A Tour: Decks 5 & 6

Happy Sunday peeps! 

I thought I would post some pictures of what the ship looks like from the inside! One of Hospitality’s main jobs is to make sure that everyone who has not been on board in the last twelve months receives a tour of the ship. This is maritime law and it’s to ensure that new crew know how to get out and off in case of an emergency. But since the Africa Mercy is really a unique ship, it’s also a cool opportunity for crew to see what all is available to them! 

May I be your tour guide? :) 

{Beware: Lots to follow!} 

Today I’m just going to show you decks 5 and 6 since they have most of the public areas of the ship on them. These decks definitely take the longest on the tour. Obviously you have to get on the ship before you can start the tour--climb up the gangway! 

When you walk up the gangway, the first thing you see is a guard! Our guards are all Gurkas, out of Nepal. You can read about them here; suffice it to say, they are perfectly capable of protecting us! They are the nicest guys you’ll ever meet though and know everyone’s names. They always have a friendly hello and hug to give. This is Tek; he has a family in Nepal--as do the others! They are here for 9 months and then go home for a 3 month vacation; the day they leave, another arrives to take their place. I can’t imagine how hard that must be for them and I’m so grateful that they come to serve! 

Once you walk in the doors, you’ll see reception (which I don’t have a picture of and I’m not sure why). Reception has all the embarkation paperwork for new crew and we work with them to embark new crew. 

Turn to the right and you’ll head straight into the dining room, where we eat all of our meals. The kitchen crew prepares the meals and the dining room crew puts it all out and makes sure the dining room is well stocked and cleaned. I am constantly amazed at how hard both of these teams work--cooking and serving for 450+ people is no easy feat! 

Back to reception. If you had turned left instead of right, you would find yourself at the area known as the cafe. Obviously it’s called that because Starbucks is right there but there is a lot more that goes on than just drinking coffee. On Monday mornings the cafe serves crepes and on Fridays they serve waffles. (This has successfully made Mondays one of my favorite days of the week.) There is also a big open staircase in the cafe which leads up to deck six, known as Midships. That whole section is kind of a big hang out section. Downstairs there is Starbucks and the Ship Shop, where you can buy cooking/baking supplies, phone cards to call home, T-shirts, mugs, toiletries, cleaning supplies, laundry soap, magnets, etc. There’s also a table with lots and lots of binders full of things to sign up for and lots of little round tables to meet a friend at for a coffee date. Upstairs there are three TVs which have come in handy for the winter Olympics! There’s also an internet cafe. 

{Lots of pictures of the Cafe & Midships to follow.}

Bottom is the Cafe; Top is Midships.

Ibrahim making me a double shot hazelnut latte. :) 

The Cafe recently acquired a popcorn maker! What's so fun
about the cafe is that anyone can volunteer to serve in it.
One of these days I am going to learn how to make coffee. In
the background is Mary, from our gateway, and one of the Academy
students volunteering to make popcorn for the night. On Friday night
the whole cafe was run by Academy students! It was so cool!
 Beautiful Serenety is currently pricing my butter for French toast in the morning. :) 

CREPES!

The Ship Shop

The information table--lots of opportunities to sign up: help
out with the dental or eye screenings, be a blood donor, observe
a surgery, befriend a patient on the ward, or serve at any of the Mercy
Ministries (boys' orphanages, deaf school, baby orphanage, etc.}

Olympics time has been fun with so many different nationalities
on board--33 different nations represented this week! 

Watching a movie in Midships. I was pretty
ecstatic that my crochet got here on the container. :)

Internet cafe

Because midships and the cafe are pretty big open spaces, they are home to a lot of events--most notably, Thursday night ice cream. We have a community gathering every Thursday and afterwards, each department takes turn serving ice cream to the crew. Last week it was deck’s turn so most of them showed up in their coveralls. :) 

The library is on deck 5 too! It’s full of books that people have bought in airports or brought from home and left behind. There’s actually quite a few good ones to be found and it’s quite a cozy spot. 

Crew can also volunteer to read to kids every Tuesday at 4:00, which is what my good friend KJ is doing. :) 

Also on deck 5 is the Hospitality office. That will change next year but for this year, it’s where we all meet at during the day. Here’s one side: 

.... and my desk.... 

