Decorating the christmas tree

The ship has had Christmas decorations up for 2 weeks already. It was Saturday November 30^th that was decoration day, and the place is beautiful. There is something about Christmas decorations that seem to lift your spirits. We have christmas trees in virtually every space on the ship. In the reception area, the cafe, the mid-ships long, the dining room. You name it - there is a tree!

My cabin-mate and I have a very small tree in our cabin. It lacks lights, but it has the borbles, some small figures and an angel on the top. In my mind, there is always– what goes at the top of the tree, an angel or a star? I say, ‘In my mind there is always a debate’ because in reality I don’t have a choice. On the ship all I have is an angel, and when I lived in England, all I had was a star! Does it matter?

DO you have multi-coloured lights, or plain white ones? Do you put tinsel on or not? Some people have a colour scheme – gold and silver, or red and green for example. So many choices.

 

As I ponder how to decorate  (or clothe) the Christmas tree, I have also been mediating on the following scripture which tells me what I should clothe myself with:

Colossians 3: 12 - 15 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.

Few would disagree that the historical figure of Jesus had these clothes on: ‘compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience’. That He lived a life characterized by love. As his follower I want to do the same. I know I fall short often, but just like my clothes get dirty and need washing and ironing, so does my life. So this Christmas as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, and we talk about ‘peace on earth’ , I want to keep putting on clean clothes - compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, love and forgiveness. Then I don’t need to get worried or stressed; angry or offended; because peace will fill my heart instead and I will find myself with a thankful attitude.

SO as you decorate your Christmas tree, and admire the trees and other decorations you see around, consider how you are decorating your life, what clothes you are wearing?

Wishing you a very Happy Christmas.

Thanksgiving

A friend once told me that if you thought of 10 reasons to be thankful everyday that could, actually, overcome depression.

I am thankful for many things and one thing is that I work for a truly international organisation. Mercy Ships HQ (known as the IOC = International Operations Centre), is in Texas, USA; but we have a Mercy Ships Global Association based in Switzerland which supports approximately 17 National Offices around the world. And on the ship we have around 400 crew usually representing 35-40 different countries. What a privilege to be part of such a community.

On board the ship, we deliberately don’t celebrate individual countries national holidays because with so many countries represented, we would be having a holiday virtually every week! Not good for business! However, this time of year (October / November) is in many countries and cultures associated with harvest and a time of thanksgiving. We are right now in the middle of the two different dates for Canadian and US Thanksgiving. And as a ship we have been reflecting on thanksgiving for a week. To acknowledge what we colloquially term ‘our ship family’  - that means our friends who become like family while we are away from our natural families, we have recently had a week of ‘FriendsGiving’. FriendsGiving is a new Mercy Ships term for thanksgiving. We have left notes on one another’s doors to tell them how thankful we are for them and their influence in our lives; we have had a wall poster in the café where we have written 1000 reasons to be thankful; we have simple had a week of being intentionally thankful.

So I couldn’t let this month’s blog slip by without telling all of you how thankful I am for each and everyone of you and the way you have impacted my life. From teachers who encouraged me at school; to medical bosses who inspired me as a junior doctor; to colleagues who continued to model leadership and courage in the workplace of the NHS. Parents who sacrificed and continue to serve me and this work I do now; family who have always been there for me; friends who support and encourage me and walk through the tough times;  church leaders and church family who pray and support me ,……the list is endless…..without all of you, I wouldn’t be who I am today and I wouldn’t be doing what I am doing serving the poor and needy and trying to empower the surgical workforce in Madagascar and beyond, to bring hope and transformation to their own health systems.

I have often said that I feel people support me in 3 main ways, professionally, emotionally / spiritually and financially. SO I am grateful to each of you in this season of thanksgiving and the ways you each support me. As a way of showing you how much we can do together, below are 3 slides of all that you have made possible ……so thank you from me and thank you from the many people here whose lives have been literally transformed. I hope you can find 10 reasons to be thankful today.

