Blood Brothers (or Sisters)

The other Friday night, I was paged to call the Laboratory - sounds scary, but everyone knows what that page means - they need blood.
We do not have a way to store blood here on the ship, but we have the next best thing - 350 people from all over the world with all different blood types just lining up to share their blood with someone (well, not really, sometimes it is like pulling teeth - pulling blood? . . . really hard to convince them to have someone shove a needle in their arm.) I am not sure how many people there are on the list, but we do several surgeries a day and there has not been a problem so far with getting blood when needed. Considering that Red Cross will most likely never let me donate again after living in West Africa, I like to do what I can now :)
In the two years I have been on the ship I think I have been called four or five times. It is different here on the ship - you do not give your blood to Red Cross knowing that someday it will be used, you know that it is being taken over to the other side of the ship and used within the next few hours. There is a feeling of connection, even if you do not know the patient personally, you know they are there and God is doing something in their life. Sometimes it is blood for a regular surgery, sometimes it is an emergency because someone has started to bleed during surgery, sometimes it is for a patient who is recovering, but is having trouble. But it is a different to know that there is an immediate need and you are helping to fill it.
So, if you ever come to Mercy Ship and stay for awhile, be ready! Someone out there may need your blood!

Abendessen beim Deutschen Botschafter

Freitag vor einer Woche sind wir als deutsche Crew vom deutschen Botschafter in Benin zum Abendessen in seine Residenz eingeladen worden. Dort hatten wir dann Gemeinschaft mit dem Botschafter und seinen Angestellten und haben dort einen schönen Abend verbracht. Elizabeth, als meine Frau, war natürlich ebenfalls mit dabei. Vor ein paar Monaten hatten uns der Botschafter und seine Angestellten an Bord besucht um das Schiff zu besichtigen und hatten Mittagessen zusammen.


Kommenden Samstag , am 4. Juli , feiert Amerika Independence Day , den Tag der Unabhängigkeit. Dazu hat die US Botschaft hier in Benin alle Amerikaner im Land zu einer Feier in die Botschaft eingeladen. Ich, als Elizabeth´s Mann , darf dann ebenfalls mitkommen. :-)

No News is Good News

Not really sure what to write about - nothing too exciting starting up lately.

Classes finished for the Academy on the 5th and last week was the last official work week - time to get things organized and get paperwork finished. I will be working this summer on getting our school library set up and ready for the fall. We have been working on it over the past year, but we were able to order about 500 new books this spring that need to be entered and ordered. I also will be going through old books, making sure everything is in order and getting a better picture of what all we have. It should take some time, but the organizer in me is looking forward to this summer and having things ready for the students in the fall.
Marcel has been busy with work and is also studying for some Mircosoft Certification tests that he is working on. He is looking at taking a series of about seven tests over the next year or so. He is much better than me at self-study - I tend to procrastinate when I am left to study on my own, but Marcel is really good about finding time in the evening or the weekends to get his studying done. He has taken (and passed) the first test and plans to take the next one around the end of the month.
I always like pictures in a blog, so I thought I put in this one of how nicely we clean up. There was a night last weekend when everyone had fun and got out the good clothes and make-up. We looked pretty good -- if I do say do myself ;)