Hiya

Just thought I'd give you a wee glimpse of an example of what is happening on the ship. I work on Deck 5 (the main deck) of the ship in the Finance Dept., my cabin is on Deck 4 and on Deck 3 is the hospital. Its very easy to forget that there are life changing/saving operations/procedures going on beneath my feet every day. I don't often get to see any of these things happen first hand, however, my friend Elaine is often amongst it - reporting on the life changing/saving procedures going on very day. This is an example of what goes on here:-

Jean Loko (Max Fax)

“ Thank you, Mercy Ships. Now I came back to life ,” said a jubilant Jean Loko.
For 18 years, this 60-year-old tailor had been dealing with a tumor that grew in a double row, curling like an inflated collar around the back of his neck and down his back. It forced his neck and head to stretch forward, impairing his balance. He found it difficult to walk. With stark simplicity, he stated, “I was afraid I would die.”
In 1992, Jean was caught in a battle between opposition and government forces on the Cotonou Road in Benin. The soldiers began beating the people, and Jean tried to run away. But a soldier hit him on the back with a bat, causing a wound that began to swell. And the wound kept growing.
Medical care in Western Africa is limited. The local hospital told Jean that they could not help him.

Jean tried to continue working, but his range of movement became more and more limited. He could not cut and sew the fabric of the garments without constant pain. Soon, he could no longer run his business, so he had to abandon his only source of income.

Jean also had to battle the cultural aversion to deformities, which were seen as a curse. The father of seven, Jean was rejected by his two oldest sons because of the growth.
All Jean could do was sit in his house. There was no joy in his life.
Then he heard a radio ad that brought a glimmer of hope. A Mercy Ships team was coming to hold a medical screening near his home. Although he was a little fearful that he would meet disappointment again, he went to the screening anyway. “But I was chosen!” he said with a combination of surprise, disbelief and elation.

The volunteer doctors aboard the Africa Mercy successfully removed the tumor that had caused him so much misery. When he realized the growth was gone, his usual sombre expression turned to a brilliant smile. “I just thank Mercy Ships for what they have done for me. They gave me my life back.”

Story by Elaine B. Winn

Edited by Nancy Predaina

Photos by Liz Cantu

May Update

Well, its about that time again. We’ve been in Africa now for about three months and I have been on the Africa Mercy for five months. Wow, does time move really fast here. So, what has been happening in the last few months? I’m glad you asked. Here goes...

After arriving in Lome, Togo in mid-February everything kind of went nuts for a while. With the start of the new field service there was lots to do to get everything up and running. There were new crew, patient screenings, patients coming and going, surgeries and all that other medical-type stuff that I have very little to do with, a new country for most of us, the heat, the craft markets (one in particular has been dubbed “Rip-off Road”), the food, and new experiences all round. Was, and still is, amazing getting to experience some of what this part of the world has to offer.

Life on the ship has been interesting with a constantly changing crew and always something happening. I am now working mostly normal hours in my job so I have been able to get out and about a little bit more and also see some of what Mercy Ships is doing in Togo.

I went on a tour of our off-ship sites a couple of weeks ago. This involved visiting the Hospitality Centre where some of our pre- and post-op patients stay and where some of the little ones stay to get up to weight so that they can then have surgery. Our Eye Clinic is situated there also. Next, got to visit the Dental Clinic and one of the eye-screening venues. Was quite an experience.

I think it was the next week that I got to experience how the donating blood thing works around here. Someone turns up in your office and you get asked if you are able to give blood a bit later in the day (your blood has already been tested previously), you then get asked to start drinking heaps of water, somebody then comes and collects you, takes you down a couple of decks to the hospital, takes your blood then heads off to the OR or somewhere with it to give it straight to the patient. Talk about reality hitting you in the face :D

A week later (time goes so fast here it’s hard to remember what happened when) I booked in to observe a surgery – after all, this is a hospital ship. Even after reading the guidelines and talking to one or two people about it I didn’t really know what to expect or how I would react. The site of blood doesn’t really bother me, however, if I ended up observing eye surgery, well, it’s just as well I didn’t. I had the privilege of observing a South African plastic surgeon in action. A little one had had her hand burnt and was in for contracture release surgery i.e. when a burn is healing, without proper treatment, the skin will contract and cause the limb to curl up. Her tiny hand was bent over so surgery was performed to release the contracture (yes, there was some blood) and then a skin graft was taken from her tummy (even more blood this time), the donour site stitched up then the skin grafted onto the base of her fingers, the webbing between her thumb and forefinger etc. This was after wires had been drilled into her fingers to keep them straight. Now that was a bit too much like the dentist for me but I managed to hang in there. I got a pretty good view of the surgery while trying to keep out of everyone’s way. The scrub nurse was an Aussie so she kept me on my toes ;D

So, what do I do when I’m not working? Well, I have been involved in worship teams and the choir, mostly playing guitar and trying to sing. You gotta start somewhere. This has been a wonderful experience - there are some very talented people aboard.