The other side of the room is used mainly for storage but we do also use it to prepare for events. Here’s Cecily getting napkins ready for a luncheon. :)

{Side note: I’m fairly certain I have the best team on the ship. These women are amazing--each with a servant heart, content to be where they can be of the most use! They make me smile and laugh every day and I love how they affirm and encourage each other. It hit me on Friday that we must all really like each other because technically only two of us were working and the other two had the day off--but they came and hung out in the office with us anyway! :) Almost every evening when Jordan and I compare notes about our days I always have good things to say about my day--and these ladies are most of the reason!} 

And now to finish up deck 6: the laundry room and the crew galley--two pretty important places. :) The crew galley is stocked with pots and pans, two blenders, two Kitchenaids, a panini press, a microwave, toasters, ovens, and lots more. It’s all there for crew to use, provided it’s taken care of. :) The kitchen picture I have is actually one of Jordan!! He learned how to make spicy popcorn with a bunch of other guys. 

And it pays to be in the kitchen while the Gurkhas are cooking Nepalese food or making Chai--they’re bound to offer you some! :) 

The laundry room is last. :) Obviously with so many people on board, the laundry room has to have pretty set rules to make sure that chaos doesn’t ensue (or at least, not too often). Hence, the Laundry Room Bible: 

The Not-So-Holy Land of Laundry: 

It’s really not all that hard. There are ten sets of washers and dryers.. Each washer gets a page in the book for the week--Sunday through Saturday. Each person on board gets one laundry slot per week. You sign up for which hour you want the washer and that automatically gives you the next hour for the dryer. That means there’s a constant cycle of washing going on--the person that signed up before me is drying their clothes while I’m washing mine and the person after me is washing their clothes while I’m drying mine. So timeliness is VERY important. If you are more than ten minutes late, your slot is fair game to anyone who is in the room. If you are late but no one has taken your washer, you have to be careful what cycle you use to make sure that the washer is empty again in time for the next slot. 

Well, I hope you enjoyed this little tour! Other posts about areas on the ship probably won’t be as long but there’s still a lot left! I didn’t even cover everything on these two decks--there’s also a hair salon, prayer room, the Academy (school), and International Lounge (where have our community gatherings)! 

Sorry for the huge long gap in posts. But thank YOU for continuing to write even when we don’t get to it! We still get such encouraging notes with email or Facebook and we’re STILL getting pictures in the mail! It’s truly a joy to hear from you and know that you care! We love you guys--wish we could be giving you a tour in person! :) 

Some Changes

Ahhh... finally sitting down to write. Believe it or not, writing--on our blog, an email update, a task list for tomorrow, or pretty much anything--is one of my favorite ways of relaxing. I process when I write things out and I think that’s why I like writing; it serves as a bit of a debrief for the day. {I also debrief/process when I’m cleaning. But it takes about five minutes flat to clean up our cabin and I haven’t figured out how to process the day that fast.} 

So I have really been missing writing on the blog. {The blog? Our blog? I think it’s safe to call it my blog--maybe a bit of selfish ownership will convince Jordan that he can’t claim it until he adds to the mix! I’m a little doubtful though.} Enough with the rabbit trails.

I have really been missing writing on here but there has been a good reason for the silence. I was asked to take a new job and I said yes! I’m still in hospitality, but my boss had to go home very unexpectedly due to some health issues her mother was having. She was already planning to return home in June and so made the decision to bump up her departure date. I was asked to take her place and I accepted! I’m very thankful that  she was able to give me some training before she left and the changeover started during the Christmas holidays when we weren’t bus so I had some time to catch my breath. 

My official title is now Head Hostess/Hospitality Manager and I am absolutely loving it! There is so much about this job that lines up with my interests and skills and I am so grateful for the chance to be put in a position that I honestly look forward to every day. I feel a bit vain saying that--but I firmly believe that God has put talents in each of us and we find joy and refreshment most readily when we do what He made us to like doing! 

Most of my job is making sure that the things I wrote about in my job post (here) get done. That involves a lot of scheduling {Thing I Love To Do #1}. I get an email about each new crew member that arrives. We figure out what day their bunk space will be empty by checking our arrivals list against the departures list--on average, four people arrive each day to replace the four people that left the day before and sometimes the hour before! We notify that cabin that there is a new crew mate coming in and what day we’ll be in to make the bed up. We also give disembarkation paperwork to departing crew members. A lot of that is just scheduling when to do to what--which I really enjoy. I am TERRIBLE with remembering names; something Jordan just does not understand. But dates just interest me and I remember them--something Jordan is not good at at all! So we work well together. But the fact that scheduling is a big part of my job makes me happy. :) I also make a monthly schedule for the five hostesses that work with me. Each day there is an Duty Hostess, as well as each weekend. The Duty Hostess is responsible for processing arrivals (a lot of time is involved in those two words) and giving tours, among lots of other random things. 

