The Canaries, Dry Dock, and Ebola

Well hello there and good day to you! I wanted to wait until we were nearly finished with our maintenance period before I posted anything but it turns out that wasn’t so wise; now I can hardly remember what happened at the beginning of the summer! It has been crazy busy with a lot of crazy fun mixed in. So as usual, this is a bit long; feel free to skip over as much as you like. 

I’ve never made a three point speech or anything but it seems like you should write about the points in the same order as the title,  ja? (I’ve been reading Bodie Thoene’s series of pre-WWII Europe and ja seems way funner to say; much like the Spanish hola to our English hello. I like happy sounding words.)  

So, to begin with: the Canaries. I had never heard of the Canaries until we came to Mercy Ships. In case you also don’t know much about them, here’s a picture so you know where we’re at. 

The Canary Islands belong to Spain and are about 100 km off the coast of Morocco (see the bottom right corner of the picture). We sailed straight to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria from the Congo--the round island right in the middle. The shipyard there has done maintenance for the AFM for years, so any work that has to be done by a shipyard (and not ourselves) is done there. 

Then the remainder of the maintenance period is spent in Santa Cruz on the island of Tenerife, which is the big island to the east.  

I’ve now decided that I’d like to retire and live here, if only for the fruit. And the ocean. And the mountains. And the weather. OK all of it. 

Really, it seems a little unfair that we get to work in such a beautiful location but it’s been really refreshing. It’s a good place to stock up on items that are hard to get in Africa--for instance, we were able to purchase new sheets for the ship and some other needed things. And in Africa, it’s unheard of for the sun to go to bed at any time other than 6:00 pm, but here it’s light until 9 or 9:30 so we get plenty of time exploring the island(s) after work is done for the day. It’s been a fantastic mixture of hard work and fun. 

I already posted about going up into dry dock--I’m so glad we got to experience that! It was really neat to see the ship out of the water. Some of you may wonder why all this hard work needs to be done on a ship that sits in port for 10 months out of the year. I heard someone make a great analogy for that--it’s the same thing as getting back into shape after you haven’t exercised in a few months! Your body has to work harder to get into good condition; being still doesn’t just keep it in shape (although I think we all wish that were the case!) 

Here’s some progressive pictures of work being done on the OUTSIDE:

Unfortunately, I don’t have lots of pictures of inside projects being done because I was busy doing my own thing most of the time. But I’ll try to explain a few of the projects here (with some technical lingo help from Jordan): 

One of the projects was fumigating the galley (kitchen) to clean out any critters that had made it their home. A lot of people pitched in to take EVERYTHING possible out of the galley and then wipe all the cupboards, walls, ceilings, down to move everything back in 24 hours later. Because the galley was shut down for a full day, we had food brought to us--I had to laugh when I saw “AFM fumigation pizza party” on the menu! 

My department has a fairly good-sized pantry off the end of the galley and it got fumigated as well. All of our dishes were moved out into the International Lounge for the evening--it looked like a massive kitchen goods garage sale! 

          

Some other big projects that were done:

• New flooring in the OR section of the hospital
• Lots of new water piping
• New flooring for some family cabins 
• Old vents cleaned 
• Prop shafts removed and serviced (pictured below) 
• Bow thrusters removed and serviced
• Freshwater tanks sandblasted and repainted 

Out to be serviced … 

And back in! 

There were lots of other smaller projects done as well. I absolutely loved seeing all of the work being done and the camaraderie of the crew throughout the whole 6 weeks. We were down to a much smaller crew--from 400ish to 120ish. So when there was something that needed to be done, anyone that was available pitched in to help. 

There are also people that come every year just for this part of the field service--when there’s no air conditioning and the water gets cut off and we have to go down 3 flights of stairs and up the street to shower or use the bathroom. It’s amazing to me to see all sorts of professional people who selflessly use their talents to serve the God they love! 

My department got to know Ikea very well. We were tasked with beginning a life-cycle replacement for some tables & chairs for family cabins along with some other things. Our first order came out in a few more boxes than we expected. 

But we managed to fit it all in to the car and make it back to the ship. From there it all had to be loaded on to the ship via crane because our gangway was taken out and replaced with a scaffolding stairway. I think we made 5 or 6 total trips and were loaded to the hilt every time.

We also went shopping for a hundred sets of sheets and towels and I decided as we were in the check out line for the second time in a half hour with three completely full carts that I would never ever again give anyone’s purchase a weird look. 

Jordan’s big highlight of the summer was going to dive school for a week with his buddy Derek. All of the coolant water for the air conditioning coils and the generators comes in through intakes on the bottom of the ship. Because of that suction, they also suck up dirt and bags and trash in the Arican ports. Usually that would all get washed off by sailing but since we sit in Port for so long the divers have to go down periodically and clean all the trash away. Also, because we sit in port so long, stuff starts to grow on the bow thruster blades and the main propellers and sometimes those have to be scraped off and cleaned. 

