VVF Dress Ceremony

Posted by Mercy Ships staff on Aug 02, 2010 at 11:03 am

Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from a blog post written by Catherine Schwebel, a crew member onboard the Africa Mercy.

Twice a week or so the sounds of African drums and joyful singing waft up the stairwells from the hospital on third deck. It's the Dress Ceremony for the ladies who are ready to go back home after having a vesicovaginal fistula corrected, sometimes after suffering the symptoms of urine leakage for decades. For most of them the condition was caused by serious complications of prolonged labor in childbirth, and many lost the child they were giving birth to.

Living with the effects of this condition can be devastating. Women are often discarded by their husbands, ostracized by their families, and live as social outcasts because of their constant smell with no way to support themselves. However, Mercy Ships is able to provide the relatively short and simple surgery needed to correct this and change their lives. While I was seated in the hospital ward, three ladies from this week's surgeries who were healed and ready to go home came in the door to the beat of the drums played by the Togolese day volunteers. Everyone clapped and there was a short message to encourage them to go back home with forgiveness in their hearts and to continue on with their lives in a productive and positive way. Each of the ladies shared their heart breaking stories.

As I looked at these brave ladies, some of whom had suffered for 20 years with the stigma associated with it, I began to examine in detail the patterns on the dresses they had each been given for the ceremony and for their return trip home. I had some distinct impressions from the Lord:

The first lady had on a design that shows birds flying out of a cage, which symbolizes she is "free at last"! The second lady had fabric with a design of ripe corn coming out of the husk, which seemed to say, "I'm ready for harvest, I'm ripe and complete, lacking nothing." The third lady had on yellow, with a pattern of a tree, which reminded me of Psalm 1:3, "She is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf doesn't wither. Whatever she does prospers." Each of these ladies will go home to a new and fruitful season of life.

All of us here on the ship, especially those not directly involved in the medical side of things, and our supporters at home, need to remind ourselves of what's going on in the hospital, dental and eye clinics and how Mercy Ships is changing lives and "setting captives free" both physically and spiritually. We are all working together as the body of Christ to bring Jesus' love and healing to those who need it most.

During the ceremony I had whispered to a lady next to me about how symbolic the bird cage fabric was, and later she found the actual fabric in the market and shared a piece with me. I will keep it as a remembrance of the freedom these ladies have received.

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