There’s also a new side of the job--computer work! {Thing I Love To Do #2.} There’s lots of little things that have to be done on the computer, but the big thing is the guest calendar. I’m in charge of the guest calendar, as well as processing guests into our system. I reserve cabins and get information from arriving guests to get to the purser so that they can help with immigration. Guests can be personal guests of crew members, business guests, visiting staff, VIPs, media teams, etc. That boils down to lots and lots of emails between lots and lots of different people who have lots and lots of patience with me as I learn how this all works. :)

There’s other little things too but those are the big things that I’ve been getting the hang of for the past month. I knew when I started that I would love it -- but also that I would love it even more when the first month was done. That was definitely the case. There was {and is still} a lot to learn but I feel like I’m finally getting the hang of it and my desk isn’t such a crazy mess at the end of each day. 

I can’t say enough good about the other hostesses that are with me. The pictures in this post are already “old”--one of the girls is gone and there are two more now! But ALL of the ladies I’ve worked with have been just fabulous. They are so patient with me as I learn how to do this and are willing to do whatever--help me learn or work out scheduling or give ideas or whatever! They have also been incredibly encouraging when I’ve been doubting myself. I’ve been blessed to work with them! In fact, I’ve gotten tons of encouragement from all over the ship. It’s been a great community to take a {potentially} scary step in. :) 

Lovely ladies. :) 

By this point the wind was blowing
our hair every which way! 

Arguably my favorite accidental photo.
 

At your service. :) 

So there you have it! Thank you for your prayers--we do feel them every day. And please do pray as I continue to settle into this position. I want His Joy to radiate. 

Katie 

Thierno

Happy Monday!! 

This has definitely been the longest lapse of time between posts. Life has been extra crazy the last 3 weeks--there is a good reason for that though. I'm hoping I'll be able to write a post in the next week or so and update you a bit on why. 

But for today, I wanted to share this story that the Marketing & Communications staff brought to us. This story is about a man named Thierno (pronounced: "chair-no") from Guinea. So he's actually a patient from last year but his story was just uploaded for us to read. I read it a few weeks ago and was so touched--his name is a Fula name, which is my tribe. He is from northern Guinea, which is Fula territory and where I grew up. So this hit very close to home for me. 