Jordan and Derek were sent to dive school by Mercy Ships so that they can be divers for the ship during our next field service. They both really enjoyed it and actually got to dive under the ship last Saturday to help with some testing on the main propellers.  Because the ship owns the diving equipment, they’ve also been able to go out and do some diving for fun around the Island.

         

Last but not least: Ebola. 

I have many jumbled up thoughts about that word lately so I hope the following paragraphs make sense. The news is such a wonderful and terrible thing, isn’t it? On the ship, we hear about Ebola much differently than I imagine you might. Or do you? It has affected the Africa Mercy and it’s crew so deeply that it’s hard to imagine not talking about it daily. But is it making headlines where you are? 

First of all, Don Stephens, founder and president of Mercy Ships, released this public statement about the Ebola situation:

As its hospital ship, the Africa Mercy, prepares to leave for its ten-month mission to perform life-changing surgeries and train local healthcare professionals in Benin, West Africa, Mercy Ships continues to be acutely aware of the Ebola situation in the region. The organization is taking appropriate steps to protect its volunteers and staff. In April, Mercy Ships redirected its upcoming mission from Guinea to Benin out of caution for the safety of its crew. Benin has no reported cases of Ebola. 

The Africa Mercy is the world's largest civilian hospital ship, designed to operate as a surgical specialty hospital. It is not configured to provide the type of treatment required by Ebola patients.  In addition to having changed its itinerary, Mercy Ships has also implemented strict travel restrictions to the affected areas and will continue to monitor the situation closely, making programmatic adjustments as needed.

Founder Don Stephens commented, “The well-being of our patients and dedicated crew is our greatest priority. It is fundamental to our continued service to the forgotten poor in Africa. Our prayers go out for the countries impacted by Ebola. These are places and people we know well because we have served them in multiple visits over more than two decades.”

Ebola is a terrible way to die. Can you imagine being contaminated and knowing that you had to spend your last few days absolutely alone or your loved ones would die in the same painful way you are going to? 

Yes, it is awful. But Ebola in any 1st world country would be blotted out almost as soon as it was discovered. In countries where there is health care training and adequate resources it would not even be an issue. West Africa, however, is another story. Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone are three of the poorest countries in the world. Mercy Ships has spent a good deal of time in all of those countries for precisely that reason. 

Ebola is yet another disease that affects the poor the most. Mercy Ships’ mission statement is: “We follows the 2000-year-old model of Jesus, bringing hope and healing to the world’s forgotten poor.” It’s hard to watch suffering and want to do something--anything--and know that there is physically nothing we can do. However, this is ultimately why we do what we do: in addition to providing surgeries, we are actively providing more and more health care education so that we can leave behind trained professionals in the countries we serve. We hope and pray for a day when Ebola will be just as quickly snuffed out in West Africa as it would in Europe or North America. 

Please do not quit praying for West Africa--for help, for resources, for understanding, and most of all, for God to be glorified no matter what! Please also pray for us--Mercy Ships has a long history with those three nations in particular and we have many friends in them! We also work alongside West African crew members, of which a majority come from Liberia and Sierra Leone. 

My (Katie’s) family has deep roots in West Africa--my great-grandparents were missionaries there and each generation since (on both sides of the family) has spent years and years there. Hope Clinic, where Jordan and I have many dear friends, was just last week brought directly into the news with their first Ebola case. Our hearts are grieving with our friends and their countries. 

The bottom line is that we are perfectly safe--Mercy Ships first priority in this situation is the care and safety of its crew. We have a team of medical professionals who are constantly reviewing the situation and we get updates very regularly. We changed field service locations from Guinea to Benin in order to take no risks at all for the crew. There have been travel restrictions to those countries as well. We are in no danger but there are three (now, four) very special countries that are and we ask that you join us in prayer! 

Dry Dock

We have just completed our first week in dry dock. It has been an incredibly different, busy week and I do believe I’ve loved every minute of it. 

One of the reasons I'm glad to finally be here is so that I can figure out what all the fuss is about--it's been a bit confusing at times to just hear "oh we'll do that in dry dock". Why do we do dry dock? Here is video that was produced by our communications team to show you what goes on. It will probably help the rest of this post make sense. :) It's just a couple of minutes long; I hope you enjoy it!

(I am definitely taking advantage of our "fast" internet here--up from 2.4MB to 8!!!)

