New Duvet Cover

When the ship sailed into Monrovia summer '07, I was blessed to have 4 special roommates for a few months. One of these women, Penny, gave me the idea to make a scrap fabric duvet cover from African fabrics. She had done this in Ghana and then was collecting Liberia fabric as well. When she left, she gave me a large garbage bag filled with different sizes and shapes of scraps. On and off over the last year and a half, I have cut and collected fabric and about a month ago got on a sewing kick and actually finished what I had started. I had also realized in September that I would need to be making a cover for a larger bed :) so instead of 60 squares, I was looking at about 130. Yikes! It took me about two weeks to get it all done and I was happy with how it turned out - it actually looks like what I wanted it to! If you ever come and visit, maybe it will be out on the bed :)

The Classroom

A great blessing to me this year has been being able to have my own corner of the ship in my classroom. In a space that is so big and yet so small at the same time, most things, including space, is shared on the ship. My classroom is my workspace and it is shared at times, but it is nice to know that I can come here in the evening or on the weekend and find a bit of alone time - something that you cannot even always find in your cabin.

Welcome to my Cabin!

I realized the other day that I have never really showed people pictures of where I live. It is a little hard to get good pictures of smaller spaces, but I hope you can see where I live. Right now I am in a 4-berth cabin on Deck 4. Since I moved in in August, I have been sleeping on the top bunk of the second cubicle, but hopefully in about a week my cabinmate will be moving and I will be able to move down. I have gotten used to the top, but it will be nice to be able to fall into bed instead of climbing in.

Welcome to the Cabin!

(standing outside in the passage and standing just inside the door)

When walking into the cabin, the first door on the right is the bathroom - very nice to have one in the cabin that you only share with three other people. On the ANA, most bathrooms were shared and limited in their use. Notice that there are no cockroaches either!

There are two cubicles, each with a bunkbed, 2 closets and a small 'desk'. Karen and I share the second one back. My closet is the one closer to the camera with all the pictures hanging up.

The special part of a 4-berth is that the back part of the cabin is actually a small sitting area. In a 6-berth, this space has another bunkbed and in a 3-berth, each cubicle is used by one bed. Right now in our cabin, we have three seats, 2 cupboards, a bookshelf and a couple mirrors. There is not that much private space on the ship, so this space can be nice for watching movies with friends or just having a place to sit and talk -- although you just have to be careful to keep your voice down if you don't want the neighbors to hear what you are saying :)

If You've Lived on a Mercy Ship, You'll Understand

I found this the other day while cleaning up some papers. Anyone who has lived on a Mercy Ship will understand and smile, I am sure. I am not sure who wrote it, so maybe some of you have seen it before.

How to Mentally Prepare Yourself for Living on a Mercy Ship

1. Sleep on a cot in the garage.
2. Replace the garage door with a curtain.
3. Three hours after you go to sleep, have someone whip open the curtain, switch on all the lights and mumble, "Sorry, did I wake you?"
4. Renovate your bathroom. Take out the bath and move the showerhead down to chest level. Keep four inches of soapy cold water on the floor. For a more realistic ship bathroom experience, stop using your bathroom and use a neighbor's. Choose a neighbor that lives at least a quarter mile away.
5. Don't watch TV except for movies in the middle of the night. Have your friends vote which move to watch and then show a different one.
6. Leave a lawnmower running in your living room 24/7 for proper noise levels. Have random kids bang on pots and run around.
7. Keep moving locations. Drive to a new town once a week and give yourself two hours to find a supermarket.
8. Get 50 friends to come and live in your house for a weekend. Have then line up for food at exactly 6.30, noon and 5pm. All meals should have tomatoes and cucumbers.

'And the Lord said, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I answered, "Here am I, send me.' Isaiah 6.8

The Engagement!

As many of you may already know, I am now proudly wearing a ring on the ring finger of my left hand :) On Tuesday, Marcel proposed and I accepted (of course). Many people here on the ship said it was about time, but I think it was the perfect time for us. I guess I can tell the whole story here :)

We first met within a day of my coming to the Africa Mercy in April of last year. He was tall, generous and someone to speak German with :) The night before he asked me if I would want to start dating we spent two hours talking together speaking German together - just about life and our thoughts about our own plans at that time for the future. The night he asked me out was about 2 weeks after we first met. He asked me if I would want to go walking on the beach which was across the road from the port in Blythe. A bit chilly, but a really nice place and a great place to talk together. A bit to my surprise, I found myself saying yes to dating someone I had just met -- and feeling excited about it.

