"All the teeth is outside!"

Yesterday at the hospital, our nurse and translator was Agnes--I mentioned before that she has worked here 22 years. She is wonderful and has brought much laughter and joy to our room while we are seeing patients. Like so many Ghanaians, she is so excited to be in photos. They are even more elated when you show them the instant gratification of the digital screen that captures their image. I took a picture of Agnes and Hannah, the nursing student working with her. When I showed them the picture, Agnes got so excited and tickled. I didn't know exactly what she was excited about versus the usual excitement of taking pictures. She said, "no, look, 'all the teeth is outside!'" I looked at the photo and, sure enough, the photo showed her smile was so wide that all of her teeth were "outside." What a great definition of a smile. That is the beaming joy here that I am talking about.

We soon applied it to a sad little boy who came to see me, because Dr. Hewitt had seen him earlier in the morning for a possible seizure. The little boy's right arm had been twitching, but Dr. Hewitt was unsure whether it was real. From my porch fire-side chats with the neighboring boys, I knew they all had exams this week. This young man had been having his right arm twitch intermittently for two weeks. When we examined him, it was suppressible and not true seizure activity. Nevertheless, it was induced by anxiety. We had the chance to talk about prayer and how Jesus can give us peace. I loved that Astrid, the nursing student from Belgium, played a spider game with him and suddenly after all of our interactions, there was a transformation in him. He went from being a sad, anxious child who was worried about his school tests and had a physical manifestation to a child with a glow on his face.

As Agnes puts it best, "All the teeth is outside!" Mission accomplished.