When we visited the Mercy Ship in Pointe Noire, Republic of Congo last March we learned there were a number of “off ship” ministry opportunities in the community surrounding the port.
One of those ministries was a trip to the Hope (Hospital Out-Patient Extension) Center about 20 minutes away from the port. It was a 116-bed convalescent center for Mercy Ship surgery patients. Before it became the Hope Center, it was a partially finished building that Mercy Ship’s “Charity Project” agreed to complete prior to the ship docking in Pointe Noire so that patients would have a stable, clean place to recover between and after surgeries. It was close to the ship and handy for follow up medical care.
When the Mercy Ship sailed out of Pointe Noire two weeks ago and a convalescent center was no longer needed, the Hope Center was handed over without cost to a local charity organization to be used as a school for the blind and the deaf.
Most of the surgical patients recovering at Hope Center were children. Most of them were well enough to be both mobile and bored. So visitors are in for a very interesting and lively time. My experience was that cultural differences were least apparent in the play of young children. I could easily have been in New Orleans or even Grand Marais. The children taught me a dozen handshakes, fist bumps and finger flutter combos. We got out some string and did cat’s cradle.
Pastor Dave Harvey greatly enjoyed the interaction with the children at the Hope (Hospital Out-Patient Extension) Center in Pointe Noire, Republic of Congo, during his visit there last March. Harvey found that kids are kids, no matter the place or circumstance.
My wife, Gayle, brought about two dozen coils of embroidery floss in a million colors for braided bracelets. Who else but Gramma Gayle would think to pack embroidery coils to amuse children in the Congo? She also packed Dum-Dum suckers… and that was a free for all!
First everyone needed to find his or her favorite flavor. Then, all of a sudden, everyone had a brother or a sister they wanted to get a sucker for. I decided to close the candy counter when the request obtained a fevered pitch and progressed from brothers and sisters to cousins and second cousins once removed. My favorite was from an 11-year-old girl from Brazaville who had figured out that the adults in this operation were big into God and church stuff. So after many pleas for an extra sucker for her sister, her mother and her cousin, her last desperate effort to get one more Dum-Dum out of this dum-dum was, “Please! One more. I want just one more, please… for God.”
However, I happen to know for a fact that God is big on Tootsie Pops so I refused to be taken in.
Being a white man in Congo made me a novelty with little kids. The youngest want to put their face right up into mine to take in the novelty of it all and giggle. Most of them want to be hugged and sit in my lap… the joy of affection that most kids want if they feel safe and cared for. But what made me especially interesting was my silver hair that lies flat against my head. They couldn’t get enough of putting their hands in my hair. I may very well have less of it now than before I went to Africa.
Visiting Hope Center was a highlight for me. It was a much happier and, true to its name, hopeful time than some of our other visits. It was a picture of what can be done when good people wade into the sea of human suffering and combine faith, finances and hard work to bring some healing and love to some of our poorest neighbors. It is always a temptation to look at the immensity of human sorrow and then despair of doing anything because it won’t save everybody. I learned that it is an act of both love and courage to do what we can for whom we can and it takes faith to believe it is worth doing.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. For June, our contributor is Pastor Dave Harvey, who has served as pastor of Grand Marais Evangelical Free Church since February of 2008.
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