The past year and a half has been a lot of learning for me. This is the first real relationship for both of us - I have been figuring out lots of things that I have never been faced with before. Learning about being a better commuincator, what each of us apprecites and what things are different, reading '5 Love Languages' and realizing that we have completely different languages, and learning how to trust are just some of the things. I think -- no, I know -- that living on the ship also holds its own challenges. I think most dating couples have to work to find time together, but here on the ship, I think many times the challenge is to find time apart and make sure you are working on relationships with other people as well. Also, having so little time to actually be alone changes a lot of things. But on the other hand, a year and a half dating on the ship is like 5 years of knowing someone in 'the real world.' It has forced me to face issues that I may have been able to ignore or push to the side in any other place but here you need to talk about or it just becomes bigger. Dating and living on the ship is not for everyone, but I have heard others say that God gives grace to those he wants here - and I believe it. He gives the desire and ability to those he wants here - and even has them grow and change :)

Anyhow, to the engagement -- I did know he was going to ask, he had actually asked a 'pre-proposal' question a few weeks ago to see what I thought about getting married as soon as January. I had told him I did not want to wait very long after getting engaged, and he took me seriously :) We had some logistical things to work out with things here on the ship and getting a ring (not so easy in Liberia) and such, but everything fell into place without any problems. I did have an idea what the ring would look like because he asked me what I thought before he ordered it - which I actually liked. I do not wear rings and jewerly, so if I am going to wear something for the rest of my life, I want to like it. I dropped a hint at one point that I thought a beach would be a nice place to ask - sort-of bringing everything full circle from when he asked me out for the first time in England. On Tuesday, he invited me out to dinner and we ended up at a restuarant called Golden Beach. They have an open, covered part of the restuarant and also tables out on the beach. With a little luck, it actually had stopped raining for the first time in about a week, but when we got there, there were no tables out on the beach part because it is rainy season. At first it seemed that it would not be as romantic as hoped, but we noticed that the waiter was letting some people out to look around, so after we had eaten, Marcel asked if it would be okay to go out. We were able to go out and it was actually nice because instead of a crowd with tables, we were the only ones there. We stood together by the water and he asked :) The rain even head off for the time we were off ship - later it started raining again.

As soon as we got back on the ship, we met two friends in Reception and within a couple hours, many people knew. In the next 24 hours, I would say at least half the ship knew :) On Thursday, our managing director, Ken Berry talked at the community meeting. Ken and his wife Ann have know Marcel and I since England, so I did not mind when he announced it to the crew. I especially liked the way he did it - whenever he talks, he has a time where he says the best rumor he has heard that month and then also has a question and answer time. Well, Marcel and I were the rumor of the month this month :)

Invisible Babies

Have you ever seen children playing and wondered where the ideas and imagination comes from and where is goes as we grow up? How something invisible and unreal can be so completely real to a child?

Here on the ship, some of the younger children have created the 'invisible babies.' Last year sometime, some of the girls decided that they had 'babies' out on Deck 7. They would how their arms as if they had a baby, take them in and out of the strollers out on deck, take them for walks and even tell me that their babies are crying or hungry or tired -- but nothing was there. I think the thing that made me smile the most was the 'stealing' of the invisible babies. One girl would walk over to another girl, grab a handful of air - the baby - and then run away laughing saying that they had the baby. The first girl would then proceed to cry and scream and say that someone had taken her baby. Then I was left to deal with a girl crying about a handful of air. I tried to tell her that all she had to do was fold her arms like she had a baby and tell the other girl that she had missed the baby, but I think that was a little beyond their understanding :)

On the first or second day of school this year, the invisible babies made their debue. When we came in from outside, about half the class came in with their babies. Realizing that if these 'babies' ended up with us sitting on the carpet, there could be problems, I told them that they would need to have their babies sleep in their cubbies. A couple girls looked at me like I was crazy - put their baby in with their bags and papers!? Was I crazy?! I finally got all the kids to do it and the rest of the afternoon went fine. As the kids were leaving, I overheard one of the boys getting a little upset in the hallway because he wanted to come back into the room and get something. His mom was saying that he should probably just leave it in the room, thinking that he was talking about a toy or something. When I suck my head out and asked what he was wanting to do, he said he had to come in and get his baby from the table. I let him come in, he walked to the table, picked up a handful of air and then walked out of the room completely happy. I said to his mom 'invisible baby' and she just nodded knowingly.

Ahh, children.

Enjoying the Differences

Life on a ship is not always perfect. There are many things that some people never get used to, but sometimes God can give you the grace not just to live here but to enjoy the differences. Someone here on the ship wrote the following piece and I thought I would share it.

No Place Like Home
Think outside the box for a moment . . .

