What, the month has gone????

Ok, I checked the date today (Friday 28\10\2011) and thought where has the month gone. It was only the other week that I turned up to the ship or as I now call it home. I know I spent so long waiting to be here and actively part of the mission and now I am.

The last few weeks have been such a blast and yet in the midst of this there has been some times of deep soul searching and much time to think. The worst part was see people who I got to know leave the ship to return home to the UK.


I sometimes joke with a few people whom I'm close to here that this missionary life is so hard but in reality its not. The ship is air conditioned and it works well most of the time, we have fresh clean water, good food and even things like Internet. when you look out of the Windows on the starboard side you see what real poverty looks like and wonder if you could really survive here. What people do not realise is that we have to ship in our food because the country's we visit can barley feed there own population never mind the fact 450 westerners 3 times a day. the people who live here eat once a day if they have the money to buy food.

You have to be careful to not fall into the mind set that if the western world can do it why not places like this, the truth is that these places are starting from nothing. The people know they are poor yet it does not define them instead they are the greatest and most fun people you'll ever meet.

The month has been one that is so hard to explain in a single post so please feel free to look back at the previous ones.

I love that I had the chance to give blood to help a patient who needed it and a little sad at the same time, please don't get me wrong it is not the fact I gave blood it was the fact that blood was needed. These patients of ours with such life destroying illnesses and the hope and the healing this ship provides, allows the God of love to be shown to the world in such a small way with such deep and lasting impacts.

While over this last week I have turned another year older, yep that means I'm now 32. This event I never like to celebrate came at the same time as the Princess royals visit to the ship, no I did not get to meet princess Anne but it was nice to see her on board. In the evening I went to Salsa, I'm still learning the steps but it is so much fun and the group I go with are great and patient with me.
This is not the life I would have chosen for myself but I'm so glad that God has changed it and allowed me to be part of this mission. The best thought I have for the last month is; well if that's what God wants to use and show me in a single month what more can living a christian community centred life is he going to do with me.

Its your Blood we want

Hi I'm part of the Walking Blood Bank on board the AFM

 Please Relax

 Now to clean the Skin - I did shower this morning

 OHH big needle

 So Funny watching your own blood go out

 The Wonderful Polly holding my blood as it fills a bag

The Phobie very happy with this stuff, its the right type for a patient who needs it for a life changing operation.

I'm happy to know that this will help bring hope and healing to a person.

The Call

I love the fact in Christian circles the desire to serve is a call by God, for his purposes and will. The mear fact you get to do this stuff is the cool part and even cooler is the fact that He called you to it.

I have been spending a bit of time over the last few weeks at what I've been called to do by God, not really looked at the why part as the why is not as important as the call. My calling to Mercy ships is one that can only be explained by the fact that I'm trusting in the Lord to provide and teach me through this time.

I have signed on here for 6 months which in itself is not a long time in the plan of things and yet here in 6 months a lot can happen. In the last 5 weeks I have learned that God will put me where I'm needed and teach me in all things that I need. To be more people focused is not a bad thing as I have to live with the people I work work with, a degree of respect is given far greater than I would normally give and I find that we are all part of this plan.

I am called to be here and here is where I am, I have felt a range of emotions while being here from being extremely confused to being sad at missing friends and family at home. There are even times when I have to step back and take a second look at what I'm doing.

I desire to serve and honor God in all that I do and say, my actions are plain to see, my words can cut down to the bone or lift someone up. My motivation is not found in what can I gain from a given situation but from what can I lose to try.

So in my quest to understand why God has desired to send to Mercy ships I have found that God wants me to extend my time with this group, this is more than what I expected to find. The only way I'm going to be able to do this is if God provides the finances as this will mean another 3 months of crew fees to be paid.

I say all of this so you know this is my desire - to be used by God is all I do

Welcome to my week

Have you ever had one of those weeks where you feel nothing has gone right? That's how this week has felt for me.

On Monday I spent most of the day trying to catch up from the ships weekend, the rest was nice but the  work does not stop over the weekend. Sunday I rebuilt a computer and did some call management thinking this would allow me to have a small head start on the week, nope did not happen. The tickets just kept coming in. I'm not complaining about the work and people are understanding when your by your self for the front line stuff.