We are down from around 380 to 80 crew. Part of that is lots and lots of goodbyes--this year quite a few long-term families left; either to move on to other things or to continue working for Mercy Ships in Texas. There were also a lot of nurses who served in the Congo but their 10-month commitment is up now and they’re heading home. But there’s quite a few people who are just taking their vacation time during the summer so it’s nice to know that we’ll some familiar faces come August. :) AND, anyone under 18 is not allowed on board while the ship is in dry dock so all of the families are staying elsewhere on the island until the middle of July. 

I didn’t know this until we’d been on board for a couple of months, but the ship does not go into dry dock every year; only every other year or so. The process itself was pretty fun and took alllllll day. The power was shut off which meant no one had access to computers and every cabin was dark so pretty much everyone was up on deck watching all day. 

[Disclaimer: the following order of events were written solely by Katie and any false information is completely accidental because I didn’t know any better. Also, anytime I refer to an ambiguous “they” it’s because I am not a sailor and I don’t know who did what. :)] 

The process started around 8:00 Wednesday morning with the pilot coming on board. Every port has a pilot(s) that guides each ship in and out. The pilot maneuvered us out of the space that we had been docked in since last Friday. Our power was cut and two big black balls went up on the mast to signal to other ships that we unable to control our movement so that they would stay out of the way. A couple of tugboats helped this whole process. 

The lifeboats had to come down because they are too heavy. So they took the opportunity to test them out and went zooming around the harbor for a while. 

Very cool but I hope that’s the last time I see those things in the water. 

We eventually made it over to the “parking place”. I couldn’t get a good spot for this picture but you can see where we are headed into. Can you make out the edge of the platform just underneath the water? 

Our ship was hooked up to essentially a huge pulley system and we were cranked into place. This tug boat held his nose against us to make sure we stayed straight. 

Once we were in place, divers went underneath the ship to make sure everything was good to go and then the platform was slowly raised up. 

SLOWLY. 

So slow that most people went inside (myself included) for lunch and when we came back out--WHOA! We’re not in the water anymore! 

We were pulled backwards into the parking spot--I suppose so that when it’s time to leave we can just head out. Here you can see where we came from and the platform. 

When I moved to Ohio, two things about midwestern culture absolutely baffled me: hunting for mushrooms and tractor pulls. About the former, I honestly thought Jordan was joking when he mentioned it once and then was shocked when, come spring time, we actually hunted mushrooms. (I couldn’t resist a Hobbit reference once I’d figured out he was serious.) 

About the latter, I remember thinking, “Aaaannd... we just watch tractors?” 

Well I now know that mushrooms are delicious (although anything wrapped in flour and fried in butter stands a good chance of being edible) and I think I can understand the fascination with tractor pulls. It was hard to not be impressed with this one: 

There’s another big tractor behind the three “little” ones that you can’t see in this picture. These guys pulled us out of the parking area completely and then they switched configurations to pull us to our permanent parking spot. The ship is in on train rails; that’s how the tractors are pulling us. There was some problem so it took us a while to get going but once we did it was pretty sweet--felt like we were driving an enormous vehicle at a snail’s pace.


This is a video I took of us on the last stretch. It took nearly ten minutes but I sped up the playback by 8x. If I do say so myself, it’s kind of fun to watch. :) 

Once we were in place, it took about an hour to set up the gangway--no longer one staircase. Our temporary gangway is actually scaffolding that drops off at the hospital since we are higher up now. It’s a little scary being three stories up with very little between you and the ground but I’m slowly getting used to it. Here you can just barely see the scaffolding being set up. 

Aren’t the blues incredible?? I just can’t get enough of the sky and water!! 

These guys work for the shipyard and couldn’t be bothered to wait for the scaffolding to be put up so they hopped off in the man box.

The ship does look pretty cool out of the water and it will be fun to see the various projects getting done--the drive shaft (are there two? I dunno) are coming out to be inspected, the barnacles will be cleaned off, and I think it will be repainted.

We couldn't resist some photo opportunities. :) These are my good friends Hannah and Tegan that I work with--I am so grateful for the chance to meet them! They are wonderful women of God and we get along so well; we can make any day fun. :) 

Dry dock has been different inside the ship too. We are running on less power so not as many lights are on and the background hum of the engines is gone. It’s actually kind of eery. Less power also means no air conditioning. Thankfully every door that can be opened up to let the outside air in has been and some of it filters it’s way down to our cabins (where we have a window that doesn’t open--helpful at sea but not at the moment!). Outside though is beautiful; Gran Canaria is a small island (only 31 miles across) so the temperature is fabulous with all the ocean breezes. It kind of feels like a sunny late September. 

Lots of projects in the hospital! 

