It was my first week back on Mercy Ships. I had been finding my bearings and working quite a bit and was eager to go into the city and do some exploring in Freetown. I thought it was so interesting to see how much had changed since I was here in 2011 but also to see the things that had improved. I decided to do a day of solo exploring and found my way back to Crown Bakery, one of the few restaurants that I remembered from my previous mission. After lunch, I began wandering the area. There were lots of new buildings, including a ten story business building with a restaurant on the top floor that had been built in the last few years. It was great to see the improvement in the city over the years, but also sad to see the incredible poverty and need that still remained.
I was walking along deep in thought when a young man sitting on a piece of cardboard on the side of the road caught my eye. He reached out his hand and looked at me with hopeful eyes as I walked by, held up his hand and begged “please ma’am.” The desperation in his voice stopped me in my tracks. I stopped and spoke to him. “I don’t have any food,” I said weakly. He looked at me again. “Please!” The desperation in his voice grew even stronger. “Ok, just wait a few minutes,” I told him. I went across the street to find something for him to eat and drink. I came back and he thanked me. “Please can you help me,” he begged again. “I was hit by a car two months ago. I have a bad wound.” He insisted on showing me the wound and began to unwrap the cloth wrapped around his leg. I couldn’t help but gasp when he uncovered the wound underneath. It was gaping, badly infected and I could see about two inches of exposed bone, which looked brown and necrotic.
“Wow, I’m so sorry” I told him. Let me find out if there’s anything mercy ships can do to help you,” I offered. “I cannot promise anything but I will try.” I asked if he would like prayer and he nodded. He told me his name was Mohammed. I reached my hand out to touch his shoulder and prayed over his leg. He thanked me afterwards and asked me to bring some clothes for him the next time because he had been wearing the same ragged dirty clothes and didn’t have anything else.
I came back to the ship on a mission to find out what we could do for Mohammed. But I was told the orthopedic surgeon wouldn’t be arriving for another month and a half. He was also a pediatric surgeon with a full schedule of patients booked already, so it was unlikely he would be able to help. It was even more unlikely that Mohammed could survive until January. I was amazed that he hadn’t become septic already living on the street with that kind of wound.
I spoke with my friend Harry who I knew from my previous mission in Sierra Leone. He was one of the few locals I knew working on the ship. He told me he would send a Sierra Leonean driver to take me back and go speak to Mohammed in Krio to figure out more of his story and what we could do to help him.
A couple days later, Harry’s friend Alfred drove with me to go visit Mohammed. As we walked up to the place he was staying, Mohammed lifted his head and his face was filled with hope. “You came back!” he exclaimed, smiling and seeming surprised. Of course I did,” I told him. I promised I would bring you clothes and try to get you help.” Mohammed was very grateful. Alfred spoke with him in Krio for awhile then took me aside to talk to me. “I just want to make sure he’s not doing drugs because kush is a big problem in our country,” he told me. We went across the street and spoke with Moi Moi, the shop owner who Mohammed told us had been helping him. “He gives me any money he gets when he begs and I go to buy him food,” he told us. He’s never asked me to buy him drugs. He only asks for food. We spoke with the security guard at the church on the other side of the street who knew Mohammed. Their story was all the same. In fact, they were very protective of Mohammed. If anyone came by who looked like they wanted to try to cause trouble, they would quickly come up to the person and tell them they needed to leave.
Mohammed initially denied using drugs, then admitted that he had previously done kush. Mohammed said he had stopped taking it after he was injured because it caused delayed wound healing and he wanted his wound to heal.
I went to buy Mohammed some more food as Alfred spent some time talking to Mohammed about his past and sharing with him about Jesus. I wasn’t gone long, but when I got back, the two of them had their heads bowed and Mohammed was praying to receive Christ! After that, Mohammed’s countenance changed. There was a new light in his eyes, a peace and hope that wasn’t there when I first met him. It was amazing to see the change so instantly.