Over Easter we had a sunrise (5.30 a.m. Easter Sunday) service up on deck 8 (the top deck) which was pretty cool. The sun rose behind us (i.e. me and Juan on guitars and some of the choir around us and about a hundred or so other crew in front). This was followed by an 8.30 a.m. service and then a very scrumptious brunch. The galley outdid themselves.

There are film crews and photographers that are doing stuff off and on. You never know when you are going to be asked to do an interview or get your photo taken. I seem to have escaped that for the most part quite well. This is the latest Connections video which gives you some idea of what’s been going on in the last few months http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijwcziAzcPs The crew also get to take photos and videos and we actually had our annual Film Festival last Saturday night. What a hoot. There are some very creative people on board and there were some very polished/creative/original/hilarious movies shown. I had the privilege of being one of the judges. It was a black tie event and everyone got into the spirit of the thing. The movie that won Best Film was about living in community on the ship - it was hilarious. It may or may not end up on YouTube - we don’t have access to that site on the ship, unfortunately.

Well, that’s about it for now. We are about half-way through this field service already and will start winding some things down in the next month or so. We will then get ready for the sail down to probably Durban, South Africa in August. It has been confirmed that the 2011 field service will be in Sierra Leone.

That’s about it for now. Thank you for your continuing prayers and support. I wouldn’t be here without all of you back home and, yes, I do get homesick sometimes but I know where I’m meant to be.

Blessings

Janine

At last.

Janine Boyes
M/V Africa MercyFebruary 2010 update
Well, I finally managed to put pen to paper so to speak and give you an update of where I am and what I’ve been up to.
At the moment we are at the beginning of a 6 month field service. We arrived in Lome, Togo, West Africa on Wednesday the 10th of Feb. Wow, what a welcome.

There was a band playing, people singing, clapping, dancing. Just amazing. We finally docked and had the gangway attached, speeches made and all the formalities done by about midday. There wasn’t much work done that day by most of us. We spent most of the morning up on deck 7 and 8 watching the proceedings and just enjoying arriving in Africa after a 10 day sail, 6 weeks in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and for me, 26 days in N.Z. and 9 weeks in Texas and the Dominican Republic. It was quite a moment of reflection for me - a moment of thinking “this is it, I have finally arrived at the place that I been called to”. It seems like forever since I applied to serve with Mercy Ships (it has actually been about 6 months or so) yet in some ways it seems like yesterday because so many things are still so totally new to me. I’m sure that that will change.

I haven’t had much of a chance to go off-ship yet - I hope to get into town this weekend. It takes something like 45 mins to walk into town and its really hot so I will have to catch a ride in one of the ship’s vehicles. So, I haven’t really seen anything of Togo - only what I can see on the very busy dock. At least we have our own space cordoned off on the dock which we only share with the ship’s vehicles, a tent or two, a big mini-skip for our rubbish and also at night with heaps of cockroaches, rats, flies and, no doubt, a few mozzies.
As far as the field service goes there have been some medical screenings this week with more to come in the weeks to come - because of the general elections coming up in Togo soon there are not allowed to be large gatherings of people so we are doing smaller

screenings but more of them I think. Also, we are in the process of recruiting a couple of hundred day-volunteers to help us out while we are in Togo e.g. translators, cooks, housekeepers, engineers etc. so our numbers will swell significantly during the daytime. Instead of having around 400 of us in the dining room during the lunch break there could be up to 600 and its pretty crowded already.


As far as my job in the finance department goes I’ve gone from not having enough work to fill in an hour let alone the whole day to being way busier and not finishing until 9 sometimes. Also, just when I think I’m getting the hang of it something new comes along;D As everyone says “Welcome to Mercy Ships”. I only managed to get 2 hours training for the job before the previous Accounts Payable person left on leave so I was working blind for a while - no major disasters though. I really love the job and the crew and get to share my office with a lovely lady from Texas - might even end up with a Texan twang ;D

The sail from Tenerife was mostly enjoyable (no seasickness for me thanks to some wonderful medication that they gave out and I also did what I was told) except for the first few days - we were rolling heavily - about 25 degrees - and walking in a straight line was a real challenge until we got our sea-legs. Quite a few people were very sick. Once the sea calmed down it was really nice - every now and then there would be an announcement like “there are dolphins off to starboard” so heaps of people headed up to deck 7 to catch sight of the dolphins or the whales, flying fish or whatever. Made a nice change from being in my office all day with nothing much to do. We also had a session of praise and worship on the bow. When it was calm enough the captain would announce that they were opening up the bow so that the crew could hang out there. It was pretty awesome - singing with an african sunset as a backdrop.

