Refugee camp outreach!

April 19th and 20th the dental team went to work at the Peace Refugee camp in Lome. The refugees were from The Ivory Coast. About 2,500-3,000 people live in the refugee camp. The first day we had 3 dentists working and 4 assistants. Then the next day we had a dentist from Togo join our team so we had 4 dentists working. In the two days we were there we saw 204 patients and extracted 354 teeth. :) Those were VERY busy days.
God blessed us with very good weather though. Not near as hot as the prison outreach. The building was much bigger as well so it was nice! After working on Thursday we got to walk around and view the refugee camp. It was very large.  They had many tents set up and then some wooden buildings for homes.
I'll post more pictures later. :)

Church outside the ship.

April 7th and 8th I was able to meet up with Leona again! Saturday we went out to Dinner with Dennis Hilman and two local pastors. Then Sunday we went to a church out a ways into the bush.. Or so it felt to me. I had not traveled that far in Lome before. So it was nice to get out in the country a little bit. Dennis was speaking at the church and Leona taught Sunday school for the kids(One of the day workers from the dental clinic came with us and he translated for Leona!). It was real fun to be there and see what our missionaries are doing! In the Sunday school there were about 30 kids. Probably ages 11 and under. Leona started by teaching the kids a song in English then with Mawuli's help, taught the young kids about Jonah. After that she taught us all how to make Origami whales! We enjoyed our time spent together! After church I had lunch with Leona , Dennis, Mawuli and one of the pastors. Then Dennis and Leona left for Ghana so they dropped me off at the ship.
It was wonderful to be with familiar people for a little while. :)

The next week at the Dental clinic was very busy! We had the dentist that was the Chief Dental Officer for Mercy ships working with us(he is no longer long term with MS but comes once a year). He was with the dental team for two weeks and it was great to have him! We were able to see a lot of patients with more critical needs since he was with us. We saw several patients with large swellings that needed to be drained. And we did many interesting surgeries. I won't go into details here. :) But it was all new to me! So yes.. More experiences!

On the 18th I had a wonderful treat! It was my birthday! So I requested the day off to watch some surgeries on board the ship. I started off the day with breakfast with a Birthday buddy. Then went up to the pool on deck 8 to spend some time reading. After that headed down to the hair salon and had my hair cut! After hair cut I sat around in the cafe chatting with some friends.When lunch came  around it was so nice to finally get to eat lunch on the ship! They served a wonderful lunch of Chicken fingers with honey mustard and rice!! Soo. yes! Great start to the day! THEN... I was able to go in to the operating rooms and watch two different surgeries. I had to don the Mercy ships scrubs, OR booties, surgeons cap and goggles to enter the OR. Quite an interesting thing! I will perhaps never have a birthday like this one! 
 After viewing the surgeries I had supper with some friends and  then went up to the crew galley to make a bunny cake! When I came down to the cafe  my friends had set up a little banner saying" Happy Birthday Karen"! It was really sweet! I think through out the whole day I was sung to 4 times! After demolishing the cake my friends and I went to French class! We learned some valuable things that would have been helpful a LONG time ago. But oh well! Now I know..  Best Birthday ever!

Ok.. More stuff happened but I'm needing some sleep and I'll be able to write  more and post more pictures later.

Here are a few action photos and some random photos from the dental clinic:)
Top photo is most of the ladies in my cabin. :) We were given and opportunity to have some photos taken on board. :)

The past few weeks have gone by very quickly! Last week the dental team went to the prison to do dental work. We packed all of our equipment up on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday transported it all to the prison(which is fortunately right next door). The day was extremely hot and we were inside a small building with no air circulating..So yes.. Hottest day of my life right there. I thought it was a few weeks ago when the ac broke at the dental clinic. I was wrong. :) So yes, we were working in the heat and were still able to see 98 patients total on Thursday! All this was done without electricity,air/water, suction.. We were truly roughing it! The patients seemed to be grateful to us.. Sometimes you really wonder though because NO ONE likes to go to the dentist.  

On Friday we were able to see 58 patients. The weather was dramatically different! It RAINED!! For the first time since I've been here. It was crazy rain too! Poured for maybe 1 hour then just drizzled. It was so nice because it cooled everything down. The day was so much more bearable because we were not feeling so worn out from the heat!