We spoke with Mohammed about getting his bandages changed at the local hospital up the road. He was willing to do it, but had no way of getting up. His only way of moving was to scoot himself a bit from one side to another. He wasn’t able to go more than a few feet with the state he was in. “I need crutches,” he told us. So I told him we would get him crutches. He asked us if we could also get him some food. He really wanted "bean salad." I had never even heard of it before, but Alfred knew what it was. We went on a bit of a scavenger hunt to find it. It took awhile, but when we did, I could see why Mohammed wanted this after not eating much for days. The base was two big scoops of beans, then two scoops of spaghetti noodles, ground beef, fried eggs, onion and some sour cream on top. All for the grand total of $1.50!
One thing after another just fell into place from then on. There weren’t any extra crutches to give away on the ship and no stores that we knew of that sold them, but we were told about a rehab center that sells them. We went to a friend in town to get directions to the rehab center since she worked at a center close by to the area. She said “I have never heard of that place and I have no idea where it's located, but I happen to have a pair of brand new ones that we aren’t using at my center. I’ll just give them to you!” God had definitely led us to the right person!
With the crutches, Mohammed felt more empowered. He could finally move more around more than a few feet. He was initially very weak, but as the days went by, his muscles started getting stronger and a smile would break out across his face as he would move around with his new crutches. Every visit that Alfred and I came to see Mohammed, he would ask me to pray for him. He wouldn't let me leave until I did. I loved Mohammed's faith. In my heart, I wanted to see a miracle, I wanted God to restore his bone and miraculously heal the gaping wound around it but I also wanted to get him the medical care he needed while we were waiting and praying.
Alfred took this photo without me knowing and I'm grafeful for the memory
We managed to get Mohammed registered at the hospital down the street for wound care. The first experience in their outpatient department was horrific. I wasn’t sure what to expect when we registered him, but we had explored our options ahead of time and it was really the only hospital where it would be feasible for him to get care. I wished I could take Mohammed onto the ship to our stellar wound care team, but we were already busting at the seams and the schedule was full. We didn’t have space for him and I also didn't want to risk exposing other patients to the infection he had, which was likely MRSA or some awful bacterial infection.
He came in for the wound care the first day and I watched as the nurse removed the bandage and cleaned the area with saline. So far, I was impressed. They were even wearing sterile gloves! Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. But what happened next is something seared into my memory that I will never forget. The nurse took a sharp instrument similar to a scalpel and started scraping away the infectious tissue on his open flesh. Mohammed screamed in pain, a scream of the most horrible human suffering. "Stop! What are you doing!" I shouted. The nurse stopped and looked at me. "We have to remove the infectious tissue." "I understand, but you can't just scrape away at him without numbing the area or giving him pain medicine." Mohammed was still wincing and moaning. The nurse sighed and motioned over to his colleage who grabbed some lidocaine. He numbed up the area and then gave Mohammed a shot of Toradol (pain medication). Mohammed's pain didn't subside much because of what they had already done, but in the subsuquent visits, they began to premedicate him and the dressing changes were much more tolerable.
I honestly was so impressed with Mohammed. Despite his immense suffering, he would smile as we would leave the outpatient area. He was proud that he could now get around on his crutches and he had a new, clean bandage. One day we were leaving the hospital and he looked at me and said "Thank you, Mom." I looked up, surprised at what I heard. What did you say Mohammed? "Thank you, Mom!" I turned to Alfred with a puzzled look and he said to me "Yes, he called you Mom. It's a sign of respect, but also means he cares for you a lot." From then on, Mohammed only referred to me as "Mom." It took me some getting used to, but I was grateful that he saw me as family and someone he could love and trust. He had been through so much. Both of his parents had died in the war and he had been an orphan for many years. I was thankful that I could show him some motherly love and that he had come to trust me.
About a week went by of the dressing changes. The wound was looking better, but the bone still looked necrotic and infected. The doctor had put Mohammed on oral antibiotics, but it wasn't enough. He likely had an osteomyelitis (bone infection). The doctor ordered an x-ray and I asked the x-ray tech if I could take a photo of her computer screen since the x-ray film wouldn't come back until the next day. She agreed and I looked a little closer on my phone. He definitely had a tibia fracture, but the bone higher up from the fracture also looked infected. That was not good. He was likely going to need an amputation.
