How can you live on a ship??



As a follow up to John's last post about sacrifice, I wanted to post about several of the amazing blessings that are unique to living on this ship.  Sure, we've had to give up certain things, but we also have gained some really great blessings that we never could have had if we weren't here.  Sometimes they seem like little things but this week we have realized all the more how sweet these small gifts are.  These are the things that make living on this ship possible!

 

(List is, in no way, exclusive and is in no particular order)

 

#1 Activities for the girls:  Adalynn is involved in the running club for the kids.  They meet on the dock and run laps once a week and they earn prizes for running 40 laps.  It is a great way for kids to get some exercise and they have a lot of fun too.  It is so special to live in this environment where there are always kids around to play with.  Many of the older girls love playing with Adalynn or holding Cora whenever they get the chance.



 

Pre-run stretching

You can see around her wrist is a laminated punch card to keep track of her laps.



 #2.  Activities for us!  John is on the football (soccer) team.  Last week they had a game at the national stadium.  The game was the crew vs. day workers.  John played goalie and his team won 6-5!  John also gets to play Ultimate Frisbee every week, something he didn't even get to do in Craig.  I have been able to go to Zumba classes and this week get to attend our very own version of a "Chopped" competition (one of my favorite shows in the States).

Pregame team shot

The national soccer team is sponsored by Rio Tinto (the company that owned the mine where John worked in Craig).  Small world.

 #3. Technology. Sometimes you just need a little taste of home.  We are so blessed to have Internet and TV so we can stay in touch with home.  We have channels donated to us and sometimes we get to watch things that remind us of the good ol' USA.  As follow up from last weeks post, we got to watch the Sunday night Bronco game on ESPN tape delay.  It was shown here on Monday morning!!

An Elway jersey we got off a local crew mate.  John played hookie from work for a couple hours to watch the game.



A 34-14 victory!!

 #4.  Community.  It is so great that we can be involved in so many lives. We are constantly surrounded by our friends and other people who have similar passions and desires for missions. It is really wonderful to live in this environment and share life together.  Adalynn's nursery class is learning about Babies and Cora and I came to her class this week to demonstrate how to bathe babies.  Afterwards the kids bathed their dolls in the pool.  This reminded me of our community as I can just go up anytime to be involved in Adalynn's school or other events on board.

The kids wanted to hold Cora after her bath.  They were singing to her and rocking her and Adalynn just kind of stood back wondering what all the fuss was about :)



 #5. Culture.  We are so thankful that our girls get to learn so early that there are many different types of people and ways to grow up.  We have had the chance to spend some time in the hospital this week and it has been so great to see Adalynn bringing joy to those she meets! We are hopeful that this experience will help them to be thankful for the abundance they have.

This is a 3 year old patient who had surgeries to straighten her legs.  Adalynn has befriended her and prays every night for her "owies".  More about this in our upcoming newsletter!

Monday Night Football in Guinea

Marrying into a lifelong Denver Bronco family and living in Colorado the last 9 years or so I have become a fan of the team (still second fiddle to the beloved Philadelphia Eagles, Fly Eagles Fly). Last Monday night after being down 24-0, Bronco fans were treated to a terrific comeback in the second half to defeat the San Diego Chargers. Here on the ship, a wonderful company in South Africa donates to us the capability to watch some satellite TV. We have a number of channels to choose from but only 5 channels can be shown on the ship at any one time. We as crew members are allowed to sign out channels when time slots are available. ESPN is one of those channels and the 1230 am to 430 am time slot was available. Can you believe it? What a great game it was….. but we ended up not being able to watch it.

Without going into all the detail, the channel wasn’t changed. No fault of anyone, just something didn’t happen. We actually knew at about 10 pm or so that it wasn’t going to happen and actually went to bed very sad around 11 (Trace did check during the night during one of Cora’s snack times, just in case). We actually shed a few tears. We were willing to be up at that ridiculous hour because more than anything else, we just wanted a taste of being home. We wanted to watch the same thing at the same time as our family and friends and have the same feelings and be able to talk about it later. So to look forward to that and then have it not happen was sad to us. Funny thing is I had barely talked about football since we got here. I was doing just fine without it (something I used to spend 7-10 hours a weekend watching), but when the opportunity was afforded to us, it hurt so much more to end up not having it.