The prison was very interesting and not what I expected. When they told me we were going to the prison for the extreme outreach I was a little nervous. Maybe I was thinking of some prison stories from the states where the criminals are creepy and dangerous. The conditions were pretty sad at the prison. Not sure how many men shared a bunk room but I heard is about 18 to each room. Very uncomfortable. Also the prisoners only get one meal a day. So if you don't have any friends or family to bring you your other meals then you go without. There were also rooms with woman and  children. I'm very sure  most of the people in prison were there for petty crimes.

We never felt threatened by anyone. They were very respectful and kind. A few spoke English so it was always nice to be able to speak with them. :) Of course our two pastors were working right alongside us. They do the post op instructions and talk to the patients about Jesus.

This weekend I was very blessed  to have my friend Leona from Canada drop by to visit! We couch surfed together at a woman's house here  in Lome. The woman was kind enough to take us in on a last  minute couch surf request. She was from France and has been living here in Lome teaching French for the past 3 years.

The first day we got a nice tour from two of my friends from the dental clinic. They walked us through the market in Lome and we tried different fruits and street food.. It was TOO yummy! Worried about getting sick for a little bit. But nothing has happened and we ate more! Last night as well.. :) I may be picking up some spices from here to try making some of the food myself once I get home.

 Eating street food:)

 Our tour guides. Mawuli and Sam

The ship!

That night we made our way to meet our host at the French school. Then she took us to a ballet! It was a modern ballet.. Very interesting. Yep! After that we went to a local restaurant for fresh fish!  They brought the fish out on a plate and we were able to choose  which fish we wanted to eat.

Sunday morning we met  up with a friend from the clinic again and we went to his house to make fufu! His cousin had prepared most of it already.  Fufu is pretty much yams, boiled till they are soft and then mashed up into a playdough like consistancy. After we "helped" smoosh the boiled yams. We were served the fufu with a delicious soup with chicken. So good!!  I now don't mind fufu. With the right soup it tastes very good!
After eating lots of fufu, Leona was able to come back to the ship with me for visiting hours.

 I gave her a tour of the ship and we had supper. Then for Palm Sunday there was a special service on board the  ship. We dressed up in our African dresses! Since this week there are 32 nations represented on board the ship they had several people from the different nations say something or sing. :) It was very nice!

Monday, Leona was able to come to the dental clinic with me! I got her some scrubs from the ship and we rode in to work together on motor bikes. :) It was a long day.. But I think she enjoyed it! It was great to have her there!

In the past couple weeks I've gotten to be a part of some fun activities! Last Wednesday evening I was able to join a group going to visit the Children's ward at the local hospital.  We spent about 3 hours there in 3 different rooms. The wards were pretty small. No more than 10 beds in each one. Most of the kids had broken limbs. Arms ,hips or legs. Some were confined to bed. Most of the kids were probably under the age of 12.  One of the parents would stay at the hospital with them. Then there were quite a few siblings running around as well.

In each room we started out by reading a Bible story then giving them some crayons and paper to color. We also gave balloons and blew bubbles and ended by giving cookies. It was very interesting to learn how things are run at the hospital also. If you need to go to the hospital(emergency or whatever) you find out what supplies you need for surgery, go to the pharmacy, buy the supplies, then go back to the hospital for your appointment. The hospital does not have any supplies on hand to do anything I guess.. Also it's very expensive to go to the hospital on top of that. So if you don't have any money... You don't get help. :(
Makes me think about how nice we have it at home in the states.

Then on Thursday I went to the Hope Center(run by Mercy ships) here in Lome. It is where patients live while they are waiting for a surgery or go after surgery to recover. It's a beautiful building! Mercy ships has put a lot of effort into making it nice for the patients. The building was used in 2010 when Mercy ships was here last. When they left in 2010 the people here in Togo used the building as place for women to have their babies. So one of the wings of the building is still being run by people from Lome. We were able to go visit  patients waiting for surgery and see some brand new babies!

