30 years old

Happy 30th Birthday, Mercy Ships!
It was the typical birthday party yesterday to celebrate Mercy Ship’s 30 years of ministry. Games, rely races, BBQ and picnic, and worship with a presentation commemorating the past 30 years. Ok, maybe it’s not a typical birthday party when you have 400 people running around the ship and dock scurrying to get to the finish line first. But we did have chocolate cake at the end of the day.Our patients even joined in the festivities by playing “pin the tail on the donkey” Everyone had fun.
It was encouraging and inspiring to hear of God’s faithfulness. How He took Mercy Ships from being a very small ship with 85 crew and doing mainly eye surgeries and simple procedures to being this huge ship of 400 crew and doing around 7,000 surgeries per year, very complicated and life changing surgeries I might add. Amazing. God is so good and faithful. I’m in awe.

Just taking a walk on the beach

A group of us had gone out to dinner one evening to say "goodbye" to one of our nurses who was returning home the next day. We had gone to one of the restaurants situated on the beach and was having a fun time playing around, taking pictures, and buying beaded necklaces from one of the local citizens when we spotted a young guy strolling the beach alone with one crutch. Ummm...I wonder if we know this person...it turned out to be none other than one of our favorite former patients, Gaye! I'm still joyfully surprised when I'm out in town and come across one of our patients...and it's always a joy to greet them and see them doing well!

Anyway, Gaye is a young man of 17 who had spent quite a lot of time on the ship waiting for his broken leg and ulcer on his foot to heal. During that time we were able to get to know somethings about him. Like how smart he is...he was reading Shakespeare and having no difficulty understanding the Old English...and how he is trying to finish high school so that he can go on to college to become a Lawyer....and once when he came back to the ship for a dressing change, he stopped by the ward to give scripture verses he had written out on colored paper to all of the patients to encourage them.

It was a great time to catch up with him...to see that yes, he is still walking with some aid of a crutch (it's hard enough for anyone to walk on sand)but that his ulcer is completely healed...and when asked what he was doing here on the beach he replied casually "I'm just taking a walk on the beach."

Below is some of Gaye's story that our Communication Dept. wrote.

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Gaye Waylee was just a 4-year old boy in 1996 when he and his pregnant mother escaped Monrovia during the long-term Liberian civil war. The fighting became too dangerous to stay put. Gaye's father, at the time, was a soldier who was killed in the fighting. His older brother and sister were sent to another village while he and his mother escaped to the town of Ganta in the province of Nimba.

'It was a very difficult time,' he explained. It would take 9 years for Gaye to finally see his siblings again.

Once reunited, his brother bore the responsibility of taking care of the family. He guided Gaye through school so that they could share in caring for their mother and sisters.

So it was a tragic day one year ago, when a teenage Gaye at age 14 was in a horrible road traffic accident. The motorcycle he was riding became trapped under a truck as he tried to manoeuvre around on a bridge. His left, upper leg was broken and buckled in on itself. His leg became 4 inches shorter.

Gaye was in a bad physical state and forced to quit school. No one was able to set the bones in his leg properly, and the skin on his left foot which had been badly damaged refused to heal despite trips to nearby clinics. There was a large ulcer spreading over the top of the foot.

Gaye was unable to walk or even bend his left leg. His older brother, a nurse, managed to keep the infection from getting any worse, but still needed help. It was at one of the hospitals in Zao that they were told about Mercy Ships. Gaye, along with his brother, made the journey down to Monrovia, where the large white ship was docked. He was accepted as a patient for free treatment.

His month long stay on the ship began with skin grafts taken from his upper leg and placed over the open wound on his foot. His skin slowly began the miraculous process of healing.

by Michal Tkachenko

Fill 'er up

One early afternoon this large ship pulls up beside us on the other side of the dock. Soon afterward we hear a overhead announcement that we are refilling and to please refrain from doing any "hot work" today. That explains the big letters painted in red that said "No Smoking." We are still using 2 of the 6 engines even though we are not moving, which means we still need to refill on fuel from time to time. Well, because we can't just pull anchor and go to the nearest Gas Station, the gas station needs to come to us.
I found out that we need to refill about every 3 months and each time using 220,000 gallons of diesel. We all feel the dent in our pocket book when we have to gas up our cars at home, well this fuel bill is roughly $26,000 each time. Wow! I will turn my light out more often and appreciate the air conditioning a little more.
The small price of running a floating hospital.