But I think it's more than that--his gratefulness for the work of Mercy Ships (and above all: God's grace!) is so evident. Read on and enjoy!--and know that YOU are no less a part of this because you are an ocean away. It takes all kinds to make this work: skillful hands, serving hearts, praying words, joyful givers, and a caring God.  

~~~~~

My name is Thierno. I am Guinean. There is a story I would like to tell you -- it is a story of a man, a football player. This man was young and strong and fit. He played for his hometown’s soccer team as a defender. Then he was struck with tragedy and had no means for healing. Each word that I write today is proof of a happy ending, but I will never forget the five years of unhappy beginning. This man was me . . . 

Thierno, during his football career in northern Guinea. 

The tumor began small on my face. As it grew, I began to feel more and more pain. Within a few months, my health began to decline to the point that I could no longer play football. My mother stopped everything to care for me. She took me to many doctors who were tradition healers, and we tried to find a treatment -- but nothing worked. My mother became exhaustd with worry for her only son. With each month, the tumor grew larger. The creases on her face grew deeper. From behind my deformity, I watched her lose all hope. Then Mercy Ships arrived and said they could help. 

Thierno waiting to be seen at Guinea's screening day in 2013.

The atmosphere onboard the Africa Mercy was friendly and loving -- the doctors and nurses took such good care of me. Each day, I was happy and comforted in my hospital bed. 

Thierno and his mother, Djenabou, before his surgery. 

I cannot say anything -- I do not have the words. I am speechless because I am grateful to God for the doctors that were so competent and able to remove something so dangerous. Because God brought them together, this operation was possible. I will never forget Mercy Ships, and I know that today I find myself in good health by the grace of God.

After surgery and getting some air on Deck 7. Any patients that are able to
spend an hour each day up on this deck to look out at the sea and get a change
of scenery. 

I am so pleased that the government negotiated the arrival of the ship. I am not the only Guinean who has been blessed by it. There have been many Guineans who were sick and have found their health because of Mercy Ships.

For my part, I do not know what to say, any word, to Mercy Ships. The humanitarian support that the ship carries for us is unimaginable and inexplicable. I wish I could thank all of the staff of the ship, every single person, especially Dr. Gary, who put all of his effort into my surgery.

A letter Thierno wrote: "I am speechless." 

Over the next few months, Thierno's swelling
will go down and his scars will become less visible. "I think
he'll be back on the soccer field," Dr. Gary Parker says. 

May God protect Mercy Ships and bless Guinea and all Guineans! Amen! 

Merry & Bright

I’ve said that this blog is strictly for pictures and stories and not “thoughts” since I am not nearly confident enough to post my thoughts--nor do I have enough to post! But I wanted to share something that impacted me personally.

One of our sessions of class in Texas was about God speaking to us. We did an exercise to open up our minds a bit to see how God reaches out in different ways. All around the classroom were pieces of paper taped to the wall and each paper had a different “communication method” on it, like dreams or specific scriptures, or songs, or words of encouragement from a friend, etc. There were probably about 20 different papers all over. Each of us had a bunch of stickers and then we put a sticker onto whatever papers reflected how God has spoken to us in the past. It was fun to look around at all the stickers to see just how much God does speak to us. It was a good reminder! 

But anyways, my point in all this is that I realized that God speaks most normally and clearly to me through lyrics. I absolutely love songs because it is then that I’m most often struck by His Incredible and Steadfast Love. {I’ve noticed that every time God’s Love is mentioned in His Word, “steadfast” always comes before “love”. Always.} One of my absolute favorites {and I tear up every.single.time that we sing it} is: 

Because the sinless Savior died

My sinful soul is counted free

{and...here’s where I lose it}

For God the Just is satisfied

To look on Him and pardon me. 

I realized that there is just something about a Savior in the form of a baby that makes my heart melt. I know that Easter is an important time that we think about Jesus’ sacrifice but I think the sacrifice is much more real to me at Christmas time. A helpless infant? To save me? 

I know that not everyone is a fan of Christmas carols so skip over the next few lines if that’s the case. But here’s just a few of the lyrics that jumped out at me this year: 

Let earth receive her King

Fields and floods, rocks hills and plains repeat the sounding joy

{He is Savior for me personally and for the ground itself! Even nature rejoices.} 

Mild he lays his glory by

Born that man no more may die

{Philippians 2:10--He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.} 

Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod? 

When you kiss your little baby you kiss the face of God?

{Luke 2:35--Therefore the child to be born will be  called holy--the Son of God.}

One of my favorite parts of Christmas this year was the very end of our Christmas Eve service. We sang Silent Night in 7 different languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, and Norwegian. I love that singing a song or reading a verse in a different language allows you to pick up a little bit more of a different sentiment or meaning (I think I mentioned that in my post about our field service). I know this is a lot of reading but I’ve written out the translations for Silent Night in each of those languages. It’s beautiful to me that Christ came for every nation and people group and He loves the diversity we bring to worship him. I hope you enjoy! 

{Disclaimer: Google Translate did all these so if you speak any of the below languages fluently, please don’t laugh too hard if the translations are too word-for-word.} 

Silent Night! Holy night!

All is calm; wakes lonely

Just the faithful and holy pair high.

Lovely boy with curly hair,

Sleep in heavenly peace!

{German}

~

Night of Peace, Holy Night.

No noise in the barn.

In heaven everything rests in peace.

But suddenly in the pure and fresh air.

Shining angels

Appear to the shepherds.

{French}

~

Silent night, holy night, 

All are sleeping. 

Among its stars who spread their light 

Beauty announces the baby Jesus 

Sleep in peace 

Sleep in peace 

{Spanish}

~

Silent night, holy night,

David's son long-expected.

Those millions will once be blessed,

Born in Bethlehem's manger.

He, lord of creatures,

He, of creatures sir.

{Dutch}

~

Silent night, holy night!

Everything is peaceful. The star gently

shining on the child in the stable straw

and the watchful two.

Christ on Earth is come;

To us is born a savior.

{Swedish}

~

Silent Night, Holy Christmas!

Angels descend into hiding.

Into paradise green,

where they see what God is doing.

Secretly among us they go.

Secretly among us they go.

{Norwegian}

I hope you had a most wonderful, merry, holly jolly day. Merry Christmas from the AFM! 

Cabin 4311

Whoohoo! The container arrived early!! Every month a container from Holland and the the US (Texas) is sent. Longterm crew can mail stuff to either packing location--obviously medical/ship stuff gets first priority but if there is room, they will put your stuff on!  No fees ... just a three month wait. Since we put our stuff on the container while we were in Texas, we only had to wait a month once we got on board. But it felt like three months to me; needless to say I was pretty excited about fixing our room up to look like a home. 

