Sunday 14 February 2016

Where there is love there is life

Kirstie (my good friend and the Africa Mercy Hospital Director) and I have spent the last few days in the capital city Antananarivo having various meetings. One meeting concerned our program to treat women with obstetric fistula. A devastating condition caused by lack of obstetric care resulting in permanent and constant urinary incontinence. The women are left as outcasts, stigmatised due to the terrible smell. At the end of the meeting one of the doctors told this story. 

He said that recently one of the Chiefs from a rural village had noticed how 'strong' one of the ladies was when she returned home after her fistula surgery The Chief had noticed it wasn't just about her physical strength but she seemed 'stronger'.  Another doctor in the meeting then piped up that she had looked at the Mercy Ships website and realised that we don't just care about the physical healing but about healing of the soul as well. She said that there are ladies far away in the south who could have the opportunity to have surgery there but they have refused because they want to come to Tamatave (several days travel away and where Mercy Ships is) because they know they will find love there. She flung her arms in a big embrace and said,  ‘it is like they know they will be surrounded by love if they come to you’.

Where there is love there is life

It is a quote by Mahatma Ghandi. I had not heard it before until Dr Elizabeth Sercombe from evolute ( http://www.surfmonasteryfoundation.com ) used it in a leadership training course she did for our hospital leadership team on the ship.


Où il y a de l'amour il y a de la vie

This is the French version of the quote. Elizabeth used this to start the Mercy Ships medical leadership training course at the local hospital. And it reminded me of a conversation I had a number of years ago in Congo with an orthopaedic surgeon. I was asking him about training needs in his hospital and how we could help. It was his answer to how we could help his nurses that stopped me in my tracks. He said  ‘can you teach our nurses how to care for patients?’ That answer changed my mind-set forever.

It led me to embrace the idea of ‘loved ones caring for loved ones’. Training is more than just a transfer of information - knowledge and skills. It is something deeper. Transformation is about the head and the hands and the heart.

If I had known of Mahatma Ghandi’s quote where there is love there is life’ I might have used that instead. As part of Elizabeth’s teaching she explains the concept of an organisation as a living system where everything is reaching for life. She encouraged us to ‘stay present in the mess’ and to have those crucial conversations and to help and love each other towards life. Life that releases us all to be more of who were are created to be. It had echo’s for me of Marcus Buckingham’s book, The one thing you need to know…about great managing, great leading, and sustained individual success. The chapters on ‘great managing’ embody the concepts of seeing the best in others and helping them achieve personal success.

SO all that to say, today on Valentines Day, my heart is full. I have heard stories of ‘loved ones caring for loved ones’, and I want to live and work in a system that believes as Mahatma Ghandi said, where there is love, there is life’. And I am grateful I know a God who is the embodiment of love.


Happy Valentine’s Day.


Transformation, as illustrated by a participant on our medical leadership course: Eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to love.