And all of Your children will stretch out their hands/ And pick up the crippled man

It occured to me that if you are just reading my blog, it would not give a good picture of what is going on during the outreach. I mean, we all know that the ship is a hospital ship providing free surgeries for the forgotten poor, but what does that look like?

Here are some statistics from the 2009 Benin outreach:

Reconstructive and Plastic Surgery:

Reconstrictive and plastic 996
Cleft lip & Cleft Palate 185
General Operations 1,161
Local Surgeons trained 2

Ophthalmic Surgery:

Cataract removal 3,521 (Sometimes as many as 40 a day!)
Pterygia removal 448
Strabismus repairs and enucleations 122
Local surgeons trained 5

Field Eye Clinic:

Eye Evaluations & Treatments 33,851
Distribution of Sunglasses 7,083
Distribution of Readers 5,689
Training Community Eye Field Workers 18

VVF Repair:

VVF Repairs 154
Surgeons trained 4

Orthopaedic Surgery:

Orthopaedic Surgery 231

Dental Clinic:

Dental patients 10,175
Dental hygiene patients 794
Oral health education 13,174
Train teachers in oral health 25
Train Beninese as dental assistants 2

Palliative & Outpatient Care:

Home Care 28
Support Burkitt’s lymphoma patients 6
Train Family in wound care 19

Locals were also trained in Agriculture development, mental health care, and administration, among other things.

I could list more. The crew of the Africa Mercy was busy over the 10 months they were in Benin! The statistics are from: http://navigator.mercyships.org/download/attachments/23331521/Benin+2009+Field+Service+Thank+You+Presentation+10Dec09uk.pdf?version=1

Hopefully you can access that. It is a wonderful slide show that they played for the dayworkers on their last day. It has pictures and a little more information about things.


"As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?'
'Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.' "

John 9:1-3