June 29, 2010

10:00PM

Wow.

Today we met a hero.

Really really amazing.

We went on a tour of the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital today, and we

met and got to visit with Dr. Catherine Hamlin.

I can’t think of any words in my vocabulary to adequately describe

this woman and the impact she is making in Ethiopia.

She has been called a “new Mother Theresa of our age” by the New York

Times. Oprah has interviewed her and given money for a building on the

grounds. She knows the Queen.

I was speechless meeting her. I mumbled out, “it is such an honor to

meet you”, but just as soon as I got those words out, tears found

their way onto my cheeks and I was done for.

Truly amazing. I am still stunned that we got to speak with this very

normal and yet extraordinary woman.

I have stored away all that we saw and heard about at the Fistula

Hospital, and I will revisit it all often in my head and heart, I’m

sure. My sensitivities were for sure heightened as I walked the

hospital grounds wearing my own little Lucy Dawn.

This is an issue that breaks my heart. Women, some very very young

women going into labor days away from a hospital. Their bodies needing

assistance in delivery, so they labor for days…the baby dies in the

birth canal and causes great damage to the Mama’s body…she is left

(among many things) broken hearted, and an outcast, because now she

constantly leaks urine and/or feces.

Women come from ALL over to get surgery to fix this situation at the

Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital that Dr. Hamlin founded and continues to

operate at. (side note – she is EIGHTY SIX!!!) Fathers and brothers

literally carry their broken hearted, hurting, smelly and frail

daughters and sisters for days to bring them to the hospital.

Not one is turned away.

These women wait on the grounds in front of the hospital until they

are admitted and examined before getting a bed and having their

surgery scheduled.

As we walked up to the office for our tour, we passed dozens of women,

wrapped in blankets, face downcast, and wet cement and puddles under

them all.

It’s too much.

But wow. To meet a woman who is doing so much to heal. Not just these

women, but the way the hospital cares and educates truly is changing

Ethiopia.

I still can’t believe we met her. We’ll have to be sure to have Lucy

read her autobiography someday since her hand was kissed by Dr.

Hamlin. ☺ If you haven’t read it, I cannot recommend any higher her

book, The Hospital By The River. You will not regret reading it,

educating yourself and finding a way to be involved in what God is

doing through Dr. Hamlin and her hospital.

P.S. The other thing worth noting from today is that a large light

fixture fell in the kitchen. Josie and I were making pizza dough and

Lucy was laying on a blanket on the floor. I layed Lucy down for a nap

in her bed, and when I came back to the kitchen Josie was playing with

her princesses next to Lucy’s blanket. I asked her to help me again

with the dough, so she came to the other side of the kitchen and as

she helped me stir, the light fixture went CRASH on the floor. She

screamed, and cried. I was stunned. Her princesses were covered in

glass, little tiny pieces were on Lucy’s blanket. But no one was hurt.

Just in the knick of time. Thank you Lord. And can I just say what in

the world is my problem with being overseas and lightbulbs breaking?!