On past screening days, I have worked in medical screening or registration, but today I had decided that I wanted to work in the prayer room. Yes, I'm a nurse, but I'm also a child of God and I have seen the power of prayer. I felt like that was where God wanted me...at least to start off the day. So we entered the prayer room and one by one, people came to us for prayer. Some were patients who had been told that we couldn't do surgery. Others were patients who had already received their surgery date and wanted to pray for their upcoming hospital stay. But they all came to the One who was greater than all their problems and pain.
All of us on the prayer team had been placed with a translator. The only problem was that my translator was from the housekeeping department and my French was better than his English (which isn't saying too much). During the first few hours that we were praying, we had one woman come in with arthritis pain in her arms and knees. After we prayed for her, she had a big smile on her face and kept saying "guéri, guéri." I couldn't remember what the word meant, but I know I had heard it before. Thankfully I had brought along my English/French dictionary, so I looked it up. Healed! That is what it meant! The woman was still smiling and I looked at her again and asked "Tu est guéri?" (Are you healed) to which she responded "Oui!" I gave her a hug and said goodbye, thankful that God had done a miracle in this woman's life. In some ways, I felt like I was in Zambia all over again, seeing God's healing through the laying of hands. My faith was strengthened and my spirit was encouraged.
Throughout the morning, a few other people came in with aches and pains throughout the morning: back pain, arm pain, abdominal pain, you name it. We saw several people get healed, leaving pain free with smiles on their faces. They may have been disappointed at first that Mercy Ships couldn't help them, but they left knowing that Jesus was the ultimate healer! After seeing a few different people get healed, my translator looked at me and said "Can you pray for ME?" I smiled, touched by the way God was using this experience to grow this man's faith. I asked him what he wanted prayer for and realized it was something he felt uncomfortable sharing. So I said a prayer for him anyway and then carried on with the other patients who were waiting.
It was encouraging to see that I was not the only one who experienced the healing power of God on screening day. My friend Jess is an amazing woman of faith and I knew that she would be praying with expectation to see God work. At one point, I heard lots of laughter and cheering coming from her side of the room. I came over to see what had happened and an old woman was sitting in front of them with a big smile on her face. She had come in with one side of her face completely droopy, barely able to open her one eye. After she received prayer, her face was completely normal again and both of her eyes were wide open (I wish I could show you a photo of the lady who was healed, but the media team wasn't around and we weren't allowed to take our own photos)!
I have to admit that I wasn't really sure how the prayer ministry would go, as I know that it can be overwhelming emotionally to see all the needs and hurts of so many people and watch them go feeling disappointed and defeated. I wish I could say that every single person who entered the prayer room got healed. Unfortunately, that was not the case. I would've really liked to see a crippled man put down his crutches and run around like the lame man in Acts 3. But, I know that God is sovereign and good and I am thankful that I was able to show love to the people who crossed my path, even those who didn't get healed.
After a great morning in the prayer room, things started to slow down a bit, so I had lunch and decided to walk around with my friend Amy to pray for the site. When we walked out the front gates to the street, I was in total shock. It was about two o'clock in the afternoon and there were still thousands of people waiting in line! Normally, screening is finished by about 4 or 5pm, so I didn't know how we would get all these people through the line before dark!
I found my friend Nate, who was one of the main people in charge of the screening process and asked if he wanted me to start screening the line. He told me that would be helpful, so I took one of our better translators named Bodry and set out down the line.
The purpose of the line screening is basically to cut down the line to people who actually need to be there. Knowing the criteria for surgery and which surgeries we actually do, I was able to tell people whether or not we would be able to help them. If it was questionable, I would just tell them to stay and wait to find out. The hard thing about screening the line is that you have to break the bad news to a lot of people. "I'm sorry sir, but we don't do back surgery" or "we only have an orthopedic surgeon for children right now, so I'm sorry but we can't help you." It is pretty heart-wrenching to dash someone's hopes, especially when you know there's not a whole lot of options in their country. But, we always try to show love in everything we do with Mercy Ships, even if it's breaking some bad news.
Another friend joined in the line-screening, so we were able to finish the screening within a couple of hours. The line was still fairly long, but we had done all we could outside, so I asked our screening coordinator what else they needed and got sent to help in Registration. Bodry came along with me as my trusty side-kick and we got to work again.
The people kept coming through registration, one after another. It started to get dark a couple hours later, so we all had to get out flashlights and finish our work. Many of the patients didn't make it through history and physical, so they were given appointments to come to the ship within the following weeks for overflow screening. Out of the 7,354 people who lined up on Screening day, only 4,236 actually came through the gates. All the rest of those people were turned away before they made it in. Some had inoperable conditions and others simply needed treatment that we do not offer. It's always hard to break bad news and feel like you've just dashed the hopes of hurting people who are so desperate for help. But, I've always been told to focus on the ones that we can help. No matter how hard we try, we can't fix all of Africa at one time...but we can make a difference one life at at a time!
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