Final farewells

So that's it. Finished. No more patients to visit. No more people to hug, to laugh with and to cry with. No more words of comfort to speak, I have given my all. On Thursday I said goodbye to my last patient, on Friday I said goodbye to Mawuli at her funeral. I drove away knowing I would never see any of them ever again. There are people who will stay behind to look out for them but somehow I want to be there for them too.

I feel like my faith is as small as a mustard seed but God has still used me as a powerful mountain. I struggled for such a long time, wanting to fix things myself, wanting to find solutions to all the problems that materialised. There were so many promises that I wanted to make to my patients – to promise that they would have enough pain killers to outlast them, that their deaths would be peaceful, that they would be accepted back into their communities and loved as they should be. But I couldn't promise any of these things. Instead God spoke to me about what I could offer – His presence through my presence. In her book Dangerous Surrender Kay Warren says, “Touching people who are sick, weak and in pain or those who are scarred, maimed and deformed – those whose bodies or minds are far from whole – validates their humanity. When we are willing to push past any fear, revulsion or discomfort we may experience at the sight of their imperfection, we make God's presence real in this world; we make the invisible God visible to them.”

I've become so easily overwhelmed by the enormity of the suffering in this world and discouraged and depressed at my lack of power to change things. But I have come to realise that by offering myself, I offer Jesus to all those I meet. One of my patients was crying at the last visit. When we asked why she was sad, the answer came back, 'Because you have been her only friend. When she became sick all her friends left her but you have visited her every week despite her illness.' That made me realise that despite all my inadequacies, frustrations and feelings of not doing enough Jesus had been comforting her through me. Even for this brief time that I have spent with her, she has known what it is to be truly loved.

Kay Warren again, “...we all want to know that our investment of time, energy and money has been worth it, that we haven't wasted our precious resources. What I'm suggesting is that in our hurry to do something, it's easy to rush past the people we're visiting. There will always be a need for action, for tangible solutions to complex problems. But as Christ-followers, let's be sure to be with people – to look them in the eye and listen to their story, to spend a few moments entering into their experiences, whether joyful or painful. This is how the invisible God becomes visible.”
I feel like during the past few months I have shared the emotional roller coaster with my patients. I have always managed to remain emotionally attached from my patients so this took me by surprise. The sacrificial nature of sharing in the pain of those in my care has led me to better understand what Jesus did for us. How he loved us enough to take on the pain of our suffering. Choosing to share the suffering of another allows God to be reflected in us.
I feel that in the past four months I have experienced more emotional highs and lows than I have seen in my whole lifetime. But in this time, God has revealed more of his character to me than I could possibly have imagined. I am excited to return to the ship in Sierra Leone next year. I know that I am going to be used in ways that I could not possibly comprehend.

In Mother Theresa's book, A Simple Path, Sister Dolores a member of Missionaries of Charity says, “The dying are moved by the love they receive...Because of this, they believe that God must be even kinder, more generous and so their souls are lifted up to God.”