The Canary Islands are Spanish islands but are autonomous. They are just 100 miles off the coast of Morocco. They were the last outpost for Spanish ships before sailing west and south; in fact, Christopher Columbus stayed here in 1492 before he (unintentionally) found North America. The islands are now a big tourist attraction; kind of like the Cancun resort  destination for Europe. As a result there are people everywhere. I enjoy it since I don’t know who’s a native and who’s a tourist and it’s just fun to see people walking out and about. The city is made for outdoor activity--there are huge boulevards to walk down, tiny streets with shops, a boardwalk facing the sunset and beach with mountains in the distance, biking trails, and parks. It’s really beautiful and we are enjoying the late summer evenings--it’s wonderful to get a full day’s work in and still have time to take a walk before dark and see the sun set! In Africa the sun only ever goes down at 6:00 so once the work day is done, that’s all she wrote. 

The flowers and trees have been a welcome surprise! So much beauty. 

And that’s about it! Jordan and I are both really busy. There is a lot of work being done in cabins--including LOTS of flooring and furniture improvements/repairs. As Crew and Guest Services Manager, I’m in charge of furniture in the cabins and guess who’s in charge of fixing cabinets in the cabins?? The carpenter! So we have both been quite busy. 

It’s a lot of fun though and the difference in work has been good--sometimes it’s just nice to switch things up a bit. :) 

I don’t usually do this but here are some prayer points:

Pray for safety for everyone involved--safety for the crews at work, for the families away, and for the people traveling for the summer. Pray we get our projects done in good time--changing field service locations from Guinea to Benin at the last minute has put us into a bit of a time crunch. Pray for west Africa as we heard this week that the Ebola situation is getting worse--it has now spread from Guinea to Sierra Leone and Liberia which makes an end seem nowhere near in sight. Pray for energy for the crew; this is not a vacation, no matter how beautiful the beaches are and there is a lot of hard work to be done. 

Thanks for sticking with me here. :) 

Sailing

We are about halfway through our sail from Pointe Noire, Congo to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. Let me tell you, it is one of the weirdest and disconcerting things I’ve ever done. Nothing has changed in our cabin--except that everything is off the shelves and glass items are packed away carefully so it looks like we’re in the middle of moving. My office is still 30 seconds away and there is still work to do but my route to get there is a little comical; everybody I meet is ricocheting off the walls and walking down stairs is a little bit dangerous if you’re not careful! Inside this big metal box that we’ve come to call home is exactly the same but outside there is absolutely zero to see except deep, blue sea. It’s truly beautiful and also scary; you realize just how big this wide world is and how much of it is purely under God’s will--namely, all of it. 

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before but the  Africa Mercy used to be the Dronning Ingrid, which means “Queen Ingrid” in Danish. It is one of a set of triplet ships that ferried passenger trains across channels in Denmark. Because it wasn’t built primarily for the open seas, its bottom is flat, as a that makes it much more stable wehn docked, which was the majority of the time in its former and present lives. That’s not to say that it won’t do fine in the open seas, it just makes for a bit rougher of a ride than a v-shaped hull would make. A flat-bottomed boat rides on top of the waves where as a v-shaped boat rides through the waves. Jordan says to just picture a shoebox floating on on waves and you’ve pretty much got an idea of what it does. Every wave around us has an impact. 

[FYI, I got all that from Jordan and the next best thing: Wikipedia. *gasp*] 

Needless to say, I have been dreading the sail. I can’t even swing on swing set without feeling a little queasy so I figured I would be in trouble once we got out of the harbor and I was right. :( I spent the first 5 days of the sail in bed and on Thursday I finally got an injection that took away the nausea and that combined with several other medicines has gotten me back to normal. Now I’m not minding the sail too much but I will be very grateful to see some land.

Jordan has been loving the sail as it’s given him the chance to do some new things. Just before we left, a huge storm came in and sent some pretty massive waves crashing along the coast--so badly that even in the harbor the water got really rough and several of our mooring lines snapped. The entire deck department was out on the mooring decks all Friday afternoon and it was pretty stressful for them but thankfully it all got under control. 

It’s weird to have everything around you stay the same but look outside the window and it’s different. Since we’re sailing north, the weather is changing too--below the equator, where we were, the rainy season was pretty much over. Now we’re above the equator and we’re getting a lot of rainy/cloudy days. It’s also staying light longer into the evenings. 

Anyways, that’s about it but I thought I would post some pictures. :)

See the tail lights poking out from that container? All of the cars got loaded up to deck 8 for the sail. 

Last but not least: the gangway was loaded up (that's Jordan in the blue).

Every port has pilots that guides each ship in and out of the harbor. When it's time
for them to leave, they hop from one boat to the other!

Goodbye to our dock space--look at that lovely water!

The bow is only open during the sail but it gets plenty of use when it is!