Mohammed's x-ray
The next day, I was working my normal shift on the ship and I heard the charge nurse say "Katie is here today to help us from Connaught." I was surprised. Connaught was the hospital where Mohammed was getting care. I didn't know that any of our nurses worked there. It turned out she was working with our education and training program to help teach the local nurses at the hospital in town. "I have to talk to her," I thought to myself. "This might be my chance." Up until now, I had been told that Mohammed couldn't be admitted to Connaught, even though we had tried. It was a whole process and it moved in African time. There were only certain doctors that could approve patients being admitted to the hospital. It was very frustrating. I said hello to Katie. We had never met before. "I heard you work at Connaught," I said. "Yes, I do," she responded. "Well, I have been helping a boy who I believe needs surgery and we haven't been able to get him admitted." I showed her the pictures of the wound and the photo I had taken of his x-ray. "Oh wow. Can I give you my number so you can send me those pictures," she asked. "I'll see the orthopedic surgeons at Connaught tomorrow and I will show them these pictures." I sat there dumbfounded. God really was orchestrating Mohammed's story. Katie only worked on the ship every couple of weeks and she didn't always work on this ward. God brought her to MY ward the day after I got the x-ray and now things were happening! I texted her the photos right away and waited in hope and prayer to hear an answer.
The next day Katie texted me that the surgeons wanted to admit Mohammed to the hospital! It was Friday and I had plans for my day off, but this was more important. I wanted to make sure Mohammed could get in by the weekend. I met Mohammed and brought him down to the hospital. Katie met us there and we went through the whole process of paying for his admission card, going through triage, speaking to the doctor, getting his blood drawn, etc. It was honestly a frustrating process because the surgeon had already approved him getting admitted but they still wanted him to go to a "holding unit" for 24 hours that was dirty, crowded and understaffed. But it was a step in the right direction, so we celebrated the small victories.
By Monday, Mohammed was on Katie's ward. They gave him an IV and started him on IV antibiotics for the infection in his bone. I honestly don't know if he would've been able to survive much longer without antibiotics because it was the grace of God that he had survived this long. I was relieved that he had a hospital bed and was being taken care of. I had asked for prayers for Mohammed on social media and had so many friends and family praying for him, asking about him, and offering to donate towards his medical costs and surgery. I was blown away by the response. I told Mohammed about it later and said "Mohammed, you are very loved!"
The nurses at the hospital wrote up a whole list of supplies and medications that Mohammed needed. "You need to go to the pharmacy and buy these things and bring them back," they told me. That's the way it works in some parts of Africa. If you don't buy the medications and supplies, the patient doesn't get them. It's very different than the way we do health care in the US, but for them it works. The ward assistant, Romeo, offered to go with me. We started walking toward the pharmacy down the street then he stopped me. "Can you walk fast?" he asked. "Yes, pretty fast," I responded. "Ok then let's go! We walked about a mile at top speed until we got to the main market. "This pharmacy is the cheapest," he told me proudly. We handed our list over to the pharmacist and they brought out our supplies: 6 bottles of IV fluids, povodine, gloves, gauze, 6 IV catheters, medical tape and some dressing supplies. It totaled up to about $50. He gave us "complimentary" sodas for our purchase and we walked out.
One of the many supply lists to fill
"Wait, we are near the bean salad stand," I told Romeo. He looked at me confused. "Mohammed loves bean salad! We have to get some for him!" So we walked over to the bean salad stand. In the midst of our adventure to the market, we had met a deaf boy about 15 years old. He had asked me for food and I did the little sign language I knew to tell him my name and that he could come with us. He was very sweet and had been walking with us for at least 30 minutes now. I asked Romeo if he wanted bean salad and he shook his head no. So I ordered two and when the first one came out, I handed it to our new little friend. He looked at me with wide eyes full of excitement. He started eating it right away and had a big smile from ear to ear. It was fun to bring some joy to his day in the midst of our scavenger hunt.
We eventually made it back to the hospital and brought the supplies to the nurses. When Mohammed saw that we got him bean salad, he was so happy! He thanked me and started eating it right away. I was glad to see that had brightened his day.