You live on a cruise ship.
You sail every 10 months.
Your roommates are from the other side of the world.
When you’re sick go down the stairs, there’s a hospital.
When you’re hungry, go up the stairs to the cafeteria.
If you love coffee, take to minutes to get to the Starbucks café.
If you want to go to church on Sunday, go up the stairs to the International Lounge.
If you’re hot, climb the stairs to the top deck – there’s a swimming pool.
Do you need a haircut? Turn right from your office – the hairdresser waits.
Bored? Love to read? Take a one minute walk to the library.
Do your kids need school? I suggest you walk up the stairs, there’s a sign ACADEMY.
Need council? The chaplain’s office is next door.
You never know, you might meet your future spouse.
Bored with your clothes? Go down the stairs – there’s a sign BOUTIQUE.
If you need toothpaste, there’s a ship shop next to the café.
If you need to withdraw money, there’s a bank next to the post office.

You live on a hospital ship.

God has had a way for people from over 30 nations to make a difference in Africa.
For missionaries, you have everything you need.
God has blessed you with food, shelter, air conditioning and electricity.
You don’t need mosquito nets.
You sleep on beds and not grass mats, no rats to chase.
Crew together from all over the world are thrown together on a Mercy Ship.
You begin to think outside the box.
Culture shock becomes a cross cultural experience.
Passions and desires are put to the test.
Seeing transformation in others gives you a purpose.
Goals begin to change - they start to steer towards making a difference.
Everyone becomes a piece that fits the puzzle.
Everyone on board Mercy Ships brings hope and healing through their gifts.
You leave home, get picked up at the airport,
You climb the gangway . . . You are onboard the ship.

Welcome to your new home, it’s a different journey.
A journey that has made a difference in over a thousand lives –
Lives including your own.

Written by Esther Biney

Summer, Texas and the Return

This summer has been busy - I wish I could say that I just did not have time to write, but really, it was more laziness than lack of time :)

Anyhow, for those of you who I was not able to see while I was in Ohio for a whole 2 weeks, I was in Ohio for a week in June, flew to Texas for Gateway training in July and then back to Ohio/Kentucky for about 5 days before I headed back to Africa. A busy summer, and not so much relaxing vacation, but still a good time and it was good to have a break from ship life. Although it felt really good to come back after six weeks away.

Gateway was fun - it is a month long training that Mercy Ships has started to try to get everyone on the same page as far as philosophy and goals. We spent a week on spiritual warfare and faith foundations, a week on conflict resolution (very important in a small community!), a week on worldview and how it affects relief and development actions in other countries and then the last week was spent working on 'Basic Safety Training'. I think for most people, this last week was the most fun because we had some time in the classroom learning firefighting and sea survival, but also a pratical test putting out fires and having fun in a swimming pool. I don't know that I will ever really be a true sailor or be able to be on a firefighting team here on the ship, but it was still good information and will help me to understand what other people are doing better. In both fire and sea, we had suits and equipment to use - see attached pictures. The boots, pants, jacket, hood, helmet and gloves needed to be put on in one minute and the red 'gumby' suit in two minutes. Once you got all the fire stuff on, it was hot, but luckily there was a little bit of shade near where we were working. The gumby suit was fun because it makes you float like a cork in the water - the only problem was that they did not really fit properly, so it was a bit awkward moving around.

Anyhow, it was a good summer, went by way too quickly and now I am already getting ready to teach again. 10 crazy preschoolers - yikes! I am actually really looking forward to being back with this group again - most of them I have worked with sometime in the past year. It was nice to come back last week and have parents and kids be excited that I would be teaching. Pray for me the rest of the week. Tomorrow is the last day to prepare, Thursday we start and Friday we try to get settled in. Hopfully it all works out :)

My Job

All I have to say is that I have the greatest job in the world!!

I get to spend time with these guys everyday!

Sugery Observation

Had the privilege of observing a surgery here on the ship last week. Actually ended up going down on 10 April - exactly one year from the day I arrived on the Africa Mercy. I did not really plan it that way, but it was a nice way to celebrate one year.
In an effort to show everyone on the ship what goes on in the hospital, it is possible for crew to sign up and observe a sugery. For months, I have been walking past the sign-up sheet that hangs near the stairwell by my cabin but did not have a chance do anything because of my teaching schedule. When I realized that I would have an afternoon 'free' during our standardized testing and that there was still space open on the list, I signed up. I was a little nervous going in

because I had no idea what to expect, but it was actually really interesting. A couple people had warned me that there is a certain smell that bothers people or the actual blood, but I was pleased to dicovered that it did not really affect me. In some ways, it was a little surreal. To protect the privacy of the patient, I only came into the room after they were asleep and covered up, so I only saw a small part of the whole person. Seeing only a part made it almost like something on television.