Reasons to be thankful - training:

Reasons to be thankful - patient encounters:

Follow the checklist team around Madagascar

Click the tab above ' follow the checklist team around Madagascar' if you want to read an external blog that my MCB Manager Krissy Close is writing every couple of weeks to track the progress of this incredible project. We are aiming to impact the entire nationa by visiting every Regional Reference Hospital and teaching them how to implement the World Health Organisation Surgical Safety Checklist (' the checklist') and then re-visit 3 months later to see how they are getting on and encourage them to continue. 

The 'checklist' has the potential to reduce deaths and infections after surgery by almost 50%. We are also giving each hospital the pulse oximeters they need. A pulse oximter is a crucial safety monitor during anesthesia and surgery which checks how well you are breathing oxygen. Yes, oxygen, that substance essential for life. Without this monitor anesthesia becomes inherently unsafe becuase you dont know you are not getting enough oxygen until is is often far too late. Yet 70% of hospital in sub-saharan africa do not have one!

This is how we hope to make a lasting impact on the nation of Madagascar, and has been something I have felt on my heart to do for a number of years, And yes, it is indeed a big dream,that, thanks to your support, has become reality for me and the people of Madagascar. 

Keep Calm and Dream Big

‘Keep calm and dream big’ are the words printed on my favourite t-shirt.

A friend gave it to me last Christmas and I simply love the words. ‘Dream big’ is something we encourage each other to do in this place that I work. 

 ‘It always seems impossible until it is done.’  This is a famous quote by Nelson Mandela.

I have been thinking about these quotes a lot recently. Dreams just seem to get bigger and bigger. The impossible becomes possible and we just reach higher and higher. The ceiling becomes the new floor.

It is four years since I handed in my resignation to Bristol Children’s Hospital. It was a big dream and a seemingly impossible leap of faith to become a volunteer and live without earning a regular wage. Over the last few years we have dreamed bigger and bigger (and yes I do mean ‘we’ not ‘I’ – ‘we’ is my friends on board and back home who have dreamed with me).  We have developed the Mercy Ships Medical Capacity Building program and you can watch a 2 minute video called Lasting Impact, by clicking on the tab above (next to the Tab that says 'Home'). This describes some of our activities that the team and I have spent much time dreaming about. Those dreams, and seemingly impossibilities are now a reality.

But then the dreams just get bigger. Last November I was at a conference in Boston. It was a long way to travel from Madagascar for less than a week, but I knew it was an important opportunity. And it was there that God gave me another big dream idea to make surgery safer in Madagascar – teach the World Health Organisation (WHO) Surgical Safety Checklist in all the Regional Hospitals.  My team, known as ‘the checklist team’ have been going now for one month, on a:

“twenty-city tour of Madagascar, visiting each region to come alongside the surgical teams in those regions and work together to improve surgical safety across the country. This training is in partnership with Harvard Medical School and Lifebox a charity committed to putting a pulse oximeter in every operating room and improving surgical safety worldwide. This simple tool (pulse oximeter), along with the other critical steps included in the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist have been shown to cut operating room deaths and complications in nearly half! .......The three-day training structure includes sessions focused on empowering surgical teams with the knowledge that safe surgery is possible, and in their very own hands. They will work together to adapt the WHO checklist to fit their specific needs and environment; a critical step encouraged by the creators of the WHO Checklist! Other sessions include Lifebox training and counting of surgical swabs, needles, and instruments.” (taken from Mercy Ships blog by Krissy Close)

No-one has done this before. At times I thought my dream was crazy, too big….but now it is happening. The beauty of the ‘checklist’ is that it empowers surgeons and anaesthetists and nurses to change something themselves. It is a low cost initiative, simply using what they have in a better way. They don’t need to wait for more money, new medication or equipment; the power to change and make surgery safer is truly ‘in their own hands’. That brings hope and inspiration into dark, hopeless places which are undoubtedly under-resourced and could do with new medication and equipment and more staff. But such is the inequality of surgical healthcare in our world. So being able to make a difference yourself with what you have can be very hopeful, and inspiring to many.

I am grateful that I don’t have to dream on my own. I am grateful for all of you who dream with me, support and encourage me in so many ways. These are shared hopes and dreams. Dreams for a better day. And part of another dream I blogged about shortly after I first arrived in Africa with Mercy Ships, this was July 2012 and if you scroll down this page to the bottom on the left-hand side you can click on 2012 and the July button to read that story.