I learned something important though. Here on the ship we are afforded luxuries such as chocolate, Starbucks coffee, soda and other awesome things because companies and organizations donate these specific things to us. We don’t even have to leave the ship to get them at a local store or something. Sometimes we run out of things and some of our crew members are disappointed that they have to go without. I have sat in judgment of them essentially feeling like they should just get over it. We are doing missions and going without is part of the calling right? Well, that was easy for me to say until it was something that was important to me. Plenty of people know I do not get an extraordinary amount of joy out of food/drink type stuff (that drives Tracey nuts) so going without something special is no big deal. But when it hit close to home like football on TV, I was very sad. No one did anything wrong, I just missed out on a luxury that I thought I could have and then I couldn’t. It taught me that we all have our things that help us be able to be here, serve here and stay here. Sometimes, yes, we will go without and yes, we will be fine, maybe better off (see below), but they really do help when available.  Now, I definitely understand the disappointment that comes with going without and will never again mentally tell another person to “Get over it.” These luxury type things are good things that God uses to strengthen us, by allowing us to have them. Reminds of us of how good He is, which I tend to forget. I think this probably applies to lots of areas of life.

Sometimes, though, God strengthens us by allowing us to go without them as well. I am learning to find the joy that comes with sacrifice. We were told to count the cost before coming and ask if we were willing to make the sacrifice. Would the sacrifice be worth it? At the time, it felt like such a negative thing to make the sacrifice, but we knew it would be worthwhile for all the positives. We thought of plus (i.e. serving in Africa as a family together) and minus (i.e small living area). Weigh them all out and see which is better. After all, I am an accountant and we love cost benefit analysis. This thought process though is all about me. I don’t think I thought to count the blessings that come merely from the act of sacrifice.

Paul tells us in Philippians 3 that he is happy to call anything rubbish if it means he gets to know Christ better. In Romans 12, he teaches us to be living sacrifices, not for rewards but because that is the worshipful thing to do. Doing so, will help us understand the will of God better. Paul did not think of sacrifice as a negative thing that brings about a positive. He saw the sacrifice as the positive thing that brings more positive things. He was crazy enough to relish opportunities to sacrifice. He wanted to sacrifice simply because he would get to know Christ more fully, become more like him and worship him more. This really wasn’t about him but Christ. To him, there was no greater reward than that.

I am not trying to say we are always to go without. There are times when God refreshes us and strengthens us with these types of things. Paul had time of refreshment with his friends, which I bet had some pretty good food and lots of joy (but probably not any football). I am not saying sacrifice should be easy either, like this is some way of putting a positive spin on something negative. Dying on the cross wasn’t easy for our Jesus and neither was the persecution for Paul. I just want to take the “opportunities” when they come to become more like Christ and worship him with my attitude in these times. Less focus on MY sacrifice and more focus on the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ. So now when I am asked to go without, I am not just tolerating the sacrifice for some greater good in the end, I get to worship now while getting to know Christ better (or at least I hope I keep thinking that way). I am pretty sure I will be happy with the end result still but now the journey doesn’t have to be such drudgery with no joy.  

All that being said; if we have the chance to watch a football game again, I will get out the John Elway jersey I just got off a fellow crewmate and plop down and root for the team J. I look forward to God renewing me with that at some point. Another quick side note.  Since the game that started all of this was on so late, we probably would have gone to bed at halftime with the game seeming out of reach. Think about how mad I would have been in the morning after seeing the outcome. Hmmm….

Another Day, Another Time to Wear a Suit

When we preparing to come to Guinea, my (John's) predecessor told me to bring a suit as I would be required to wear one often. I laughed a little. After working at a coal mine for the last three plus years I had worn a suit only for my wedding and the yearly adventure of going to the Diamonds and Spurs Rotary event (otherwise known as the Craig Ball, an outright blast every year). A dress up day for me at the mine was wearing anything with a collar. So, since I have gotten to the Africa Mercy I have actually lost count of the number of times I have had to put on my suit, no really. It has been at least 10 times, but for me that feels like a hundred. I wear it for some meetings with the Bank or with the fuel people or when we host government ministers or embassy staff, to take out the trash, or whatever.

Last Thursday, in the midst of pretty busy and rough day, an announcement: “SMT (senior management team) please report to the international lounge for an important meeting in 5 minutes.” Uh oh. Turns out the president of Guinea, Professor Alpha Conde decided to come on by and gave us all of about 2 hours notice. (The good part is we didn’t have to have multiple meetings to prepare for his arrival.) I quickly shaved and threw on the suit which is becoming old hat by now. I was privileged to be a part of the group that met him just as he came on board. I was introduced as Directeur de Financier. “Bonjour, Mr. President,” speaking about 25% of the French words that I know as I shook his hand. He smiled. Turns out I should have said Bonsoir, since it was afternoon, so I even fouled that up. Still a pretty cool thing to be a part of.