I got asked to play guitar in the worship team at our Thursday night community meeting when we were docked in Tenerife - my guitar hadn’t even arrived in the container shipped from Texas so I had to borrow somebody else's. I only had two days notice so my fingers were ready to drop off after the meeting. It went great and was quite different to how we do things at home. Have been involved in worship teams several times since then and am also involved in the choir as the guitarist - and I sing along. We had our first choir practice on Sunday afternoon and 40 people showed up. Wow. And we sang/played that night. Talk about last minute. Everyone sounded great though.

My time in Tenerife was really nice. We got to check out a few places around the island e.g. Puerta de la Cruz and La Laguna and went to the South Tenerife Christian Fellowship church in Los Christianos a few times. The STCFchurch is english-speaking and is run by mostly poms and other westerners so we could understand most of what they were saying - most other churches are spanish-speaking. Mercy Ships even got to take the last service and I was part of the worship team - I played guitar for the congregational songs along with a pianist and two vocalists. Then came to nerve-wracking part - I had to play piano to accompany Marty (the ex-opera singer) who sung a solo (Marilyn and Chris back home - thanks for your help, encouragement and persistence with the piano). Man, was I glad when that was over. Of course, I had practised it heaps already on the ship but I do get nervous.

In Tenerife the Africa Mercy was docked way down at the end of the dock and it was about a 30 minute walk to get into town - just as well there was almost always some gelato as an incentive. Yummy. It was a great way to spend an evening after being cooped up in an office all day long with not alot to do. We spent Christmas and New Years there, of course, and alot of effort was put into celebrating these special times. It was also great to experience some of the traditions that other nations have. Because we were all in the same boat (excuse the pun) i.e. we were all away from home for Christmas - we all just made the most of our days off (we had FIVE days off over christmas and FOUR over New Years) and relaxed and ate heaps - we do get treats in the dining room every now and then. On Christmas night we ended up going to a free concert in town that started at 10 p.m. (its a spanish thing) and finished at about midnight - it was fantastic although we nearly got blown away and froze our butts off.

It was wonderful already being in Tenerife when the ship arrived. I got to Tenerife very late on the Thursday night after travelling for over 48 hours (I think) and nearly fell into bed when I reached the hotel. Had a wonderful day on the Friday - spent it with Audrey and Pete from the US who were joining the ship at the same time as me but were only going to be on the ship for about 5 weeks. They were and are wonderful and will probably be back on board some time in the future. So, the ship was going to be arriving at the dock at about 8 on the Saturday morning so we grabbed Pete and Audrey’s luggage and dragged it for 30 minutes to where the ship was going to dock - of course, it was going to dock at the furtherest end. The ship did beat us to it but we could see the ship from a long way off so that was OK. It was great to see heaps of the crew lining deck 7 and 8 for the arrival and we heard lots of “Petes” and “Audreys” and “Janines” - of course nearly half of the people that I did my training with in Texas and the D.R. were already on board - what a welcome from my Gateway family!


Finally getting on board, once the gangway was in place, was pretty amazing - greetings from my Gateway family, meeting Mike - my new boss - being told that I could actually stay on board the ship from that day instead of waiting until Sunday, then heading off with Audrey to go and collect my luggage from the hotel. When I returned I officially became a crew-member of the M/V Africa Mercy, dumped my luggage in my cabin (I had a guest cabin for the first night) then went to work - this is when I had the 2 hours training for my job - I don’t think I absorbed very much.


The next day I shifted into my proper cabin, which is the one that I’m in now. I am in a 3 berth with an english nurse that I roomed with during Gateway and a south african nurse - a very international cabin. That’s all working out very well so far. I continue to meet new people all the time - there are short-termers passing through constantly. I also get to experience a whole melting pot of cultures, languages and personalities all living inside a bubble beside Africa. Ain’t it great.


So, its been challenging, rewarding, frustrating, confusing, enlightening and feels like I am where I’m meant to be - for the next two years at least. I do miss home though - the food, the weather, the green grass and trees and, most of all, of course, all y’all (toldja I was turning into a Texan)


A big thank you to everyone for your prayers and support - I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.
We are starting our first surgeries tomorrow. Things are gonna be jumping around here. Will keep you updated - hopefully sooner rather than later ;D

Blessings

Janine