Benin Screening - M/V Africa Mercy

Nearly 2,000 people came to the Mercy Ships medical screening in Cotonou, Benin, West Africa. We saw people with facial tumors, sometimes the size of a cantaloupe distorting half of someone’s face. There were children and adults hiding behind some disfigurement and many children with extreme bowed legs, some able to walk and play, others with great difficulty. Many little children with cleft lips were held by their moms with big grins on their faces while the older children with the same condition seem to repress their smiles.

I participated in this screening at the Hall de Arts as a server, serving water to those waiting in the long lines and playing with the children who were hot and tired from the very long queues. When Jesus said that giving water to the least of these was as giving to Him, I didn’t expect it to involve huge, yellow coolers filled and refilled with water poured in donated Gatorade paper cups and distributed to so many on old cafeteria trays. What an honor to serve.

My hand puppet, Lamb Chop came along and made both parents and children laugh. Many kissed her, wanted her to clap hands with them. She was hugged so much that there was a loving, dusty red coat on her by the end of the two days. And, of course, Lamb Chop succeeded in making at least two kids cry.

One baby about eight months old with a cleft lip, being lovingly held by his mom, was having a lab blood draw in one of his heels and Lamb Chop was requested to help. So the puppet clapped and danced to this young boy’s delight and he never flinched when the nurse stuck him with the dreaded needle.

Many had arrived the previous morning and spent the night in line. First they were pre-screened by a group of doctors and nurses to decide whether they had a condition that our surgeons could help. Mercy Ships only does a specific set of surgeries including maxillo-facial tumor removal, vaginal fistula repair, orthopedic corrections for children, plastic surgery to increase mobility after trauma, hernia repair, and a few others. Within the arena, each patient took sometime over five hours to register, take vitals, have on-site lab tests performed and be examined by the doctors.

We were not allowed to take any pictures of the patients, to protect their privacy during screening. Many do allow their pictures to be taken to show the world the transformation of their deformity. If you would like to see some of those transformations, go to the Mercy Ships website at www.mercyships.org and look at the before and after photos. You will be amazed by the transformation. As Dr. Gary Parker, the Chief Medical Officer and skilled maxillo-facial surgeon has said, they have "a chance to look normal."

Surgeries begin this Tuesday, the first of the 10 months of appointments made, to transform on the outside. We all desire to be the hands of Jesus, showing what a loving God will do for them on the inside. On our day off, Saturday, a man named José selling his crafts at one of the many booths, was so happy to see us, he took out his wallet and pulled out his Mercy Ship's appointment card for surgery scheduled for May for his badly damaged foot.

More later……….