This sail introduced me to flying fish--so cool! They've got little wings
and will pop out to fly for a few seconds before they go under the water again.


Today we finally saw dolphins--just a few and not for very long but it was
long enough for me to see why they are a favorite animal for many people. They were beautiful!!

And the water is that blue all the time too--breathtaking.

The Good, the Bad--But Hopefully Nothing Ugly

Well, here we are again. :) 

First of all, I have to say a big THANK YOU to Vineyard Fellowship for sending us that video of greetings. You will never know how much that meant to us! Branton, thanks for acting on an idea and doing it so professionally! We get these moments of “OK we know we’re supposed to be here” and watching that video was definitely one of those moments. 

This post will be a little bit all over the place--some pieces of news and some updates on Mercy Ships life and our own lives. It’s been trickier than I thought it would be to write a well-balanced view of life--not all rosy, but definitely not all bad: just real. I hope that this post reflects real life to you. That’s the reason for the title: The Good and the Bad, but hopefully you don’t find it ugly. :) 

We just finished our time with Brian, Sandy [Mom and Dad:)], Luke, and Sara. I don’t think we realized ahead of time just how much that visit would mean to us. It was incredibly surreal to see them walking around the ship! There were lots of highlights but I think the coolest thing for all of us was them getting to see our life with their own eyes. I am ever so grateful for internet and phone lines but there is just nothing quite like seeing something for yourself, is there? It was fun to introduce them to our friends and people really opened up to get to know them--the friendliness of crew who say hellos and goodbyes daily will never cease to amaze me! I felt like they got a good mix of what life is like--they helped us around the ship (Jordan more than me as my department is a bit slow this month with lots of people leaving), visited one of the Mercy Ministries (handicapped tailors), observed surgeries, participated in a fire drill, went to the beach one day, attended a community meeting, watched ships come in and out of the port, and sat in the dining room chatting waaaay after dinner was done each evening. Oh, and I should probably mention: sweated buckets! 

The flip side (hearing about their lives) was just as important. A lot has happened in eight months and it’s way easier to relay news when you have 9 days to do so. :) As fun as it is to get to know people of different cultures and backgrounds, it was refreshing to be in familiar company. We laughed a lot. :) 

Even more than that, it was a huge encouragement on a personal level to have them here. Another facet of real life: we have days where we don’t feel good enough and we compare ourselves to those around us. This still doesn’t quite make sense to me, but for some reason having them around helped me to put things in perspective--why we’re here and why we do what we do. Sorry if that sounds ambiguous because I know it does, but it was just really cool to have people that we respect and whose opinions we value affirm us. 

It was wonderful and went way too quickly but to be fair, we knew it would. :) 

Next: I assume that most of you have heard that we are no longer going to Guinea for the 2014-2015 field service. I’m sorry for not posting anything about that on my own but that announcement touched very close to home and I didn’t want to just say anything without thinking it through. In March, we received news of an Ebola outbreak in the southern region of Guinea--very close to Hope Clinic. We followed the situation, assuming it would clear up soon but also aware of the fact that even though the ship itself wouldn’t arrive in Conakry until August, there were other preparations that had to be considered--probably the two most important being that containers carrying supplies needed to be sent ahead and also the Advance team of about 10 people that would be living in Conakry from May to August to prepare for the ship’s arrival--arranging for visa waivers, negotiating with government and port authorities, finding a screening site for the first mass screening day, setting up the Hope Center, as well as finding sites for the dental and eye clinics, among lots more. There is more to this mission than just a floating hospital and I am constantly becoming more and more aware of that. The time came closer and closer for the Advance team to fly out and there was no word that the situation was completely contained. Finally about a month ago, the Managing Director for Mercy Ships sent out out the following email:

The Mercy Ships International Management Team has closely followed the Ebola outbreak in Guinea and Liberia since it came to light in March. The IMT has consulted with a broad range of outside experts and internal stakeholders. While the international response to the outbreak has been strong and decisive, and we believe it will be effectively extinguished in due course, the uncertainty it poses at this time compromises our ability to plan and execute the anticipated Guinea field service. Our operational requirements to function include supply and personnel logistics that do not give us the ability to further wait on prospective outcomes of the Ebola situation over the coming weeks and months. As such, we have chosen to postpone going to Guinea and will instead return to Cotonou, Benin, where the Africa Mercy last served in 2009. We remain committed to a long term relationship with the nation of Guinea, and look forward to a successful field service to the people of Benin. 

