Some news from admissions..

Every weekday the ship's population gains about 100 'day workers' who we work alongside in all the activities of the ship, whether that be house keeping, deck work, galley work or, extremely helpful for me, translation purposes! In my work in the admissions tent out on dock I would not be able to do this without the team of Ruth, Emmanuel, Edem and Esther who can speak a multitude of languages between them and they astound me with their ability to switch between the many different dialects and languages that exist between the different tribal groups here in Togo and also further afield. History taking at times can still prove difficult and this was shown on Friday when we had a little boy who had been brought by his parents from Benin. (News of Mercy Ships appears to travel far and wide and just this week we have had patients who have travelled from Nigeria, Benin and Ghana to be seen)

This little boy is from a Muslim family and they live in the north of Benin; according to his parents the large swelling on his neck has been there since birth but recently it had begun to become very painful and much larger so they had taken him to a local hospital. Here they had attempted some kind of procedure but finding it too difficult to carry out they said there was nothing more they could do and sent him on. Arriving at the Mercy Ships Admission Tent on the dock on Friday afternoon they told me that we were their last chance for him and that they were completely in our hands. He was understandably terrified and frozen with fear as it must have been a overwhelming, to say the least for a 6 year old, to have been unwell, in pain, travelling across Benin then into Togo, seeing the sea and a boat for probably the first time, being brought onto a ship, put in a CT scanner and then poked and prodded by all these 'yovos' (the affectionate name I'm told for white people..though the original meaning in Ewe is 'cunning dog!') No smile has crossed his face yet, especially on the ward round this morning, when he was told he would have to go back to theatre but the corners of his mouth curled slightly when we played with cars earlier so we will see!

Please pray for him and his family that they would be impacted by the times the patient life team spend on the ward explaining the gospel and that we would be able to help him. From the scan it was unclear whether or not an operation would be fully curative.