It’s been a while since I’ve wrote one of these, and I really don’t enjoying writing these, but a lot has happened that I would like to tell you about.
We are currently more than half way our outreach here in Sierra Leone: here are some fun stats
Mental Health – Primary Care Workers, Kids Camp, and Church Leaders are happening in August/September
Church Leaders - There have been over 600 church leaders who have attended
Sixty-six Plastics surgeries have been completed and they begin again first week in September
Orthopedics completed 173 surgeries and Ponseti, casting program continues
Almost 500 General surgeries have been completed.
The Eye Team have completed 600 surgeries and have provided over 6000 eye evaluations
The Dental Team has seen over 6,300 patients and done over 21,000 procedures
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| Eye Screening |
PRETTY AWESOME! HUH??
So In June I was able to take some vacation, I went home to see my family for 3 weeks in Baltimore, as some of you already know! That was awesome!! I was really missing them especially my little nephew who turned one while I was home!
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| Lil Marty in the outfit i sent him from Togo Last year |
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| Dylan at his 3rd b-day party! |
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| Marty in the Outfit i got him for Easter. |
Leaving so soon after arriving was difficult but I knew that God had plans for me here. When I came back it was difficult to want to be here a lot of my friends had left the ship while I was gone, their commitments with mercy ships had ended so the social aspect of the ship was weird and that was something I really loved before. My position on the eye team was also changed without my knowledge while I was away. And I was not happy at all, I felt lost and couldn’t figure out why I had came back to a place full of strangers and un-needed … at first my anger, disappointment and hurt feelings made me want to leave the ship all together, I was ready to find something else to do or somewhere else to go. I started looking at nursing school again I figured out if I had all the necessary classes to go to a four year college and peruse a bachelors’ of nursing I even filled out a few applications for next fall, I started planning on leaving the ship in December . Thankfully I had not made any real plans, because I finally realized that it was my anger and frustration that made me want to leave and that when I extended I was completely confident that God wanted me to stay here… so that is what I’m doing I’m staying till at least my commitment is finished. That’s sometime next march…and then we’ll see what God has planned. I would really to go back to school maybe I’ll start again next fall but again I’m waiting for God to reveal his plan to me.
So I bet your wondering what I do now since my job was eliminated….
I work as the Peri-op eye team Coordinator, that means I am on the ship in the hospital 4 days a week Monday – Thursday, I work with a register nurse typically one with ophthalmic experience and 3 Day Volunteers, people from Sierra Leone that help us with translating and various others tasks. Our Job is to get the Patients ready for surgery, we give them gowns, wash their face, give them drops to numb, dilate and clean their eyes, and take vitals. we also sing ,pray, talk and color with them to pass the time. After they have surgery we take vitals again give them bread and tea and instructions to rest and come back the next morning for their first post –op appointment. It is neat to be able to interact with the patients more than I did before, but it also gets super boring waiting for the patients to come back from surgery. I’m taking this time as a nice break from being crazy busy and stressed because all to soon that will start again most of the eye team will leave by the time we need to pack up and will not have returned when we start to set up next year. Next year the plan is for me to be the tech/screening team Coordinator the position I had last year and wanted a break from this year. I’m looking forward to going back to Togo; I’ve asked HR if I could have the same Day Volunteers as last year so I hope all that works out.
I bet your also wondering what We do for fun here….
Typically on the weekends we go to the beach…but its RAINY season now in full force….Im pretty sure its rained everyday for the past month or so at some point and this past week I think the only day I saw the sun was yesterday…which makes the beach a lil less then fun when your wet and cold and cant dry off and get warm… but we still go sometimes hoping for the sun to make an appearance…. We also like to go to the craft market and buy fun earrings that are hand made out of wood or beads or go to crown bakery for a yummy latte and a nice breakfast …..most of the nights during the week are spent on ship on Monday night I go to a small group bible study currently were doing a beth moore study on ester, on Tuesday I have youth group, Wednesday I work in our Starbucks café making coffee or selling snacks , Thursday we have community meeting, usually consisting of worship and then a message.
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| youth Beach Trip |
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| Beach with some Great Friends!! |
Some prayer request:
· *For the people of Sierra Leone to see Jesus is us, to understand why we are here.
· *For complete healing for our patients
· *For health and safety for crew members and day volunteer’s
· *For direction and clarity for my future, I want to follow Gods will for me life
· * For happiness, peace and comfort.
If you’re interested helping me help the people of Sierra Leone you can do that in two ways First and most importantly through prayer and secondly financially online at http://mercyships-us.donorpages.com/crewmates/hickeys/ or by writing a check and giving it to DEPC, with my name in the memo here is the address…Dundalk Presbyterian Church 1973 Merritt Blvd Baltimore Md 21222……Thank you for letting me share my experience with you, I’m sorry I don’t do it more often and for your Consistent love and support!
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