Saturday.. I went to visit the Bethany Maison Orphanage. It is an Orphanage run by some nuns. Very nice building. I think about 35 kids live there. Infants to 17 or 18 years old. We read Bible stories and sang lots of songs with the kids(keep in mind this is all in French, so it's being translated). After that we played all kinds of games with the kids and gave out cookies(again). Some of the kids are pretty sneaky and try to pretend we did not give them any cookies and ask for more.. :D I know all about the sneaky when it comes to cookies.. Some were quite dramatic even because they really wanted more cookies. Gotta guard the cookies. :D

The past few Sundays I've been going to the Ward service(church) on the ship! It's very nice that we are able to attend the service with patients in the hospital.The service is translated from English into Ewe(native language here). Maybe about 20 patients attend each Sunday and then some crew members. To go to the service I walk out my room door and down the hall not even a minute and I'm in the hospital. It's very interesting to think I live on a floating hospital. :D

Before I came, I wondered if I would be useful here in Africa. I doubted my skills and wondered why I felt God put the longing in my heart to come. But now that I'm here I feel like I'm needed and I am doing something helpful! God is so good! Please continue to pray for me while I spend my last month and half in Africa!  Time is flying too fast! I am thinking this is something I would love to plan to come again and do.. Maybe longer term?? :D :D

 Dr. Doug, who I have had the pleasure to work with here in Togo, wrote this wonderful piece. He said I could share it. I enjoyed it very much so I hope you do as well! 

 

“ROOTS"
 Some people come to Africa on big game hunting safaris and keep the taxidermists employed.  I came to Africa to keep the tooth fairy employed.  An even dozen cleaned themselves up to show the world their peculiarities.          
ROW ONE. PICTURED LEFT TO RIGHT:  Mildred Molar.   She came out in one piece.  Barry Bicuspid.  A first bicuspid, upper right side, tooth #14.  Huge internal cavity. Wouldn’t budge with the pry bar.  Applied vise grip......snap right at bone level.  Roto rooter time.  Even with  a lot of roots exposed, still wouldn’t budge....more cold steel and sunshine....pry bar finally cracked it in half and revealed it’s unbudgeability.....two roots,  one headed east and the other west.    Whew, very very stubborn tooth.
        Winnie Wisdomless.  This fine specimen could be a candidate for Guinness Book.   It’s the only 4 rooted upper wisdom tooth I’ve ever seen.  Calvin Clingon. This is what’s left of a upper cuspid that just would not give up.  Like extricating a fist that got in a bucket of cement.  The Swiss roto rooter put in some overtime on this one.  Had to put the drill bit half way out of the chuck to get enough length to get deep enough to finally get to the bulge creating a big enough opening to tease it out.
        Harry Humpback.  This obstinate fellow was the front root of a lower first molar.       Chair six front row:  Almost called in the x-ray team for this guy.  Both front and back roots of this lower third molar kept breaking of when the pry bar was applied.  Check out the hook on the back root.   MAMA MIA
        ROW TWO:   Chair one-  Samuel Supernumerary.  This  is a lower bicuspid that was a twin of it’s neighbor.  Instead of having the normal two lower left bicuspids, she had four. With the extra two in a row by the tongue. Samuel had a slight bump on the end of his root.  Molly Molar came out in one piece, amazingly.  Tenacious Theodore.  You’ve seen this dude before.  Reattached his legs with super glue.   Marlboro Man.  Second Row chair 4.  This was another first for me.  A lower second bicuspid.   Big cavity into Mr. Nerve.  Another non budge-er.  Crown snapped off.  As I was roto rooting the root, the root anatomy was non-typical, not round as normal, but fatter front to back.  Going deeper into the bone, two roots showed up.   Wow, another tooth entry for Guinness.
        Mary Marvelette.  This curvy lady didn’t want anything to do with the Swiss Dude, she was stubborn, but finally succumbed.  All three of her roots, had they snapped off, would have been another challenge.  And last but not least:  Lucy Not Loosie.  The checkside roots of this lovely lady snapped off.  Fortunately they were fused together and did check out with a little coaxing. Super Glue to the rescue.
        SO....now you know why I refer to this work:  “Life is like a box of chocolates:   You NEVER know what you are gonna get.”

Written by Dr. Doug 

A few weekends ago, a group of us from the ship were able to help out a YWAM group in Togo. We went to a large field and had a play day for a bunch of the neighborhood kids. Maybe about 150 were there.

 The kids are so cute! They really look after the little ones too. The picture below. The little boy fell asleep on the ground and the kids around found a blanket and tucked him in it.:)

 One of the drama's for the kids.:)

We had music, dramas, Bible stories,  soccer, jump ropes, a parachute, and lots of other misc. games going on. Then the kids recited Bible verses they had memorized from the previous outreach. Loads of fun and we all went home to the ship filthy dirty.

So now the 3 dentists I've been working with are all gone! But we have new ones to replace them. Such an amazing group of people we have here. I'm so blessed to be able to work with these people. I've learned so much from them.

