The Face of Dental Pain

These pictures were taken by a Mercy Ships photographer at one of our recent screenings.  We screen every Monday and Thursday morning and the line is pretty much always the same.

Line starts forming 1-2 hours before we arrive.  Security Volunteers keep things organized

Men,Women, and Children are separated for safety

My Team Leader, Sieh, is an expert.  He will screen all these people in 20-30 minutes.

Bangaly, one of our Day Worker interpreters explains the procedure so everybody knows what will happen

Have you ever had a tooth ache?

Soldiers who have been shot, say it is like being shot in the mouth.

The pain lasts anywhere from several days to a couple of weeks.

The only thing that hurts worse than doing nothing is touching anything.

Sometimes the pain goes away and then comes back every couple of months.

Sometimes your face swells.

Children particularly have a hard time understanding why the pain just won't go away.

Have you ever had a toothache?

Then you stand in line all day to see a free dentist.

And then there is hope that your pain can go away.

This is the Mercy Ships Dental team.  Some are here for only a short time, some are here the entire 10 months.  We come from many nations, but with one purpose.  We are who God sent to heal the pain.

The Prison Ministry

 

From Mark:
Last week I went to a local prison with 7 other men, 3 westerners and 4 African crew that are regulars on the prison ministry.  A group of ladies also went to an adjacent women's prison.  This was my first outing to a prison but the prison ministry group had been to this prison once already a couple of weeks earlier.  Sorry, no real pictures as we are not allowed to take cameras into the prison.  Also, Guineans are very touchy about pictures of locations like prisons.  This prison houses some political prisoners so our leader asked that we not bring cameras at all.  I tried to find pictures on Google that reminded me how things were.

First, a little description is in order.  This is not a prison like in the western sense with a lot of bars and high security.  This prison is basically a walled compound with with rows of tin-roofed rooms.  The prisoners seem pretty free to move around, there only seemed a couple of places where guards were placed.  It look more like an old-time frontier fort.  A few chickens ran around.  I think the prison only provides a bowl of rice per day, so prisoners have to get other nutrition as they can, from family, friends or what they can grow on the inside.  Inside there is a Chapel, roof and benches, no walls; with a large wooden cross and old picture of Jesus.  If I had my guess I would say this was a catholic chapel but it's simplicity did not give a lot of clues.

We arrived and we were required to wash our hands with very heavy bleach solution that I was told not to wipe off on my cloths because it would bleach them.  This is an attempt to prevent the spread of Cholera into and out of the prison.  The eight of us filed into the chapel and after several minutes of waiting and no one coming, we just started to sing.  After about 4 songs the place began filling up.  As to not bore everybody I will just give some of my thoughts.

This is where our faith was designed to be.  I was surrounded by perhaps 40 men who, for just a few short minutes, were free from their prison. 

If there was ever any question that God is everywhere, he was there.  Yes, God can be found in prison in west Africa.  More than His presence I felt his hand moving.

The Word was spoken, the Word was sung.  The power of hope came.  The Love of God, the Truth of the Gospel was poured out on the dirty ground of this prison.

While sitting and worshiping with these men I came to the realization that apart from the Holy Spirit that we receive through the blood of Jesus we are all in a prison.  Our prison may not look like the one these men were trapped in and the bars that hold us are not always as visible, but it is a prison.  Dirty, confined, lost.  I began to see that the true power of God is, that even in a prison, God can come.  I know that if those men can embrace the Truth that we told them and make their prison a prison worthy of God and the sacrifice of His Son, they will be free, even in prison.  What's more, if our prison truly reflects the Gospel, other men will fight to break in, to come into our prison, just for one touch, one feel, one glimpse of the Glory of God, Jesus Christ.

Cascade de la Soumba

We left the Africa Mercy at 9:30 in the morning hoping to find some waterfalls.  We had a map, a picnic lunch, and an idea of where to go.  Two hours later we still had no idea where the waterfall were, but we had made it out of Conakry.  We found the city of Dubreka.  We understood that the falls were somewhere around Dubreka.  We spent several minutes driving around the area stopping and asking various Africans, "Ou est cascade de la soumba?"  We were told they were east.  We were told they were west.  We still had no idea where these waterfalls might be hiding.  Then someone in the land rover had an idea...lets ask a taxi driver he might know the whereabouts of theses infamous waterfalls.

Gabe helped me out.  We just kept repeating ourselves.  We smiled really big.  We repeated ourselves louder and added some hand motions that we felt depicted waterfalls beautifully.  Still no one understood.  Then I said in my 'excellent' french, "I would like to look at the waterfalls of Soumba?"  Ah Ha!  Understanding.  Then our new African friend who up until this point only spoke French said, "I give you this man to show you waterfalls."  I squeezed in the back with the boys, and our tour guide pointed.  Thirty minutes later we arrived at the falls.  I will let the pictures speak for themselves.