Season's Greetings - Newsletter December 2005
Dear All,
Happy Christmas! It's a bit hot here, and all the traditions are completely different, but it's great to be celebrating Jesus' birth with people from all over the world in a giant tin can! I hope that you are all enjoying the mulled wine, mince pies, and manic activity. I guess last minute shopping is pretty much done by now (I hope so anyway), it's kind of weird to think of "normal" Christmas going on back home as usual. Great as usual to get news from home though - and immensely exciting to get post. I read the Village Web [home church magazine] with interest and showed it to an African pastor who works as a translator in the operating theatres on the ship. He was very impressed, though I suspect the idea of a Christingle service was rather lost on him... I missed the St Mary's carol service, the end of term concerts, I am completely frustrated by the lack of mince pies, and the general consensus here is that we'd be very happy to spend Christmas on the Anastasis if it weren't also going on back home without us. But I thank God that in eleven weeks I have made friends with whom I am delighted to be celebrating. This evening there is a Christmas Eve dinner (the main Christmas meal) and though it's not home, it's good nonetheless.
It's been a really busy month, and I'm exhausted, but in a good way. The ship feels like a vague approximation of home now. So many people come to the Anastasis for only two or three weeks (especially in the medical department) that to have been here for nearly 3 months makes me almost an old hand, and I feel secure in some great friendships - we are having fun times. One thing that is hard to get used to on the Anastasis is the lack of personal space, and I was beginning to find it frustrating to have nowhere to go where I knew I would not be interrupted. But the best thing that has happened in the last couple of weeks is that four of us have been temporarily upgraded from our rather space-restricted and spartan 6-bed cabin down in the depths of C-deck into the cabin that usually belongs to the chief officer and his family! (they are currently on 3 month leave of absence). We're staying up near the bridge for 4 weeks whilst necessary repairs are performed in our cabin (seawater was running across the floor during the previous sail, although happily I only moved in after we arrived in Benin). The new cabin has an en suite bathroom, fridge/freezer, TV/VCR, kitchenette and living area with IKEA furnishings and a double sofa-bed (which I get all to myself at night!). Naturally we were delighted and the presence of a couch and TV/VCR makes our cabin a social hub, so we've stocked the cupboards with snacks and drinks with the aim of sharing our enjoyment of the space with as many people as possible. We're suffering for Jesus alright... In many ways Mercy Ships is a very "soft option" for missionary work because in essence we live in an air-conditioned western bubble where we can retreat whenever Africa is just too frustrating, dusty, smelly and, well, African. I am in awe of those who work right amongst communities for many years very much isolated from other westerners. But I'm very grateful for the opportunity to get an insight into cross-cultural missions, and having only just left home for the first time it's good to be in an environment with such good support networks. But I don't want you to think there aren't personal challenges: I am having a wonderful time experimenting with doing my own laundry in a place where there are 4 washing machines between 300 people; and as was sagely predicted by my mother, sharing a cabin with other people is forcing a rather painfully radical turnaround in my standards of tidiness (anyone who's ever been in my room at home will know what I mean).
But Africa continues to be full of surprises. I now feel much much more at ease with local people, and my French is being rapidly resurrected and improved, but I still don't feel as though I understand the culture here in Benin. For instance, we've had a slightly rocky relationship with the translators in theatres; we run very much in the style of a western hospital, and they are immune to the concept of "hurry" regardless of the situation. The long-termers here go on and on about needing to understand local culture and customs to build good relationships, and to be honest I was getting bored of hearing about it. But I gained a much greater appreciation for it when I had first-hand experience of a simple misunderstanding that cultural knowledge immediately cleared up. The translators were causing mild irritation all round in theatres by what seemed like an incredibly patronising habit of saying "well done" every time they saw one of us perform some task. But all became clear when I was reading about Fon (the local language) and realised that the Fon for "hey there" when addressing someone doing any semblance of work literally translates as "well done". One of the translators, Pastor Jean, summed it up neatly the other day: "At the beginning, I don't think we understood each other, but now we are friends, no?". If nothing else I am fast gaining an appreciation for the international Christian church. I had a truly surreal experience the other day in my little sterilising room: docked in Africa; listening to a Dutch Christian music CD; and talking about it in French. I'm still learning to apply the distinction between "wrong" and "different"!
I've attached the official Mercy Ships Christmas montage - the main picture is of the deck department's Christmas decorations! Immanuel is an amazing child whose surgery I was excited to be able to watch. Dr Tertius Venter, a plastic surgeon from South Africa, performed a relatively simple procedure to enable him to walk again. When he was 3 weeks old, Immanuel had been very sick and a nurse had inserted an intravenous line into his foot, presumably to give him some fluids. But in the absence of proper sterile equipment, the IV had become infected and had produced horrendous scarring, which had contracted and caused Immanuel's foot to be pinned up to his shin. Dr Tertius released the contracture in about 30 minutes of surgery, and Immanuel is less than a year old and will never remember the surgery that will change the course of his life completely. I was excited to be present when Immanuel's dressing was changed 10 days later - I held him whilst they sedated him and removed the cast to see that the skin graft was healing well.
Christmas carols are decidedly inferior without an organ, and singing "In the Bleak Midwinter" has to go down as the most bizarre experiences of my time here, but the truth of the carols is the same wherever you are:
"Once in Royal David's City,
stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her baby,
in a manger for his bed.
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ her little child."
That child really was Immanuel, God with Us. I've witnessed him changing lives here in Benin, my hope and prayer is that you experience his same power and peace in your lives this weekend and always.
With all my love,
Rosie/Rosalind
xxx... Read more!
