Francois

There is so much more to each of the patients that we treat than just repairing the obvious deformity. To maintain a hospital ship with the staff and resources to perform major maxillo-facial procedures is considerable. Even the relatively simple cleft lip procedures can produce dramatic effects in families and truly change the destiny of a child. The following, though rather long, are threads of the story of Francois told through our friends Mark and Nari Palmer, and the pediatric ward supervisor Ali.

Joan, a member of the advance team living with us at the Programs Support Facility, leaned in close to Mark and I and quietly said “I have a question for you and I want you to think about it before you give me an answer.” Whoa! “What is it?” we ask. She begins to tell us she received an e mail from one of our hospital day volunteers from Benin, telling her of 2 little babies with cleft lips that were quite malnourished and being cared for at a local orphange. She wanted to bring them to Togo and see if they would be accepted into the feeding program and given appointments for surgery. The problem was that they did not have anywhere in Lome to house the mother and child. They thought they would be received by a local village chief, but when they found out the child was Beninoise they were not welcomed. They wanted to bring the little family the day the ship arrived and of course the wards would not be ready to receive them and the Hospitality Center would not be equipped for a few weeks either. Her question for us was would we be willing to accomodate them until the HC was open? Well what was there to think about? An adorable little baby and his mama in our home, that is what we are here for, to help those in need and to extend the loving arms of Jesus to the broken and hurting. Joan fired off an e mail to her friend. Soon we would hear that one of the little ones was accepted to a hospital in Parakou, Benin and we would be welcoming Francois and his mother Pirrette and his paternal grandmother Juliet.
The day of the ships arrival was filled with anticipation and celebration. There were native dancers and musicians to welcome the Africa Mercy into her berth, as well as government officials, the advance team, as well as our team on the ground. The next part of the story comes from one of the nurses here on board named Ali.

Later, much later, when the sun was almost down, the dock was deserted. The drummers had long ago piled into their buses and the marching band had marched off to rest their tired lips. I was waiting in line for dinner when a friend caught my eye. There's a baby on the dock. Needing no further encouragement, I ran out into the sticky air to find Francois.

He's very small, our Francois; he'll be two months old on the nineteenth, and he weighs a little over five pounds. Huddled around him was a much smaller welcoming committee than the one before. No drums, no fancy clothes, no dancing. Just a mama, a grandma and a little baby, all skin and bones, his lip and palate split wide, his future hanging in the balance. With them was a nurse, who I later learned works at the orphanage where Francois' mama was planning to leave him. She didn't want a broken baby, but the someone had heard that the ship was coming, convinced her that there was another way.

I took him in my arms, his little scrawny legs hanging out the bottom of the damp piece of cloth he was wrapped in. I buried my nose in the cloud of his hair, black and curly and softer than anything I've felt before, and I breathed deep before handing him over to our feeding program nurse who was going to be overseeing his care.

I wanted the drums, then. I wanted the handkerchiefs waving in the air and the ladies dancing in their finest African clothes. I wanted the whole world to know that here on our dock, a mama was choosing life for her baby. But they just climbed into a Land Rover in the gathering dusk, heading to the off-ship house where he'll stay until the wards are open.

And like that, it has begun. 

Francois, Pierrette and Juliet would stay with us for two and a half weeks. Mama and Grandma diligently followed all that Natalie, our feeding program nurse told them to do. Many times we would poke our head in to their room to find a freshly bathed and powered Francois snuggled into a pair of loving arms. We watched his tiny body begin to fill out and his little cheeks become more pronounced and chubby. We listened as mama sung to a sleepy Francois and boiled water for his formula each time grandma came to the kitchen with their little thermos. There were some difficult days. Days when Francois exhibited a slight fever or the days when harsh words were hurled at one another concerning Francois birth defect. But through it all, Francois grew and finally he was scheduled for surgery on Mar 9.

Again Ali writes, “Tomorrow, Francois will go to the operating room to have his cleft lip repaired. The mama who tried to leave her baby in an orphanage will have the chance to take him home with a smooth, straight lip. So while we all stood around praying, I snuck a peek over at Francois. His grandma was holding him, his mama's eyes shut tight while she mouthed the words of her own prayer along with us.

Tomorrow, we're going to see that prayer answered.”

“She came almost hesitantly around the door, her eyes searching for her son's. When she saw him, propped up on the shoulder of the recovery room nurse, she came close, peering at his face. Her eyes widened, and she threw her hands up to the sky, one short burst of praise before taking him in her arms and beginning to rock him back and forth, back and forth.

On a stretcher across the room sat the surgeon, divested of his gown and gloves after the operation. The hands that had placed the knots so carefully in the little baby's lip were still, folded in his lap while he watched the scene unfold in front of him. The mama who couldn't take her eyes off her baby's face, patting his back to soothe his cries.

I love watching the way their foreheads wrinkle, he told me. The way they just take it all in, like they can't even understand what they're seeing. I stood by his side, watching the mama and her little baby, a tiny family on the road back from brokenness. Later, I saw the tears fall from the grandma's eyes as she stared at the smooth, unbroken line of the little boy's lip.

And like the surgeon, I sat across the room, just watching them take it all in. Watching them turn his face to the light so they could look again and again, making sure that it was true.

Enyo gangi, Francois' mama told me, knowing that I speak just enough Fon to understand the cry of her heart. Gangi gangi.

It's good. It's so, so good.

This morning, in the corner of A Ward, a little baby smiled at me.IFor this baby, though, it was more of an effort. His top lip just barely moved, held in place by the steri-strips covering a neat row of sutures. The smile was fleeting, the smallest of moments, but his mama saw it and turned to me, her eyes full of wonder.

Konu, she whispered to me, hardly believing that her little broken boy was learning to smile like all the rest of them. A smile. She grabbed my hand and held it tight, gazing at her son who lay on the bed in a pile of blankets, kicking his legs contentedly. She let go after a while, and started to pack her things.

And so, once again, life comes full circle. The little baby who met us on the dock when we arrived was back out there today, resting in my arms again. Only this time, he didn't feel like he was going to float away. This time, I noticed the weight of him, felt his soft, round cheek squished against my arm and the rolls of his legs in my hands. This time, instead of a lip split wide, his nose sits atop a perfect, unbroken line.

His mama climbed into the car first and turned immediately, holding out her arms for her baby, her face alight with the promise of new life. I relinquished Francois willingly into those arms because I knew that her heart was as new as her joy.

Just a few days ago, the nurse asked a question of the mama who had tried to leave her baby boy in an orphanage, afraid of his split lip, afraid that she couldn't live with a broken baby. What will you do, she asked. What will you do when you go home? And Pirette, her smile small, revealed that life had won, that hope had finally found a place in her heart.

I want to take him home.

Gary