Here's to dreaming big. Keep Calm and Dream Big, because as Nelson Mandela said 'It always seems impossible until it is done'.

Sowing, reaping and inheritance

Most of us are familiar with the idea of sowing and reaping. You reap what you sow. You get out of something, what you put in. But inheritance is different. When you inherit something you get what you didn’t earn. With inheritance, something comes to you because of the work of another.

Often, in our generation today we are consumed with ourselves. We are concerned with what we can achieve now or in the future – but not the distant future – the near future, our lifetime. We don’t mind sowing, if we get to do the reaping. This is the consumerism of our generation. However, I believe we need to think beyond ourselves. We need to think in terms of legacy and inheritance.

Now, I find that an altogether more exciting prospect. To think I could be involved in something bigger than me, that will outlast my lifetime. Or that will at the least, outlast my involvement in the project. I love the idea that I can build a foundation upon which others will continue to build. That someone other than just me, will profit from my work. I love the idea that I can work hard and enable others to stand on my shoulders and achieve greater things. 

I believe we were all created to live that way. To dream big and to let others carry on the dreams. To let God do things in and through our lives which outlast us. And I believe that when we do that we create unstoppable momentum. Because it just gets bigger and bigger. Even Jesus said, in John 14:12, that we will do even greater things than he did. Because he wants us to stand on his shoulders, and reach higher, because we take his inheritance and use that as our foundation. Last year’s ceiling, becomes this year’s floor.

And as I look back over the last few years of laying the foundation of Mercy Ships Medical Capacity Building Program, this week marks the start of a new stage on our journey. Different people will be standing on my shoulders and launching out on new initiatives. Daunting and exciting at the same time. One of these new initiatives is an ambitious goal to teach the World Health Organisation (WHO) Surgical Safety Checklist (SSC) to all the regional hospitals in Madagscar. I leave today to go with the team to the first hospital in Fenerive Est.  I will help them with the first one, then they will stand on my shoulders and reach higher and take what I started and make it better. I will try and share reports from them (on a tab on this blog), week by week as they empower others to make surgery safer in Madagascar. The WHO SSC has the potential to reduce deaths and infections after surgery by almost 50%. Now that is something worth aiming for. An inheritance that brings hope and healing, that transforms individuals and serves nations one at a time. A dream that is bigger than us and that will far outlast our lifetime.

Ships are designed to float

I have been pondering a question these last few days... If you drop a piece of metal in water it will sink. So why does a huge piece of metal, weighing more than 100 hundred tonnes, float? 

Why? Because it is designed to. 

A ship is designed to float. 

A design, so carefully created, that the vessel looks beautiful, streamlined, almost elegant as it sits in the harbour or sails on the high seas.

But out of the water it is a different story entirely. No longer beautiful, the Africa Mercy looks ill at ease. 

Large, cumbersome, incapable of doing what she was designed to do. Her motors and generators can't work. She relies on others for electricity and water; and few of her usually self-reliant systems work.

She was designed for another environment. Ships are designed to float. The dry dock might be designed for the ship, but the ship was not designed for dry dock. Ships are designed to float.

I live on a hospital ship and I spend a lot of time docked in African ports watching other ships come and go. Mostly I see cargo ships and some of these have their own cranes, others are loaded with huge containers. In Madagascar and the Canary Islands I have also seen a lot of cruise ships – huge, luxurious creations. Different ships each with different designs depending on their purpose.

Rather like people. Different people designed for different purposes. And different times need different people. It was said that Winston Churchill was a great leader in war-time, but less so in peace-time.

Yesterday the 'refloating' process began. The dry dock filled with water, and the Africa Mercy returned to her original environment, not dry dock but water. It was a process that took nearly all day. 

The bible tells me that each of us is designed by God. That he has plans and purposes for us. Do you know that? Do you live like that? Do you embrace who God made you to be? Do you embrace your destiny, at such a time as this, and live as you were designed to live? 

Photo credits: Mercy Ships or other crew members photos from Facebook.