I want to preface this next part by saying that I do not in any way want this to come across as selfish. And I also realize that in the grand scheme of things, it is really not a big deal.  But needless to say, that email hit like a blow. I am honestly excited about going to Benin but to think that we would be going to Guinea when we didn’t expect to go there in the first place (since the ship just completed a field service in Guinea) seemed like a cruel trick. I hadn’t even realized all of the little things that I was excited for in Guinea until I found out we wouldn’t be going. Going to Guinea just seemed perfect on so many levels, both personally and professionally. I kept saying that it was such a God thing, especially since Mom, Dad, and Hannah would be living in Conakry for the first time and that’s where the ship would be docked! I haven’t lived in the same city as my parents for more than two months since I was 15. My new job will involve working with local day crew and it just seemed perfect that I could work with a culture and languages that I grew up in. Trust me, I was excited and it seemed like God’s plan was a pretty perfect one. :) 

Picking up the phone to tell my parents and sister was not fun at all. The first words that both my parents told me were: “We have to trust that God has a plan in this.” I thought about that for several days and sort of came to two conclusions (neither of which are very deep but hey, they’re still conclusions):

First of all, I don’t think I have ever been more grateful for parents that live out the faith they teach. I’ve gained more respect for the hard things my parents have done while we’ve been on this journey: saying goodbye to their own parents and siblings and convenience (not very spiritual but still true), being away for the hard stuff (Pat Kaufman’s death and funeral), and good stuff (not being around for Ari’s introduction into the family). To already have all of that rolling around in my mind and then to give them news that I didn’t have any control over but would hurt regardless and hear them trust first and hurt later really meant the world to me. 

[And let’s not forget that they’ve put up with slow internet for a really long time. Insert funny story here: I have a kindle and that thing is truly wonderful, especially for long trips and having access to the Troy public library all the way out here. But last night it took me 45 minutes to download a book. 45 minutes. I found it ironic that I didn’t even want to use the internet to “face chat” or “snap flap” as Jordan refers to social media--I JUST WANTED TO READ A BOOK!!] 

Back to seriousness. Second of all, it forced me to come to the conclusion that just because the first plan seemed perfect, the plan to go to Benin must be even more perfect, despite it not lining up with my ideal. I have to trust that God has a reason for this, and to take that even further, He even has a reason for letting me think we’d be going to Guinea. 

And I guess I’ll wrap up with what’s going on right now on the ship. We are getting ready to leave Pointe Noire--it’s so strange to think that the field service is nearly over. We weren’t here for the whole thing but it still feels like a long time! I think Pointe Noire will always be a special place for us, since it’s where we started with Mercy Ships. It’s bizarre to think that we’ll be living in the exact same place and a totally different place at the same time. 

From here we sail to Las Palmas, which is in the Canary Islands, and the ship will go into a maintenance period until mid August. We’ve heard that the islands are beautiful so we’re looking forward to doing some exploring there. We’ll both be working hard too--Jordan is involved in a lot of the maintenance and I will be busy getting ready for the new field service in my new position, which will involve a lot of changing procedures (maybe more on that another time). 

It will be fun to have a change of scenery and also to SAIL! We’ll be sailing through 0’0’ (the intersection of the Prime Meridian and the Equator) which I think is pretty cool! Apparently when any sailor sails through the 0’0’ intersection they become known as an emerald shellback. We’re not sure what advantage becoming emerald shellbacks is going to be for us but I guess we’ll find out.

Time to bring this post to a close. I don’t think there is a better group of supporters anywhere--you guys are fantastic! We receive emails, letters and packages, pictures, etc so often from you and each one is so special! We will definitely be watching that video of greetings over and over again as well. :) 

Nothing important but lots of stories. :)

Remember that Nothing Important Part 1 post waaaaaay back in October? Here’s part 2. Just a bunch of random stories, some maybe a little bit important than others but mostly just what’s been going on with us, with some "life in Africa" bits mixed in. :) 

{I hope you don’t feel too let down that I haven’t written since February (gasp) because I do post a lot of pictures on Facebook and Instagram so none of this should be too new.}

What can I say? We absolutely love it here. I never expected our experience to be like this. I remember one of my first posts after we boarded the ship about how excited I was to not feel any fear, just this incredible peace and satisfaction in being totally where God has called us. That “feeling” still hasn’t left. :) 

I do tend to write better with pictures so here goes. 