Tuesday was not much better as a computer or 2 that had been fixed decided to play naughty and break, this causes a minor problem anywhere else here it makes the job more interesting. We don't have spares just sitting around or for testing, I had a computer on my desk that was used for something but this was not set up for the work role. Situations like this make life a little more fun.

Wednesday, middle of the week so you would think that this would be a good day to do some extra stuff or spend some time on research rather than "fire fighting", normally yes this week no. Every day something new but when its the same computers having new and interesting issues....... AHHHHHHHH. Just to make the point clear here its the computers that were making me scream but a brighter side we did get to see something different.

Thursday easy day, right. No just a new twist on the day before ground hog day. So it felt to me. Do you think God is trying to teach me to stop and be still\ learn a bit of patients or maybe that there are things that can be beyond my control. I'll let you know if I figure it out.

Friday end of week, well working week. I decided in my great wisdom that maybe my computer account had been causing me the problems for the week. East fix time delete the account and start again.... opps bad idea as it turns out. working without access is not a good idea but on the bright side it aloud me to build a new PC to replace a computer that was causing me an issue.

To sum up the week - Thanks but no thanks.

On the plus side I did manage to speak with a couple of people on the phone - yes we have phones here. I know I can see the shock and aww of it. Your in west Africa and have access to a phone who do you call, thats easy who has a land line? sorry people with Cell phones it cost's to much to ring you.

The sun, the small dot in your sky in England or the big hot thing here. So much heat its great lunch in the sun and then return inside for the air con, lol. It does rain here but its normally over quickly and plus its hot so its not a problem.

Ships day off

River No2 Beach, Sierra Leone

 A cloudy start to the day

 The view on the way out of town

Outside of the city on a country road

 A small small shower of rain

 The view from resturant area

 Hiding from the rain

 Ah its only water

The Beach in the rain

 10 Mins later no more rain

 Blue sky shows through the clouds

 The group having fun

 Swim in the warm Atlantic

Looking from the sea up the beach

 Just behind the beach a small bay with fishing boats

 This is me sitting on a fishing boat

 The clouds floating over the trees

Check the name of the boat

 This is Barracuda fish stick and rice

 The group that went to the beach - the poda poda is in the back ground

 The road is there, but the rain has washed it away

 The roads out side of Freetown

 The guys during the ride back

 The bridges on the road

Any one for a coconut?

A great day to meet new people and relax with friends



You Just Know

The most important leason I have learned this week is:

You Just Know!

What a small and simply phrase that has a lot of meaning.

Like you just know when you've done something wrong or you just feel know a certain peace about a deciscion.

This has been my week to "Just Know"

Just to know the prescene of God and to know a direction in which I'm being led. I'm not going to go into details here and will just leave it as that.

The weekend

In a very wired way weekends do not really seam to happen here, maybe its something to do with working and resting in the same place. The best question always seems to be what do you get up to on Saturday\ Sunday?

Now normally my Saturdays involve sleep a lot of sleep. This week was different, well different from the last couple of weekends. After the Jesus film on Friday night, I felt I had to get of the ship even it is was for a walk around on the dock.

The worse thing here is that fact you can spend an entire field service in a place and never go out to see the area. I know I have posted some pictures of the sun sets from the ship and yeah there beautiful and all that, but that is nothing compared to getting out there.

On Saturday a few of us decided to go out and visit the museum, yes this is a third world country and yes they have a museum. I was not expecting much from there.After having the ships safety briefing you would expect that maybe something would go wrong but the people here are so nice. We left the port and removed the Mercy Ships ID, made sure we had everything we needed for the day. You know be prepared.

The small group of us walked up the road out side of the port nicked named 'bad boy lane' and were met with smilling little faces. A short walk up the road was the main road which took us in to town, straight in to the hustle and busle of Freetown. Here cars and trucks don't give way to people, you are expected to move for them. This system works here as people just move to the side and let the raffic pass and carry out business around it all.

The merry band headed for a land mark called the 'Cotton Tree' which is an old tree in the middle of town.

The Cotton Tree

The Merry Band

At this point we had no real idea of where the museum was, to be honest sign posts are not really an object you find here. Still it was a nice walk from the ship to this point and we had some good chats along the way.

We spoted something that looked like a crazy golf type od thing and decided that would be good to look at and found this little creature just sunning its self.

I dont think it liked to be pictured as the next pic I tried to take he ran away, bless a camera shy lizard.