tumors, the festering pieces of shrapnel lodged in a person’s calf. I have known the horror of seeing a finger swollen three times beyond normal and growing backwards and around....” Her voice trailed off a moment as she sought to put words to the winds of distress that were blowing her soul about. “I…I….I’ve heard the stories of rejection and heartache. I’ve…talked to the patients after their surgeries and seen the hope restored. Dr. Li talks about mamas escaping with their babies in the middle of the night because superstitious community members would bury their babies for cleft lips.” She shrugged her shoulders. Even though she had seen the pictures, heard the stories, and had known a vague dismay, she was unable to grasp that kind of life. “I have known the...the confusion at this, but...that was just looking at pictures and hearing stories. What…what am I supposed to do when I am actually standing in front of the person and….and looking them in the eyes and maybe they are one of the people Mercy Ships cannot help?”

She swung her backpack to her shoulder after putting her water bottle in it. She stared blankly at the two dishwashers whose lids slid up and down, swallowing up the dirty dishes and spitting out the clean ones. Oh, this was her world! She could fathom dirty and clean dishes. Understanding a floor that needed to be mopped regardless if someone would walk across it and make muddy foot prints, she could handle. But today... Today her head was trying to grapple with a world that was outside the context of her job in the dining room. She rubbed her forehead. A headache was starting to knock.

“Where do I fit in that mix? I’m not a doctor, a nurse, or even a chaplain.” She gestured at him.

“But Lydia, God can still use you. He doesn’t need a person who has a fancy degree behind their name.”

“Oh, I know that. I know that it’s...” Really she didn’t know what she knew, for her thoughts were one gigantic tornado, “But where do I fit in to it all?”

Marty nodded. “It’s hard to think through these tragedies and all the thoughts that come with them. Can I pray for you before you go?”

“Yes please.”

Marty put his strong hand on Lydia’s shoulder and bowed his head to pray. It was a short simple prayer, “Dear Heavenly Father, show Lydia Your joy, peace, and strength. Show her that You are bigger than the heartache, tumors, depression, cleft lips and other trials our Togolese brothers and sisters are facing. Lydia needs to know that You are bigger and that You are in her!”

When Lydia opened her eyes, she didn’t feel any different, but her focus had been reestablished. Papa God is ALMIGHTY! With mighty confidence, this truth resounded in her spirit. He is with me!

She nodded firmly, smiling with the new resolve. “Thank you, Marty.”

“You’re welcome. Anytime.”