When we toured the ship in January, I tried to get as many pictures of the couples’ cabin as possible. It was definitely weird trying to plan a room without being able to measure things or walk around. But I happened upon the email address of a couple on board and wrote them with some questions. They were so awesome and responded with LOTS of helpful information. And what do you know--they turned out to be our neighbors! :) 

So without further ado.. here is cabin 4311, hereafter known as home. 

{Disclaimer: I am not a professional photographer by any means!} 

Come on in...

and have a seat! {No nails allowed in the walls but thankfully ALL of the walls 

are metal so all it takes to hang up a picture is a couple of magnets! Easy 
to move around too then. 

We bought these bathmat rugs because they are cheap but super soft!

 They sort of make the bed feel like it’s in another room. 

And many many thanks to Sandy, who sewed these curtains up

out of flat sheets right before we left! They definitely make the 

space look different. :) 

AND many many thanks to Grandma Stull who sewed

 up the blue pillow shams there for me! :) The key to living

 on a ship is BRIGHT colors I think! 

The wallpaper looking stuff is actually a self-adhesive shelf liner. 

I found it cheap on amazon and there is tons of it! It just helps

 take away from the beige-ness.

View from the other side of the room. {Mail us your pictures so we can add to our fridge collection!} 

Pop on over anytime. :) 

And You Work As...?

I think I say this every time I start out a post but once again--I can’t believe we're entering our fourth week on board. I guess it’s about time you heard about our jobs! :) 

Both of us are really enjoying our jobs so far. We felt like we got plenty of confirmation about our jobs before we got here and it’s been such a blessing to feel needed where we’re at--and to love what we do. 

Jordan in the carpentry shop.  
Of course the two most frequently asked questions on the ship are: How long are you here for? [and] What do you do? When Jordan responds with, “I’m a carpenter,” he usually gets a “AWESOME!!!” And when I introduce myself people often excitedly say, “Oh I met your husband!! He fixed something of mine!” I think that that basically sums up what people think about the carpenters. There are two guys in carpentry: Jordan and Derek. Derek was in our gateway as well so it was really cool that they got to know each other before getting to the ship. 

Jordan and Derek at a cowboy church in TX.
 (I feel the need to explain the matching plaid shirts and boots.)

When someone runs into a problem, they fill out a work request form and check one of four departments for it to go to: plumber, electrician, engineer, or carpenter. So a LOT of maintenance stuff gets sent their way. And since they in the business of fixing whatever’s broken, people like to see Jordan or Derek coming their way! The carpentry position has recently gotten extended--it used to only require a three month stay but now requires a two year stay. This means that the carpenter can get involved in more long-term projects. It also means that hopefully the backed up work orders will get whittled down! 

Flipping through some work orders. 

Jordan’s shop is on deck 7 which is both a pro and a con... there is no air conditioning and the ceiling for his shop is the floor of deck 8, which is the top deck. So the sun beats down on the ceiling and that room is TOASTY. They do have a fan but hopefully will get something more figured out! But it's nice that they can walk out of their shop and have a beautiful view of the ocean. Pointe Noire is a busy port too so they see lots of ships coming and going every day. 

This one was particularly cool--it was HUGE
and unloaded cars for import all day!

They do work all over the ship though, which means climbing a LOT of stairs every day. They've also been working on organizing the shop a lot; being there for more than three months means they have a chance to organize in addition to working on projects (which they are doing as well). 

Working on the doors going into the dining room.

Organizing, organizing, organizing...

As for me, I am loving my job! Hospitality is in charge of making new arrivals and crew members feel welcome. We meet each new arrival, help them through embarkation paperwork, provide them a meal, and show them to their rooms. I love greeting people; it gives me a chance to get to know them before any one else does. It’s fun to know that you can be a friendly face to someone who just arrived to live with 450 strangers. We also give tours of the ship to those people which has been helpful for me--I was forced to learn my way around pretty quickly! 

Cecily (also in hospitality) and I waiting for new arrivals with the guards.

We also are in charge of cleaning cabins and setting them up for arrival. We do that for guests, new crew, and returning crew. A lot of effort goes into making the space look welcoming. I definitely appreciated that when I got on board so I’m grateful that it’s an important part of the job! 

We do a lot of set up for weekly meetings and also the occasional function. I love making things look pretty so it’s been a fun part of the job. :) 

And then--I get to bake cookies!! The kitchen staff (who do an amazing job, by the way) makes a lot of our cookies that we use for welcoming new crew and meetings but if we have a really busy week we will make cookies as well. Hospitality has their own kitchen for such weeks! We also make birthday cards for all the staff and deliver the cards, along with a $2 Starbucks coupon and a cookie pack. Starbucks donates coffee to the ship so all of the coffee is Starbucks --we basically just pay for the milk and water! So a $2 coupon would actually buy you quite a bit. :)

Can't be much happier than this. :) 

Hope you enjoyed. :) 

PS. If you are ever annoyed because some of the pictures are way over on the left when everything else is centered, I wanted to let you know that A.) I am not doing it on purpose--it drives me crazy too and B.) I'm not sure how it happens; everything is perfectly centered when I hit "publish" and then it does something funky. My sincerest apologies to my fellow OCD readers. 

Grace

We are entering into our third full work week! I will post some pictures of what our days look like as well as give you some more information, but today I wanted to shift the focus to the real reason that this big blue and white ship sails around West Africa. 

Even though neither of us have much contact with patients on a day-to-day basis, we do see them around. It makes my heart smile to think that after all we've heard about these patients--the pictures seen, videos watched, and stories read--these people that I see with my own eyes are having their lives drastically changed. 

We are both signing up for "Befriend a Patient"--you give the hospital your information and preference (if any) and then you can go visit your specific patient in the evenings or as schedule allows. I'm really looking forward to that! However, due to the privacy policy, we are not allowed to take pictures of patients or with patients--it just has too much potential for privacy to be violated. 

BUT, the Africa Mercy has a fantastic communications department that puts together pictures and stories and then makes those resources available to us to use in blogs and newsletters! It's silly that we should only ever write about our life on the ship since the bottom line is that we're here for the Congolese! So every week or two I'd like to post a story that the communications team has put together. 

With that said, meet Grace.