 Picture of some of my friends at the clinic.

 For our last weekend together we went to Lake Togo and stayed the night in some bungalows. Super fun weekend! We hung out by the lake and visited some of the local area. One place we went was an old slave house. Thousands of slaves were held in the basement of this house for about 2 weeks before being exported to South America.. Sometimes to North America. We were able to go down into the basement where we could not stand at all. Very cramped and dark. Pretty awful and sobering to view.

                                          Our Bungalows that we rented for the night on the lake.

 House where slaves were kept in basement. We went down the trap door you see on the floor..

We drove through a flooded street.. It was pretty crazy! I'm sure my car would have died if I took it through this. 

Life in Africa

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 Now that I've been here for a little while I finally have a little routine figured out! :) Pretty much every morning I get up at 7:00 and drag myself out of bed and get up to the dining room for breakfast. I love eating with people in the morning. Makes my day a real nice start! Most of the time we have options like: Eggs, pancakes, cinnamon rolls, cereal, oatmeal, toast...Then I can drink orange juice every morning with my breakfast!!! Love it because orange juice is a big treat at home. :D
After breakfast with my friends I run off to do my morning chores.. Usually includes lugging heavy jug of water upstairs or something pleasant like that. The dental team meets at 8:00 most mornings. 7:30 on Wednesdays because we have our team devotions here on the ship. Each week one of us team members will share.
We then leave the ship in two land rovers a little after 8:00am. About 10 or so of us are on the team from the ship.Takes about 15 minutes of driving in CRAZY traffic to get to the clinic. The roads here are very nutty! But I hear from others that have been with Mercy Ships in Sierra Leone, that the roads here are NOTHING compared to there. Pretty much no traffic laws are followed.. Almost anyone can get a license and no drivers-ed required. The traffic circles are backwards here too. The people in the circle have to yield to the people coming in. A lot of motor bikes riding anywhere they can fit. I am very happy to say I don't have to drive here! :D
Once we arrive at the clinic we unload the land rovers and have devotions with the day workers. We start out our day with songs and prayer. It's a great way to start! Then we quickly get the clinic ready for the patients coming in. Monday's and Thursday's we have our screening days. We come to the clinic and see a huge line of people hoping to be seen by us. 

When we first got here we were seeing a lot of swellings and bad infections. We seen a woman on one of our first days that had such a bad infection that her whole face was swollen so bad.. We ended up having to drain the swelling and put her on antibiotics. We saw here a week later and she was doing SO much better! It's hard to imagine the pain a lot of these people go through for so long because they can't get the medical help they need so badly. We extract a load of teeth every day. I think one day last week we removed 130 teeth or so. I'll check on the numbers. It was around that.. Lately we have been able to do quite a few fillings. Nice to be able to save a tooth than to extract one.
So.. we work till about 12:00 take a 30 min break and then work till we are done with our patients for the day. We start out with about 40 something patients.. We also have some followup appointments that don't take too long. Removing sutures or checking to see if an infection has cleared up ok.
Once we have seen all the scheduled patients we clean up and head home!
Supper on the ship starts at 5pm so I usually have a little time to clean up and get upstairs to eat!
Then I will either play games with people after supper or read.. Or go out into town with my friends. We have gotten good at getting around by taxi. It's not too expensive if you argue your price with the taxi drivers. Otherwise they will charge WAY too much. One night we went out for Indian food and it was super good!
 This last Sunday I made it to an African church in the morning. It was very interesting:) Here is a picture of my friends and I after the service.

On Sunday nights we have church here on the ship with all the crew. That's been real nice. Also Thursday nights we have a service here on the ship. Then after service, an ice cream party! :D

 A picture of the nerd herd at the dental office. :D We have a great team here! Work is pretty tiring but so rewarding! Some days we come home exhausted! Today was a day I was almost asleep in the car on the way home. Then other days we hit the grocery store and buy icecream and I feel GREAT!

Some extra pictures of things I've seen around town. :) Mommy's and their babies:)

 Heavy loads:)

 The girls and I heading to a concert at a church on a Sunday afternoon.

 The beautiful beach!

Fufu time!

