This week I had the opportunity to go visit the Mission of Charity, an international organization started by Mother Theresa, to care for those who are critically/terminally ill. They have a children's ward, a women's ward and a mens ward. They have varying illnesses such as HIV/AIDS, TB, or other debilitating stuff. They are given medicines to treat symptoms, ect. I went to the women's ward, and we had a time of singing Liberian worship music, some of the women ended with dancing, too. I cannot tell you what it is like to see women who are terminally ill and in a room with 14 other women all day singing and praising G0d. Singing things like, "I worship you, Papa, Thank you, O papa", "If you see me singing, if you see me clapping, if you see me dancing, it is the favor of God". They are not praising God because of their circumstance, but because of who God is. Then a short discussion on asking god to give us pure hearts, and trusting Jesus with the sins in our hearts, that he will take them away and give us a new heart like His.

Then we did a craft with them with that mesh plastic type thing that you put the yarn on- I don't know what you call it! But we did cross shaped design. At first I was a little intimidated -What do you do or say to these women? But soon I was helping a few of them with their crafts. One lady (a teenager) said she needed help, that she was unable to sew it because she had a bad wrist. She was coughing pretty bad, looked really thin, and had a respiratory rate of 45 (sorry, the nurse in me had to count). So after sitting with her and not talking to much for about 45 minutes, she showed me a picture of her son, one year old. She said his father died, and the baby was with her mother. She missed him. In that small sentence is a world of pain for her.

A part of me saw the infection control risk- yes, 15 women in the same room, some have TB, in the US we'd all be screaming and calling the health department. Where are the fitted masks and negative pressure room!? I think of all the fomites for those TB droplets. And then I see the people in the beds, the individuals who smile and sing and hope of heaven. I see them in a room with their friends. They are clean, they have shelter, they have food. Jesus many times reached out to the lepers, who everyone else was afraid to touch. He was not afraid.

Then in the afternoon on Wednesday, I went to observe a surgery in the OR. It was an eight year old with a tumor about the size of a clementine orange in her parotid glad. It was wrapped up in her facial nerve, so the surgery went pretty long. It was neat though to watch. I won't go into detail for the sake of the squeemish. At the end, the doctor thought it was probably malignant by the looks of it but they will send it for testing. A lot of times, if they do find burketts lymphoma (frequent childhood cancer) here, they can send the kid to a local hospital and mercy ships pays for the chemotherapy which is 80-90% effective. That was encouraging to hear.

Samaritans Purse came and visited yesterday, they ate dinner with us and we gave them a tour of the ship. Then they stayed for church, it was so fun. The hospital wards here have been pretty busy. So today, I plan on resting and watching some of the office-Season 3 :) It's waffle day at Starbucks.