Over a week went by that Mohammed was in the hospital. I would visit him on my days off or after I got off work to make sure he was doing ok. I had bought him a Bible and every time I came, he would tell me about what he had read that day and what he was learning. And every day that I left, he would tell me "I'm praying for you that God blesses you and protects you and gives you a long life." And then as I would walk out, I would say "I love you" and he would call back "I love you too!" I was glad that Mohammed was off the street, in a safe place and being taken care of. But I also worried that he would get sick before they would finally do his surgery. Every day there was something different. One day they were behind on the surgery schedule and had to bump him to another day. The next day there was no oxygen in the OR and they had to cancel all surgeries. I was beginning to see more and more why Mercy Ships had needed to come to help the people of Sierra Leone. The health care system was just so broken and lacking.
As time went by, more and more of my friends on the ship were hearing about Mohammed. They would ask me where I was going as I was heading out to visit him or coming back from seeing him. One night, I asked if we could pray for him after "Coffee with Koffi," one of the Bible study groups on the ship. Eventually, I had a handful of friends who knew his story and wanted to meet him. We took a trip to the hospital together one day and spent some time talking to him and praying for him. Mary, a volunteer from Colorado, was among the friends who came that day.
Koffi, Larissa, me, Mohammed, Romeo, Mary & Judith at the hospital
Mary was especially touched by Mohammed's story. She asked me if she could come back with me again. Mohammed continued to call me "Mom," but now called Mary "Grandma." We would come together and bring him clothes, snacks, medicine and whatever he was needing. I was overjoyed to have a friend who cared for Mohammed as much as I did and who could come with me on my adventures to Connaught.
After twelve days in the hospital, I was told that Mohammed was finally going to have amputation surgery. He was feeling a bit sad about it, but knew he needed to have the surgery or his bone could become more infected and he could die. I asked him how he was feeling and he said "I'm good, I want to have the surgery!"
The day of the surgery, Mary and I went to the hospital to check on Mohammed. It was already almost 3pm and Mohammed still had not gone to the OR. The nurses reassured us that Mohammed was up next. They informed us that he still needed some IV pain medication for post-op pain, so they wrote us a prescription and sent us over to the pharmacy. After we picked up the medication, we headed back over to the ward. The nurses asked if I wanted to talk to the surgeon before the surgery. "I mean, I don't need to talk to him, but I can," I replied. They sent me to the OR entrance and a man in a white plastic apron came out to meet us. "I am Dr. Contu," he said, shaking our hands. I managed a smile, trying not to stare at the plastic "gown" that looked like something I would wear in a soup kitchen. "Is this their sterile gown here," I wondered to myself. Dr. Contu reassured us that they were getting ready to call Mohammed down to the OR. Mary had a jersey that she had brought with her in her bag. She pulled it out and handed it to the surgeon "Make sure you do a good job on Mohammed's surgery," she said with a wink. The surgeon smiled grateful for his new gift. We came back and told Mohammed that all would be well, said a prayer for him and headed back to our home on the ship.
Mary & I with Mohammed the day of his surgery
The following day I was working an evening shift, so I stopped by in the morning before work. Mohammed was wincing in pain and told me his leg was hurting. I went to the nurses and they told me he had run out of IV pain medicine. "That's impossible," I said. "I bought a 10-pack and it hasn't even been 24 hours." Sure enough, there it was in his patient bag. They had just not seen it. I handed them the vial and asked them to please give it to him. I was so frustrated and annoyed by the lack of care at this hospital. I wished I could stay with Mohammed constantly so I could be his nurse because it often felt like things were overlooked or not done when myself or Katie weren't there. The nurse drew up the medication and I headed to the pharmacy. There were still several vials, but I wasn't sure if I could come the next day and I wanted to make sure he had more than enough to keep him comfortable.