The President took a tour of the hospital spending time in each of the wards and taking longer than those around him probably would have liked. He then came to the International Lounge where we hold all of our large group gatherings. After a presentation by our Managing Director, he gave a very gracious speech. The best part came after the speech though. He decided he wanted to walk the room and shake all the hands of every crew member who was in the room. (Yes, that means I shook the president’s hand twice in the same afternoon, Go me!) He was warm and sincere as he did this despite it not being part of the plan. At one point, someone mentioned the time he was taking or something like that and he said something to the effect of “I have plenty of time for people who have given so generously to our country.”

View of the president out our window.  He is the one in tan at the front of the line. Note the security on either side holding hands to keep anyone from getting close.

The whole event was something special to be a part of even if I messed up the greeting. Sometimes I am never quite sure what someone in politics is aiming for when they do something. That doesn’t change whether I am in the States or here. Is he coming for political gain or is he genuinely interested? I didn’t know then and still don’t know. Others here had similar feelings. What I could see is this is someone who, despite signing the papers to allow us to come, didn’t really know all that goes in inside our little white box (very much like me when I got here). He was genuinely moved by his time in the ward and we on board were moved by having him here. Maybe he came to find out what we are all about or maybe just wanted a good photo op, but in the end his emotions were stirred and he encouraged us. So no matter the agenda when he came, God used the time to lift us up as a crew and hopefully him as a President leading his people.

It’s pretty fun here when we are reminded of all that is going on. It’s so easy for me to get wrapped up in the details of my role with cash management, payroll, journal entries and the other boring stuff that accountants do and lose sight of what God has called us to be a part of here. So cool when God uses things here and there to remind Tracey and me of the big picture. Whether that is a quick walk in the hospital to see the patients or having the President come for an impromptu visit to the ship. Variety is a cool thing and all that variety helps us see the big picture and know our God is always at work and wants us to be a part.

Coming soon, how Monday Night Football taught us a lesson here in Guinea……

 

And, of course, (unrelated) pictures from our week!! 

(we took 100 pictures since last post due to birthdays, etc so we will post some more on the next post)

My Gluten Free birthday cake that my sweet friends made me for my party!

Cupcakes for Adalynn's class for her birthday!

Playing in the kiddie pool (in our living room) before A's party



Adalynn's water party

Never expected to celebrate her birthday with an outside water party in October :)

Cora's buddy, Kevin.

We got new jammies!!

 

Bean counter

In honor of John's profession, this blog is all about numbers :)  I was amazed to read the latest progress reports for the hospital.  God is working in amazing ways here and it is exciting to see how many lives have already been changed. . .and this doesn't even scratch the surface of all that has gone on!!

In Guinea so far. . .

98 Patients have had maxillofacial surgeries (ie: removing tumors from the face, usually)
85 Patients now have sight thanks to Cataract surgeries
28 Adults and children have had General surgeries
20 Children can now have hope of walking better due to Orthopedic surgeries
19 Children have had Cleft palate repairs



Patients hanging out on Deck 7 after surgery

Also. . .

14 Local Health workers have been trained to aide in club foot repair
10 Have been trained for community eye care
1 African orthopedic surgeon has been trained.



Orthopedic patient playing in the house on Deck 7

Spiritually. . .

330 have met with chaplaincy one-on-one
63 have received HIV counseling
19 Bibles have been distributed to people who wanted them in a city where 95% of the people are Muslim.

God is good and continues to bring Hope and Healing to so many.  We are so grateful to be a part of this amazing ministry!


In Wall numbers. . .

36 Hours spent in our cabin potty training for Adalynn this weekend (no, she hasn't gotten it yet)
12 Pairs of underwear washed in sink from accidents
6 Treats received for successful pottying!
4 Years we've been married (not to change the subject)


We celebrated our anniversary on Deck 8 watching the sunset and had a meal from our wonderful chef!  It was a great night.



We even had "candles"

Other fun pictures from our week:

Crazy Hat day at school with Miss Herma

Learning to carry her babies "Africa style"

Daddy with his girls

Cora's eyes are getting more and more blue, we think.  This picture really shows them off.