I think the best part of going down was also remembering what the operating rooms actually looked like a year ago. When I first got on the ship, I could walk around the hospital freely because nothing was set up, nothing cleaned, no operating supplies laid out. The wards were filled with boxes as we tried to load warehouses full of supplies onto a ship with no storage space. In Rotterdam last May, they tried to 'set up' some OR's to show vistors, but it was just show. What I saw a week ago was reality. Real surgeons changing the lives of real people here in Africa. God is good.

Sailing and Arrival

So, we are back in Liberia! I had plans to write about Christmas and Tenerife, but it seems as though I need to move forward or I will be catching up forever. As I sit to write about this, I realize that it only was a week and a half ago that we sailed back into Freeport, Monrovia. It is one of those things that feels like forver ago and yesterday at the same time. Christmas and Germany seem like a lifetime away.

The sail back to Liberia was pretty much uneventful and calm, which was nice. We had some excitment during a fire drill, but everything turned out OK, it just meant we stood longer outside in our lifejackets :) Every night it was calm enough for people to go out onto the bow, which is a pretty special thing. Expect when we are sailing in calm weather, the bow is closed for safety reasons. One night we were out there and a school of dolphins came to show off. We had had occassional dolphin sightings before, but it seemed as though they were quick and the dolphins did not stick around for long. This night, though, there were dolphins jumping out of the water for about 15 minutes. They are so amazing - sleak and shiny, playful, and beautiful swimming along the boat. Everyone was clapping and cheering :)

The morning we arrived in Liberia, I woke up to the 'smell of Liberia' in the passage. We were still about an hour from the harbor, but you could smell the coal fires from land burning all over the ship because the air con brings in air from outside. It was very foggy that morning, so you could not see too much until we were almost into the harbor and even then you did not have the view to central Monrovia that there usually is. People all gathered on decks 7 and 8 to watch us come in and dock. Many people were dressed up in African outfits and emotions were running high. Sailing in the harbor itself is a tricky because there are several old underwater wrecks that need to be avoided. We also turned around before docking so that we can get out quickly if we ever need to. I don't think Mercy Ships has had too much trouble with civil unrest in countries, but it is always on people's minds in West Africa with all the conflict that has happened here in the last 10 to 20 years. If something happens, we need to be able to leave quickly. Anyhow, the arrival was exciting and took most of the day - from sailing within sight of the harbor to watching the approach to the dock to the dancing and singing of the Africans greeting us to the arrival ceremony after the gangway had been lowered. It was an exciting time and somehow felt like coming home. After 6 months here last year, this is familiar. I know that by June I will probably be more than ready for a break, but right now, it feels good.

Finally!

So, I have no idea if anyone is actually even reading this anymore, but thought it was finally time to write again. I think my blog is one of those things that I think about alot, just never end up getting around to doing - sorry . . . So much has happened, I think I'm just going to have to start and spread it out over a couple of entries.

I guess I can start with leaving Liberia last November. After spending six months helping thousands of people in Liberia, the Africa Mercy sailed out of Monrovia's freeport on November 30th and headed to the Canary Islands. It took us about 5 and a half days to get to Las Palmas, but the sail was pretty calm - especially compared to the Bay of Biscay last May.

For the month before we sailed, people were working to get things safe and secure for the sail. After 6 months of just sitting, it is hard to remember sometimes that we are actually a ship that sails and things tend to pile up a bit. For sailing, you need to have everything laying on the floor or attached to the walls - which is difficult when they are trying to keep people from putting holes in the walls. It was also hard because we had to find a way to put things on the floor but still have space to keep teaching. School continued through the sail, which was exciting and hard at the same time. The first couple days were hard as my body adjusted to the rocking motion of the boat. Sometimes that meant sitting through most of the lesson :) I discovered last May that the motion sickness pills actually make me feel worse, so I am on my own with motion sickness. Luckily I have not had too much trouble. Some people hear the world sailing and head to their cabin until the trip is over.

We arrived at Gran Canaria in the morning and sailed around to the north end of the island until lunch. When we finally got to the harbor, we waited for the pilot for an hour and then sailed in. By the time we got to the berth they had open for us, most of the crew were either standing on Deck 7 or 8 watching and excited that we had made it and ready to get off the ship after almost a week. Then, the ship began to turn around - some people had thought the berth looked a little small, but we figured maybe, somehow, we had to back in like parallel parking a car. -- Nope. It turns out that the berth that they had given us was 150 meters long and the AFM is 152 meters. Ooops. So, with most of us wondering what in the world was going on, we sailed back to just outside the port. Luckily, God is in control and has a plan for everything. Although we had to wait another couple hours, the berth that they found for us later made it easier to get on and off the ship and was 3 kilometers closer to the center of town. For that weekend, we were about a 15 minute walk from the shops and about 20-30 minutes from a beach. It was a little cold for swimming, but just to walk along the beach was wonderful. It was a nice break between sailing and dry dock and a chance just to relax and catch out breath.