Stories of Hope

Justine and Parra

The first dress ceremony during the 2009 Field Service honored two patients, Justine and Parra. Their smiles and their songs of praise were as bright and beautiful as the colorful new dresses they wore. It was a celebration of new hope and new life!

Justine and Parra received free corrective surgeries for obstetric fistula (VVF). This common injury is the result of obstructed childbirth with no medical intervention. In over 90% of the cases, the baby does not survive, and the mother becomes incontinent. As a result, these women are often shunned by their communities and even their families. They live in the shadows – hiding and suffering from overwhelming shame and trauma.

“Those who saw us laughed at us,” Justine said. “We were suffering.”

Parra’s journey to the Africa Mercy from a far northern region in Benin demonstrated both desperate need and immense trust. She sustained the fistula during the birth of her third child, who survived the delivery and is now almost a year old.

Parra speaks a tribal language unknown to any of the local volunteers that Mercy Ships employs as translators. Despite difficulties communicating, she trusted that God would watch over her. Her faith was rewarded when she received her free corrective surgery and was able to sing a song of thanksgiving to the doctors and nurses.

Justine’s fifth child died during a long, complicated delivery. A fistula developed, and Justine spent the next nine years closeted in her home. She sadly says, “Every day, I was very tired, ashamed, and people laughed at me.”

Justine’s husband tried to find a solution. He went to different hospitals in the nearest city of Porto-Novo. One – ironically called the Good Samaritan – wanted almost $200 US to perform the repair, an impossible sum in a country where the average income is only $50 a month.

Justine and her husband heard about Mercy Ships because her sister had surgery on a Mercy Ship a few years ago. So, Justine came onboard the Africa Mercy, and only a week later, she was healed and joyfully ready to go home. “I have so much to thank God for, that God has delivered me and that the doctors have worked very well,” she said. “I feel no pain in my body, and I feel happy in my heart.”