Last day at Chimala

I could not have put the last day at chimala in better words than my dear friend Allison. Below are the words that poured from her heart onto paper as the reality of our departure drew closer by the minute. Today was the last day at the mission, and I must say that I feel as though my heart has grown larger over the past month. I never knew I could have so much love for people that I never really even has a real conversation with. I woke up this morning to go to church, who have so much love and trust in us, but have I ever has a conversation with them? No. "kidogo Swahili." standing around in a giant circle after shaking over a hundred hands my heart just feels like it could burst. It is one of the best feelings ever, and to think that God loves each and every one of us!  We then sent the afternoon preparing fr goodbyes, writing out what we wanted to say on a card for each ears and a card for the patients we have grown to love. I the cards we expressed our love for them and God's love for them, each with a Bible verse, Phil 1:2-3 and Romans 15:13. Meghan and I then took the notes scribbled on notebook paper down to the hospital to get someone to translate it for us into Swahili so we could then transfer it onto nice cards. But before we went down to do that we stuffed my backpack with goodies that we wanted to give our friends. We walked into female ward first and went straight to Nazifa who had her mama at the bedside. We pulled out a five star notebook and a pack of fragile markers and her face lit up. Considering she hasnt smiled much since we took her for her past few dressing changes. This warmed my heart. Meghan then pulled out a kitenge and laid it on her, it was the green Tanzanian leaf one. Her and her mother repeatedly gave thanks. We then whipped out the peanut butter crackers, which I had a lot of. I gave some to Nazifa an then headed over to Bibi's bed to give her some, considering she was always asking for something to eat. She then, like every other day, patted the area of the bed next to her, encouraged me to sit there and then hug her. I wonder if this woman would be just as silly and goofy in English as she seems in Swahili. We said goodbye but knew we would be back later for our last goodbye. Meghan gave one more kite he for Malale's mama but we had no clue how to get it to her without the other mothers asking and wanting gifts. To our surprise and the Lord's will we ran into mama Malale outside of peds ward with no one else around. Meghan presented the "zawadi" (gift) to her and she was ever so thankful. We then continued on into male ward, where 2 of my favorite boys are. As jeremia heard our voices and knew that we were coming he covered his face to hide, just like he always does, and like I always do, I walked up to his bed, pulled the covers back, to reveal that sweet mischievous smile. Meghan and I got our daily high fives in and then dug into my backpack for some zawadis. I gave jeremia a moleskin notebook, just like the one I had given Odakis earlier. Then I took out my bag of pens and began dividing them up between the 2 boys and their smiles grew bigger with each pen of a different color. Odakis immediately began testing them out on his notepad. We gave the 2 boys some peanut butter crackers. I never knew you could make one peanut butter cracker last for 10 minutes, but somehow jeremia made it happen. We left the hospital knowing we would return later that evening for our last goodbyes. We spent the next couple of hours writing out cards as our list of patients we wanted to give them to kept growing. After evening church and dinner at the Stinsons, all 7 of us students went down to the hospital--headlamps on and notecards in hand. We went to OB first where we gave a card to the family of the most recent eclamptic patient. Their repeated thanks was very humbling. Next was female ward. We walked in to see all of the mosquito nets up, but through the nets we saw Nazifa's smile. We gave her the card and without even knowing what it was or what it said she clung it close to her heart and smiled. We gave Bibi a card and she had each one of us take a turn at sitting down on the bed next to her, giving her a hug, and then doing the snap handshake, where she then either gives you an approving or disapproving look based On how well your snap sounded. There is a lady in the back corner of female ward who has some second degree burns. She has always made a point to say hello to us so we gave her a note as well, along with a skirt from Meghan. She too gave repeated thanks. Meghan had a pair of white vans that she wanted to give to someone. She saw a barefoot lady and asked, "think she has size 7 feet?" with hopes of the shoe fitting Meghan gave them to her and a smile of thanks spread across her face. Meghan and I then gave our last hug to Bibi and then reached our heads into Nazifa's mosquito net to kiss her on the forehead . She said "kesho" which translates to "tomorrow" which is what we tell her ever day that we see her. To hear her say this just broke my heart and I left the ward hoping and praying that she lives a good life an knows God. After a quick stop in pediatrics we went to make ward where I knew I would have to say goodbye to the two sweetest boys. They were just getting tucked into their bed by their mothers and their nets were almost around them when we all came in for our high fives. We gave a note to jeremia, Odakis, and Ezekiel's mama and spent time getting our last goodbyes, photos, high fives, hugs, and twigas in. Odakis has become a very good balloon animal maker, with the help of Erin and her balloon pump. He had probably made about 7 giraffe (twiga) balloon animals. Meghan and I each got a hug from jeremia, which is a lot better than all the other times he has tried to bite or scratch us for fun because he thinks it is funny. With tears in our eyes we finally pulled ourselves away and walked out of male ward to find Nazifa's mom who had come to find us and thank us. She is a very beautiful woman and I love that I got to spend some time getting to know her and Nazifa. With last minute pictures and videos of the place we have put our blood, sweat, and tears into for the last month, we pulled ourselves away to make the last walk back to the house from the hospital. With Meghan and Ashli at my side we stopped at the bridge where the best view of the sky is. Looking up at the sky I felt so small, and could feel the greatness of God. The stars seemed to twinkle and all of the troubles of the world seemed to vanish and seem small when you look up to the big open sky and know that there is more to life. I want all of the people here to know that and feel that as well. That is why mission work is so important. You come to love the people, show God's love, let them know God loves them, and to let them know that If you give your life to God, true life awaits them past all life's heartache and trouble.