Got to try the fufu today! And I found out what exactly it is. So, it's a yam, that has been soaked in water to soften. Then it's cooked and  mashed up into a ummmmm blob-like substance.... Yeah! It was not horrible tasting. Really did not have too much flavor actually. The soupy stuff it's served in is quite good(spicy too). But if given the chance to eat it again I think I will pass. :D

 We went to the waterfalls today also! This morning we woke up early and met up at the gas station down the street. One of our day workers arranged for a bus to take us to K'Palme. I think that is spelled right.. The k is silent.  So we crammed 20 people into our bus.. Wow! We were packed tight into that bus. Wish we had a picture to show.. But here is a picture of the bus and you can maybe imagine 20 people inside?

Yep! Supposedly it was 2 1/2 hours to our destination... But yeah crammed in there it was like 2 days. :) Not really.. We had a real fun time...
We finally got to the trail for the falls and climbed down hill to get here.. It was nice and cool on the way down to the falls. We were able to go swimming and really enjoyed our time there. Then we had to climb up the hill in the heat! Ack!

 My African food that I had from the clinic:)

The days are flying by real fast here! Last weekend I was able to visit a beach nearby that was on the safe list(SOOOOO beautiful).
Also I was able to get to another market. It was CRAZY busy. Full of people! So the people were not hassling us so much since we were not the only ones. We went to several shops to look at fabrics. Some of the ladies are having African dresses made to take home.

The woman here in Togo are amazing.. They carry everything on their heads! I am wondering if they often have headaches? We saw a woman in one of the markets walking around with chickens in a large bowl on her head! The chickens were very scrawny.. But anyways.. We were so amazed that we asked if we could take a picture of her with the chickens on her head. She said no, but allowed us to try out how it feels to carry chickens that way. Ok.. Very HEAVY. :) 

 We've been super busy at the dental clinic so far this week! Today we had another dentist join us! So now we have 3 dentists! And for a little while only 2 assistants. Luckily our day workers(translators) also are trained to do some assisting. We were able to do a couple fillings today on some teeth.. That's always a nice change instead of extracting teeth. It's amazing how difficult some of the extractions can be. We can sometimes spend over an hour trying to get one tooth out. Makes the day go a little slower if we get stuck. But our dentists can take out ANY tooth. :) They are quite amazing! The whole room will always know when we remove a difficult tooth because there is a loud chorus of "HALLELUJAH" . :) Sometimes the patient will join us in the singing. :)
Still have not tried the fufu African food. But tomorrow I am having an African dish at the dental clinic. There is a little restaurant right next to us that the day workers get their food at.

This weekend some of our day workers will take us up to Palme to see some Waterfalls! It's a two and half hour ride by bus. Should be loads of fun!

The days have been real nice here this week. Not too hot and you know it's not too cold! Thank goodness! We can stand outside and be very comfortable. The past week was very warm and sticky so  I am hoping the good weather will stick around for a while. I've been trying to get out on deck to watch the sunset here but the skies are very cloudy lately. I'm not sure if it's true but people have been saying it's the winds from the Sahara desert blowing our way and  that is why it's not too hot as well. ??
Today and yesterday were crazy days at the dental clinic. Almost every patient we saw, we sang hallelujah after finishing. So nice to get back to the ship and get clean after work. :)
The food on board the ship is not bad! But I have to say I miss my own cooking.We have a crew galley available to all of us to use. And in the ship shop that we can purchase things for baking/cooking along with many other necessities. I have chocolate kisses with me. And I have friends that have never had peanut butter blossom cookies! So I must introduce them to my favorite cookies!
I went to the marketplace on Saturday with 2 other girls. I have to say I did not enjoy it at all. :( I was expecting a nice experience like in Nicaragua or Guatemala. Nope! The people hounded me everywhere I went. I told them I was just looking but they were extremely pushy people. Come look at my shop.. Looking is free.. on and on.. So.. I won't be doing much shopping if that's the way it is here.:(
One of the day workers shared some African food with me today. Some rice with a tomato paste(with spices) and fish. I liked the tomato stuff a lot! So good!:) There is a little restaurant right next to our clinic that all of our day workers(volunteers) get their lunch. I may have to check it out myself sometime. So far I still have not tried the fufu food. The team leader of our dental group said he could take us out sometime to try it. :) With a name like fufu... I'm rather curious!

