Adhan, Worship, and Veils

Adhan: the Islamic call to prayer recited in a mosque by a muezzin at prescribed times of day.

The day began as the previous day's have: worship and devotionals with our team in the clinic before we opened. I got to play the piano today :) which went pretty well. I got a little lost during the Arabic section of Oceans, but we found each other again and had a short laugh. Its one of the most beautiful sounds ever to hear a group of people worshipping in multiple languages and praising the same God. Ah! It makes my eyes water a little bit!

We then went to set up the dental room as they opened the doors to the growing number of people piling up in the stairwell. And as I'm setting out the dental tools, I could hear the call to prayer blasting from the mosque up the street. Again, that contrast. Music, but such opposite ends of the spectrum. Worshipping God or worshipping Allah. Being excited to freely worship versus being forced to worship. Choosing when and where versus following a pattern.

Today we saw about the same number of patients that we did yesterday, but we definitely saw more heavily veiled women. I'm not sure why, perhaps they took longer to decide to trust that the clinic was safe. Or maybe word took longer to reach the more devout areas. Either way, our team was happy to serve these women. Another interesting thing that I noticed today was how many people came back again today. We saw several people that we had seen either yesterday or the day before.

This was especially surprising to me when one lady in particular walked in. Yesterday, all three dentists spent probably two or three hours pulling out her wisdom teeth. And they did NOT want to come out. They were in there with every tool and angle they could find — even a mallet at one point! They finally got all the teeth out but the poor lady was pretty swollen and miserable. She was crying quite a bit too, but thanked us for helping her before she left for the day.

And then this morning, she came in smiling! (Albeit still very swollen and a little bruised) she again thanked the doctors for helping her and then sat down to get some fillings in her remaining teeth. I was just blown away by her trust in the doctors and her ability to see that through the pain, healing was being achieved.

I think it's really cool that they feel comfortable coming back for more work the next day, especially to the dental suite which is definitely the most painful thing we do at the clinic. Many are also bringing family, friends, and neighbors to the clinic. They must think the care that we are providing is worthwhile.

I also learned some new skills today as I assisted one of our dentists in doing a filling! It was interesting to learn lots of new tools and techniques, although I felt a little bad because she basically had to train me and perform the operation which is a lot. (Sidenote, rotting teeth smell bad, but when you start drilling into them, they smell far worse!)

Please brush your teeth and floss every day!!!!

Tomorrow is already our last day of clinic. I am so exhausted but at the same time, super not ready to be done — I feel like we haven't even made a dent in all (haha get it? Dental? I'm here all week 😉) the need here. I am excited to see what God has in store for the end of clinic!