~~~

You may remember Grace, but you probably won’t recognize her.

Grace was one of our first patients up the gangway in Congo. On September 10th, Mercy Ships surgeons removed the massive tumor from her face. It’s been six weeks since her surgery, but 17-year-old Grace is as sassy as ever -- and she’s looking like a whole new young woman. 

“God is good because He did a big thing for me. I did not believe that I could be saved, but God has had grace. Mercy Ships arrived in Pointe Noire, they treated me, and I am better today,” Grace says.

Grace’s journey to the Africa Mercy began with an email. A hospital chaplain from neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo met Grace at a hospital there. The chaplain, Pastor Gregoire, was shocked by Grace’s facial tumor, which weighed 4.9 pounds (2.2 kilos.) Pastor Gregoire came alongside Grace, counseling and praying with her. He says she was often so distraught that she cried all night. Sometimes she refused to eat or drink. “Indeed, she suffered,” he says simply.

Pastor Gregoire took a photo of Grace and published it on his blog. A reader responded to his post, recommending that he visit mercyships.org, an organization that might be able to help. From there, Pastor Gregoire contacted the Mercy Ships Swiss office and exchanged emails with Christophe Baer. Through Christophe, Pastor Gregoire sent Grace’s medical records and reports to the Africa Mercy. The response was positive. Grace and Pastor Gregoire were asked to arrive in Pointe Noire, in the Republic of Congo, on September 2nd. 

Grace’s story is a chain of mercy forged by compassionate hearts, and their efforts were rewarded. Grace will have a second surgery on December 17th. Until then, she is recovering in the Mercy Ships Hospital Out Patient Extension Center (HOPE Center), where she has become the champion UNO player. As Mercy Ships nurses will tell you, Grace dominated every hand -- and don’t even think about challenging her to Jenga! 

In a few months, Grace will return home and being school. She hopes to study medicine one day, she says. Grace wants to be a nurse.

Please stay tuned, and keep those prayers coming for Grace’s next surgery.