I returned from the pharmacy with the medications and a sandwich that I had bought for Mohammed on my way back. His pain had mostly subsided and he was in better spirits. We chatted for awhile and I tried to tell him that I was going to be leaving at the end of the week to go back home. He said "ok" and changed the subject. I was relieved that he wasn't more upset. I wanted to give him a heads up that I was leaving Africa, but I also wanted him to know that he would be taken care of.
Two days later, Mary and I returned to the hospital with another friend. Mohammed was doing well and was in good spirits. We chatted with him for a bit, then I told him "Mohammed, I'm leaving to go back to America tomorrow." He looked at me in shock, then hung his head and began to cry. He hadn't understood when I had mentioned it the last time. I told him he was going to be ok and he would be taken care of. It was a sad moment. He wouldn't look up and I started to cry too. I was so grateful that I could make an impact on his life, but now it was my time to pass the torch to others. I brought a Christmas gift for him that included a new Bible (the paperback Bible I had given him two weeks before was super worn from how much he was using it), a jersey, a Sierra Leonean cell phone, some chocolates and printed photos of us together. Mohammed loved the gift, but still looked sad. I wasn't sure how to make him feel better. Mary was leaving the following week, but had offered to come see him again before she left. I said goodbye to Mohammed and we hugged. I told him I would stay in touch and we would make sure he was taken care of. He nodded slowly and told me he loved me. I said goodbye to all of the other mommas of patients who had been helping me take care of Mohammed. I handed Aminata some cash and told her to make sure to buy Mohammed food. She had sometimes bought him meals herself out of the kindness of her own heart and I knew she was someone I could trust. She nodded and hugged me.
The next week, Mary went to visit Mohammed and to say her goodbyes before she left. A few days later Abby went back to check on him. Everyone was making sure he was taken care of. The hospital was talking about discharging him about a week later, right after Christmas. Abby begged them to give us a few more days to figure out a safe place for Mohammed to go. She did a great job advocating for him and made sure he didn't end up back on the street.
Abby and Mohammed
I was back in Arizona with my family for the holidays trying to coordinate calls with the 7-hour time difference and figure out a place for Mohammed to go. My friend Anna gave me the contact info for a missionary couple that she knew in Sierra Leone. They put me in touch with another woman named Antoinette, who ran a Christian rehab center for people who had formerly done drugs and needed to be in a place where they can start a new life. She called me and told me they had a spot for Mohammed. The timing was perfect as he was going to be discharged in two days. It would cost $170/month and he would need to be there for a minimum of three months. I told her we would get her the funds. That day, I messaged another friend on the ship and asked if she could give the leones (Sierra Leonean currency) to the rehab center. I told her I would pay her back through venmo, but she told me not to. She said she wanted to help Mohammed and this was her way of giving back. I was blown away by her generosity and the generosity of so many others who had already given. Before the first month was even over, another kind woman offered to pay for month 2 and 3 of rehab and the outpatient dressing changes that Mohammed was still getting. I had taken this on as my responsibility, but so many people had come alongside me to help and be part of his story too.
Mohammed is doing well and still calls me "Mom." Antoinette is making sure he is well taken care of and Mohammed and I Facetime on her phone about once a week. He is still sad about me leaving and still asks when I will come back to visit, but he is gradually adjusting to his life at the rehab center and his new friends there. We are still working out a plan for where he will go at the end of the three months, but I know that God will open doors for him, just as He has along this whole journey.
I hesitated to share this story because I didn't want it to come across that I was trying to get any praise for myself or anything I have done. But I know that Mohammed's story has touched so many already that I wanted to share it as an encouragement of what God can do through ordinary people like you and me. I never would've imagined all that God was going to do that day that I met Mohammed on the street. But I couldn't help but think of the story of the Good Samaritan and I didn't want to be the person who walked on the other side of the street and pretended not to see him. I wanted to be the one to see him, to help him and to love him. Because Jesus told us that's what He would do. His heart is to care for the poor and the needy and to see those who are unseen and cast aside by everyone else. It just started with one step of obedience. Buy him some food. Listen. Pray. Help. And in the end, his life was saved and forever changed. You can impact the lives around you too. You just have to listen to what God is asking you to do and to say "yes" to him when He asks you to do it. As Mother Theresa once said "Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love."