Pretty much from November through March, my department (Hospitality) was incredibly busy. For the beginning of that period, I was new to the ship and just figuring out my way around the department. In mid-December, I took the Head Hostess position and was busy figuring out how to be a manager. January, February, and March were crazy busy for the team; we seemed to have events every week plus a lot of guests. There are four different types of guests that typically stay on board: personal guests, Mercy Ships staff from other locations, business guests, and Vision Teams. Vision Teams are groups that are interested in seeing what Mercy Ships is doing. We set up and greet/embark guests but for Vision Teams, we typically also set up and serve them a luncheon while they meet with our senior management team. Believe it or not, a luncheon can pretty much take up the whole day! Plus we also had the President of Congo visit. I was incredibly nervous about it, since I’d never been a part of a presidential visit before. The Hospitality team is responsible for decorating and preparing the “hang out” area for the President and his entourage, and then serving hors d’oeuvres to the entourage when they arrive. A lot of hours go into that one sentence but (I've said it before and I’ll say it again) I was so proud of my team! Hard work is really all about the attitude you put into it and they were joyful right down to their closed-toed black flats. :) 

But the last two weeks have been a bit slow for us--we typically have a changeover rate of about 4 crew members a day, which equates to around 30 beds to make up and 30 new crew members to embark and 30 current crew members to check out each week. The last two weeks though have been super slow--one week we only had 7 new people arrive! So since work has been slow, we decided to take a morning off and visit one of the ministries that Mercy Ships has been a part of. These are called Mercy Ministries; they are local organizations that we come along-side with for the ten months that we’re here. I think there are at least 9--four orphanages, including a baby orphanage; a senior center; handy-capped tailors; deaf school; Jesus film (shown twice a week in different locations around town); and a ministry that teaches young women how to sew to support themselves. We went to the baby orphanage for the morning. It’s one of the favorites for new people to sign up for--all that is “planned” is to hold and love on babies for two hours. But everyone I've talked to about it has come away affected. These babies have either been orphaned or abandoned and brought to the Baby Creche (literally: Baby Manger) to be taken care of. They are all malnourished. Of course the women of the center care for them but it’s a lot of work for babies that don’t have a lot of energy because of how underdeveloped they are. And when one of them gets sick, they all get sick. Most of the time when we go, they are laying on the floor because it’s cooler. 

It’s really heartbreaking and it’s even more heartbreaking to leave--you can pretty much guarantee that they will all start crying when we head for the door. It’s really a perfect example of how hard it is to help sometimes: if you can’t give it all, how beneficial is it to give just a little? I'm not trying to be a downer; just writing down the question I wrestle with every afternoon after visiting these precious ones.

One of the other ministries is to a boys’ orphanage. Jordan was asked to coordinate showing the Lion King for them one Saturday evening on the big screen. (Jordan helps out with the Jesus film showing every Friday night so he knew how to set up the screen.) It’s really pretty neat what somebody (I don’t know who) came up with to show films on a projector in the middle of nowhere. Anyways, Jordan set up for the Lion King and then we got to enjoy! It was super fun and I was surprised how many of the boys had seen it before. I also noticed (again) how different culture is in unexpected ways. We were watching the movie in French but with English subtitles. Of course all of the crew members had seen it before so even though we were listening in another language, we laughed at all our favorite parts--which turned out to be totally different from when the Congolese would laugh. Not once we did we laugh at the same part. 

Watching the Lion King--it never gets old! 

Another weekend I went on a riverboat “adventure” with some ladies to be the French speaker for the group. We left the ship around 8:45 and walked the mile to the port gate and then past that to get a taxi. Our taxi had an extra row of seats so we crammed in and were on our way.  

There was a sort of flyer for this activity on the ship and it said that up to 8 people were allowed to come. I had called the guide on Friday and told him we would be a party of 6. On Saturday night, two girls asked if they could join and since the maximum group size was 8 people we said sure. We got to the river and as we all start piling out of the taxi our guide just watched and counted us ... and then his face started falling. He said, "You have eight people." I said, "Yes! That's how many we're allowed!" "But you told me six," he says. When we got down to the river I saw his predicament: he has three boats to take these trips on--two of them are big and one of them was small. 

He had gotten the small one ready for us complete with chairs and everything. We apologized profusely and told him we would do whatever since it was our fault but he said (and I kid you not): "Well let's just all get in really carefully and see how low the boat gets." So we all got in super slowly and gingerly sat down and him and his brother (our other guide) perched on two pieces of wood in the back of the boat and declared that we were safe. Then they popped a beer each, and we were on our way. I later found out that the small boat we were on was the only one with a motor--the other two were rowed by hand so I think they had a bit of motivation to get us all seated in there. We were really low so he told us we would go slower than normal. About 5 minutes into our "sail" he stopped the boat and explained to me that the motor was too low in the water and he needed to raise it. It was just definitely one of those African moments. I was sitting in the back of the boat so I tried to get a picture of him adjusting our motor and his beer all in one but I only succeeded in snapping a photo of his back end. Bummer. (No pun intended.)

Me and Heather, a fellow hostess. :)

We sailed up the river to a big lake, where our guide pointed out the Angolan border (we are very close and often reminded not to wander too close as the border police don't like that too much) and Pointe Noire in the distance. Then he pointed out a big baobab tree over on the shore and said it was 150 years old and we were going to see it. Around the tree is a fishing village. I think it must have been only men in this village because as soon as 8 white girls rowed up about 20 strapping young men popped into view. 