Happy Christmas! It's a bit hot here, and all the traditions are completely different, but it's great to be celebrating Jesus' birth with people from all over the world in a giant tin can! I hope that you are all enjoying the mulled wine, mince pies, and manic activity. I guess last minute shopping is pretty much done by now (I hope so anyway), it's kind of weird to think of "normal" Christmas going on back home as usual. Great as usual to get news from home though - and immensely exciting to get post. I read the Village Web [home church magazine] with interest and showed it to an African pastor who works as a translator in the operating theatres on the ship. He was very impressed, though I suspect the idea of a Christingle service was rather lost on him... I missed the St Mary's carol service, the end of term concerts, I am completely frustrated by the lack of mince pies, and the general consensus here is that we'd be very happy to spend Christmas on the Anastasis if it weren't also going on back home without us. But I thank God that in eleven weeks I have made friends with whom I am delighted to be celebrating. This evening there is a Christmas Eve dinner (the main Christmas meal) and though it's not home, it's good nonetheless.
It's been a really busy month, and I'm exhausted, but in a good way. The ship feels like a vague approximation of home now. So many people come to the Anastasis for only two or three weeks (especially in the medical department) that to have been here for nearly 3 months makes me almost an old hand, and I feel secure in some great friendships - we are having fun times. One thing that is hard to get used to on the Anastasis is the lack of personal space, and I was beginning to find it frustrating to have nowhere to go where I knew I would not be interrupted. But the best thing that has happened in the last couple of weeks is that four of us have been temporarily upgraded from our rather space-restricted and spartan 6-bed cabin down in the depths of C-deck into the cabin that usually belongs to the chief officer and his family! (they are currently on 3 month leave of absence). We're staying up near the bridge for 4 weeks whilst necessary repairs are performed in our cabin (seawater was running across the floor during the previous sail, although happily I only moved in after we arrived in Benin). The new cabin has an en suite bathroom, fridge/freezer, TV/VCR, kitchenette and living area with IKEA furnishings and a double sofa-bed (which I get all to myself at night!). Naturally we were delighted and the presence of a couch and TV/VCR makes our cabin a social hub, so we've stocked the cupboards with snacks and drinks with the aim of sharing our enjoyment of the space with as many people as possible. We're suffering for Jesus alright... In many ways Mercy Ships is a very "soft option" for missionary work because in essence we live in an air-conditioned western bubble where we can retreat whenever Africa is just too frustrating, dusty, smelly and, well, African. I am in awe of those who work right amongst communities for many years very much isolated from other westerners. But I'm very grateful for the opportunity to get an insight into cross-cultural missions, and having only just left home for the first time it's good to be in an environment with such good support networks. But I don't want you to think there aren't personal challenges: I am having a wonderful time experimenting with doing my own laundry in a place where there are 4 washing machines between 300 people; and as was sagely predicted by my mother, sharing a cabin with other people is forcing a rather painfully radical turnaround in my standards of tidiness (anyone who's ever been in my room at home will know what I mean).
But Africa continues to be full of surprises. I now feel much much more at ease with local people, and my French is being rapidly resurrected and improved, but I still don't feel as though I understand the culture here in Benin. For instance, we've had a slightly rocky relationship with the translators in theatres; we run very much in the style of a western hospital, and they are immune to the concept of "hurry" regardless of the situation. The long-termers here go on and on about needing to understand local culture and customs to build good relationships, and to be honest I was getting bored of hearing about it. But I gained a much greater appreciation for it when I had first-hand experience of a simple misunderstanding that cultural knowledge immediately cleared up. The translators were causing mild irritation all round in theatres by what seemed like an incredibly patronising habit of saying "well done" every time they saw one of us perform some task. But all became clear when I was reading about Fon (the local language) and realised that the Fon for "hey there" when addressing someone doing any semblance of work literally translates as "well done". One of the translators, Pastor Jean, summed it up neatly the other day: "At the beginning, I don't think we understood each other, but now we are friends, no?". If nothing else I am fast gaining an appreciation for the international Christian church. I had a truly surreal experience the other day in my little sterilising room: docked in Africa; listening to a Dutch Christian music CD; and talking about it in French. I'm still learning to apply the distinction between "wrong" and "different"!
I've attached the official Mercy Ships Christmas montage - the main picture is of the deck department's Christmas decorations! Immanuel is an amazing child whose surgery I was excited to be able to watch. Dr Tertius Venter, a plastic surgeon from South Africa, performed a relatively simple procedure to enable him to walk again. When he was 3 weeks old, Immanuel had been very sick and a nurse had inserted an intravenous line into his foot, presumably to give him some fluids. But in the absence of proper sterile equipment, the IV had become infected and had produced horrendous scarring, which had contracted and caused Immanuel's foot to be pinned up to his shin. Dr Tertius released the contracture in about 30 minutes of surgery, and Immanuel is less than a year old and will never remember the surgery that will change the course of his life completely. I was excited to be present when Immanuel's dressing was changed 10 days later - I held him whilst they sedated him and removed the cast to see that the skin graft was healing well.
Christmas carols are decidedly inferior without an organ, and singing "In the Bleak Midwinter" has to go down as the most bizarre experiences of my time here, but the truth of the carols is the same wherever you are:
"Once in Royal David's City,
stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her baby,
in a manger for his bed.
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ her little child."
That child really was Immanuel, God with Us. I've witnessed him changing lives here in Benin, my hope and prayer is that you experience his same power and peace in your lives this weekend and always.
With all my love,
Rosie/Rosalind
xxx... Read more!
posted by Rosie @ 12:24 AM
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