Night of Glamour

The Valleta Awards

A night of fun on board the Africa Mercy. We had our own Film Awards night. Watched 11 short films produced by various crew members and then gathered at the "town's square" for the award ceremony. I love that we have so many creative and funny people here. And tonight brought out some of their best.

Relaxing Getaway in the middle of a war torn country

This is a ridiculously nice place on the ocean about 2 hours away in a place called Robertsport. It's owned by a South African. I can picture this "camping" place being back home. Nice tents with double beds, breakfast and dinner cooked for you, a nice quiet beach, a bon fire at dusk, the gentle roar of the waves lulling you to sleep at night...
Needless to say, what a lovely weekend of laying on the beach and playing in the waves! A much needed rest. Came back with a nice red glow to my skin;) Liberia never ceases to surprise me.

a group of boys

What a fun week I've had! And who wouldn't with cutie patients like these? Playing and hugging with a little school work and nursing thrown in. They kept me busy trying to keep them busy! Imagine being confined to a ward all day. The highlight of the day is taking them outside onto the dock to get some fresh air and sun shine in the afternoons.

Most of these little guys had surgery to release their burn contractures. Living here, for most people, is like camping for us. No electricity, no running water, living in a basic structure, cooking over a small fire. Most commonly kids, while playing, trip and fall into these fires or pull hot oil off of a shelf onto their hands and arms. Over time the scars form. Depending on where the burn was, their fingers may look like they're melted together or arm is bent at the elbow. Making it very hard to function with everyday activities, especially trying to hold a pencil for school. So the surgeries performed consist of releasing the scar by cutting it and grafting new skin taken often from the thigh.

So these kids are relatively healthy, just here for wound care and dressing changes and good nutrition to help with the healing process. So with that said, very full of energy, just typical kids:) I loved going to work this week! But definately had to schedule a nap after my shift;)

How blessed am I.

All in a night's work

I had an exciting night shift the other night! One of my patients was a little boy who is here for burn contracture release. Anyway, anyone under age 15 needs to have a caregiver with them. His caregiver was his mother who happened to be 8months pregnant.
When I started my night shift, around 10pm, I had seen her walk to the bathroom and the thought quickly flashed in my mind "wouldn't it be cool if she had the baby on the ship" no sooner did it enter my brain it was gone and I didn't think of it again...
Well around 2am she came to me to tell me that she was having pain in her abdomen. I wanted to be clear about this so I grabbed a translator to make sure these pains where not what she felt when she gave birth before. No it was not, she said. Ok, gave her a warm pack and some Tylenol and tucked her back into bed. When I checked on her a little over an hour later she had just "wet the bed." Was it urine, I asked...Nope it wasn't. Oh, man, we're having a baby!
We called the doctor to come and also a midwife we just happen to have on board. Mandy, is a ward nurse but works as a midwife back at home. So we called her cabin around 4am to get her out of bed to come help deliver this baby!
We had no time to think of getting this woman moved anywhere because when Mandy checked her you could already see the baby's dark curly hair. So, I was able to assist Mandy in the delivery of this perfect, beautiful little girl.
It happened so fast that I was still in awe when I headed off to bed that morning. When I woke up that afternoon I just had to go and visit our new member to make sure I hadn't dreamt the whole thing.
I found the mother and baby well and happy and comfortable. Things couldn't have gone more smoothly. More evidence of God's provision (what are the chances of having a midwife on board?) and sovereignty.
Can you guess what the mother named her? Mercy. She said so that she will not forget us...I had to laugh because we will not be forgetting her any time soon either.