Sailing into the village.

We took pictures around the tree and then he led us through the village where a young boy had climbed a grapefruit tree to pick grapefruits for us. It was so random that we all looked at each other and said, "I hope this isn't some sort of marriage agreement ritual". But it wasn't so we all took our grapefruits and got back in our boat and downriver we went. The river truly was beautiful--green all around, perfectly serene, and ducks and egrets flying and floating beside us. 

Typically the group goes to his farm which is quite impressive and his wife makes a meal. But on this day, there were some other family events going on so he took us to a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant instead where we ate "lunch". 

The bread was good, the salad was good, the drinks were good … the meal though required some more bravery than we had to offer. 

 

It was good to see our home at the end of a hot day. :) I expected my bag to get lighter as I drank all my water but adding a grapefruit to the mix didn't help with the weight!

Meanwhile, Jordan had taken the day to go visit a friend in town and was treated to a delicacy: ngoo moko, otherwise known as bush hog boiled with bananas. 

Next story. I enjoyed this food a little bit more: my friend KJ and I both got promotions so we went out for dessert to celebrate! 

KJ will be going on the Advance team to Guinea--a team of about 8 people that leaves months in advance for country next and does most of the groundwork for the ship’s arrival (a BIG job!). She will also be the sales manager next year in Guinea--I’m super proud of her and know that she will do a great job!! 

I will be the Crew and Guest Services Manager starting July 1. Right now I am the manager for the hospitality team; next year I will be managing hospitality, hospital housekeeping, regular housekeeping, as well as being responsible for the hair salon, social activities, and library. I've actually enjoyed the managing side a lot more than I thought I would so I’m pretty excited about next year! The Crew & Guest Services Manger position is a new one and part of it will be starting to combine hospital housekeeping and regular housekeeping, which up until this point have been separate. It will be a lot of groundwork and new things to figure out but I am looking forward and would appreciate your prayers!

Next story. :) Last weekend we took a train to Dolisie, a town about 4 hours northeast. The train ride was by far one of my favorite experiences so far and incredibly surreal. Inside we sat in a very nice train, only about 4 years old with air conditioning and a food car and everything! Outside was lush JUNGLE for 4 straight hours. 

We went with Derek (who Jordan works with) and Elisabeth, a nurse who happens to be dating Derek. :) It was a super fun day; most of it was spent in a train or a bus but that was just fine as we loved every bit of scenery! I like Pointe Noire but as everyone knows, port cities aren't just famous for their beauty so it was super fun to get out of the city and see some of the country. 

The party of four. 

Our bus for the ride home (the train continued on to Brazzaville, 

the capital, so we had to find alternate transportation!) 

And that about brings us up to this past weekend! The whole of last week was full of Easter activities. The International Lounge was completely stripped of chairs and transformed into the Garden of Gethsemane where crew could come and pray all night on Friday. On Sunday we woke up early to go to the sunrise service on deck 8, the top deck. We started singing in the dark and just as we were finishing up the service, the sun burst through the clouds! It was really beautiful. After the sunrise service, we met in the Starbucks cafe, where the dining room crew had laid out all some snacks to tide us over until brunch. I got to experience a hot cross bun for the first time and it was delicious! :) At 8:30 we had our Easter service and afterwards there was a big brunch in the dining room. The galley and dining room crews really outdid themselves this weekend; some of them were up at 3:00 to start cooking! I couldn't believe their level of service! 

Jordan and I went to the beach with some other families that afternoon and enjoyed a peaceful afternoon chatting, reading, napping, and playing in the waves. :) It was a gorgeous beach away from town so super peaceful and basically just perfect.

It's not every day that I watch the sunrise AND the sunset. :) 

And that is just a fraction of the stuff that happened last week to celebrate Easter. I love that there has been such an emphasis on Easter--it IS so much more than just a Friday night and Sunday morning! The Chaplaincy really outdid themselves in providing an environment for Jesus’ sacrifice to be remembered. I can definitely say this has been a favorite year! 

Last night we finished out the holiday weekend with an open cabin night. We made cinnamon rolls and (attempted to make) Red Lobster biscuits (you know, the real reason people go to Red Lobster), Chai, and iced tea. I love open cabin; you just open up your door and lots of people come by to chat and hang out! It was a perfect end to a perfect weekend. :)

In a little less than three weeks, we are getting some visitors!! Brian, Sandy, Luke, and Sara are coming to see us! We can barely contain our excitement--actually, we can't!! I don't think a day goes by that we don't mention it. :) So tag along if you'd like! We would love to host you all! :)