My first day at the dental clinic was super good! I met the whole dental team Thursday morning at the reception desk where we gathered up all our supplies for the day. After loading all of our supplies into our two Land Rovers we drove 15 minutes to the Dental Clinic. The scenery here is so familiar to me. I feel like I am in Central America. :) The same flowers and trees that I've seen in Nicaragua or Guatemala. I am wishing the language was the same as in Central America. French is the common language here. And I just have to say my French is non-existent. So,on the ship we have Rosetta Stone! I will be checking that out soon.
Ok, we got to the dental clinic and met the day workers(local volunteers that work as translators and do other volunteer jobs). They are sooo super helpful! They do a pre-screening of  the patients. Then we see the patients after them.
To start out our morning we begin with devotions on the top floor of the clinic. The day workers are very musical so we do some singing as well.The team I am working with is exceptional! I am very impressed. Right now we have one dentist and 4 assistants. More dentists will be coming in soon. I think we are hoping for 5 dentists. We also have one hygienist and a sterilizer. So on Thursday half of us were able to go to a local school nearby for the morning. We taught about 130ish kids how to brush their teeth and floss. The kids were adorable! And quite well behaved!
After teaching at the school we went back to the clinic and started working. Most of the patients we saw needed extractions. And I'm learning that we will be doing mostly extractions. We saw 24 patients and then we were done for the day! We packed up and drove back to the ship.
Life on the ship is very nice! I didn't know how I would like it. But I guessed that I would love the sense of community. And yes, I do! I think I could live in a community like this for a while. :)
Friday at the dental clinic was a little bit of a harder day. But still good! Most of the extractions were very difficult. It seemed like every tooth we went to remove one or two of the  root tips broke and we ended up having to do  surgery to remove the root tips. We removed one UL 3rd molar  that had 4 ROOTS(I've never heard  or seen anything like it!)!! There was a happy hallelujah when it finally came out! :)
Now it's the weekend and I am going out to check out the surroundings with a group of people! I've been offered a chance to eat foofoo? Or is it fufu? No idea.. But that's how you pronounce it anyways. One of the day workers said he would bring me some. It's typical African food I guess.. I'll find out more later! :)

Arrival into Lome:)

I arrived late Monday night into Lome, Togo after crazy flight problems. :) I met up with 2 other dental assistants in the airport and 2 nurses. After a 20 minute drive  we made it to the ship and I was given a quick orientation and a warning about the next mornings fire drill. :) Tuesday  more orientation..I've now been clued in about life on a ship... Two minute showers... At least they are not cold too.. :) I've already met so many amazing people! I keep meeting more at each turn.
Today (Wednesday) we had a screening day for all hospital surgery patients. We traveled in Land Rovers 30 minutes or so to a soccer stadium(we left the ship wicked early.. I got up at 4:30 ugh*). There we split up into groups to pray for the day and patients and then to do the screening. My job was to escort patients from the nurses, in charge of scheduling, to the pharmacy people. It was an awesome but exhausting day. Working close with the nurses,  I was amazed by the amount  of compassion and kindness that radiated out of them to the patients. So many wonderful people here! I'm getting to finally see this organization for myself and it's more amazing that I thought!
Tomorrow I get to see the dental clinic for the first time. I'll have orientation there and see what else happens.:)

I'm preparing for the trip that is now just a week away! So much to do in so little time. So many people that I want to see before I leave.  I never thought there would be so many things to do before leaving for 5 months! My room is a HUGE disaster area..Maybe my next free night I will actually get some cleaning done. :)
I'm thinking about how much I will miss my little dog that is sleeping next to me as I write. 
Also thinking about how AMAZING my mother is. If not for her support I would not be going on this trip so easily. She has made my busy life so much easier to handle! I'm going to miss her a lot! And also she is my editor so.. These blogs may be very rough reading. :) I apologize.:)

So, what is Mercy-ships? Mercy-ships is an awesome global organization that travels to 3rd world countries(they are based on the coast of West Africa right now) and provides free medical care for people in dire need. Along with that they have programs for  community development, agriculture training, water projects, and mental health programs. AIDS/HIV prevention and care to terminally ill patients in developing nations around the world. This organization provides surgeries and health care to correct or otherwise aid blindness, corneal growths & crossed eyes, deformities, tumors, cleft lip/palate, congenital abnormalities, burns & leprosy, oral disease, dental, extractions & procedures, oral hygiene education, and childbirth injuries.
(I borrowed that from their website) www.mercyships.org 

Check them out! :) I just love what they are doing and can't wait to join them!
My next post will be updating you when I arrive in Togo, West Africa!
Thanks again to everyone that has been supportive of my trip and is praying for me! May God bless you!
<3 Karen