Saying Goodbye

With over 1000 volunteers coming and going each year, saying goodbye to people is part of life on Mercy Ships.  Hopefully it is "until we meet again."
When people leave, friends gather on the dock as the Land Rovers are packed up.  It's an important time.

Packing up the Land Rovers 

Sometimes there are some musical send offs such as the ukulele band.

But mostly it's time to express appreciation and gratitude for friendship and for sharing life together in this wonderful community committed to "bringing Hope and Healing to the Worlds Forgotten Poor."

Chuck

Patient updates

Do you remember the twin who had to gain some much needed weight before having cleft lip surgery?

He had his surgery last week.

Cleft lip surgery

Here he is after surgery

Leaving the ship

Our friend Don was working at the Hope Center.  He's from the Cortland, NY area.

Yaya walking without his walker

Yaya is also doing well.  He came with horribly twisted legs, but is now learning to walk.


Debbie

What is left behind

As a part of serving with Mercy Ships, we are learning about sustainability, or capacity building.

The Africa Mercy will leave Guinea in June.  What will we leave behind?

Capacity building is important, and Mercy Ships is involved in lots of different areas.
The Food for Life program trains people in agriculture at a site about four hours upcountry from the ship.  There is a lot of education and training here.

One program that I've learned about is how they treat club foot.  Club foot is a treatable birth defect where one or both feet are twisted inward and down, making it very painful or impossible to walk.  In developing countries, people are unable to work or have a normal life.

One patient in casts

Physical therapists from the ship work with children with club feet using the Ponseti treatment.  They use a series of casts, physical therapy and a special brace.

This is pretty exciting itself, seeing the lives that are changed.  But they are also training local people to be able to treat future patients with this same technique.

After they are finished straightening the feet with the series of casts, the kids have to wear a brace.
They first wear the brace all the time, and gradually need to wear it only when they are sleeping.

One of these braces costs about 200 US dollars.  That is an impossible amount for most people here.
One of the Africa Mercy Deck crew workers started making braces out of scrap metal for about $20.
He has taught local people how to make these braces. That's creative, practical sustainability!

The doll with a brace- one of the favorite toys!

Now the people of Guinea have their own trained therapists and a small business for making affordable  braces!


Debbie

60 Minutes on Feb 17

A crew from the news show 60 Minutes was on the Africa Mercy in May while the ship was in Togo.

So we're very excited to hear that this segment is scheduled to air this Sunday, February 17, 2013 on CBS at 7 pm Eastern time.

This is a show that I remember from my childhood.  It's the longest running news show in the US.

Have you ever noticed that 60 Minutes doesn't have a theme song?  Just the ticking of the clock.

We pray that people will hear the message of hope and healing that Mercy Ships brings to the world's forgotten poor.


Debbie

Soccer Keeps the Peace

Guinea gained its independence from France on October 2, 1958.  It took a long time between Independence from France to free elections.  There were decades of socialist dictators. The first democratic presidential election was held in November 2010.  Turnout was high and voting went smoothly.   President Alpha Condé who ran on an anticorruption platform, has been  trying to reform the government and renew mining contracts.  Of course there is always opposition, and there have been attempted coups taking place since in this very short experience of democracy.

The legislative body, The National Assembly of Guinea has not met since 2008 when it was dissolved after a military coup in December of that year..  Elections have been postponed many times.  More recently the elections that were to be held in July 2012 were postponed indefinitely.  In April 2012, President Condé cited the need for transparent and democratic elections.  There is no structure set up for that to happen yet.

President Conde' 

So some people are upset that these elections have not taken place.  Like everyone in the world, freedom is something longed for.

This Thursday, February 7 was a date set for demonstrations to protest the lack of elections as previously promised.  When "peaceful" demonstrations are planned, there is concern that they might not end peacefully.

On the Mercy Ships we were concerned that our day workers would not be able to make it safely to the ship, and we postponed a celebration dinner because of the potential of violence in town.  We also prayed for peace.

As it turned out, the protests were called off because the president of FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) was in the country.  Football take priority over protests, and the president of FIFA is one of  the most respected men in Africa.  Because he was in Guinea, the protests were called off.  They may happen next week, but for this week, Football was responsible for peace in the city!

FIFA president Seep Blatter is on a four nation tour of Africa during the Africa Cup.  The finals are Sunday 10 February.  He came to visit and tour the Africa Mercy in the early evening.

The man who was the answer to our prayers came with a full security force.

The Deck was cleared of all Mercy Ship Vehicles
 to make room for our guest's visit.
  The tents on the left serve for patient admission,
 Outpatient care and Physical Therapy

There was a police motorcycle leading the convoy, followed by several limo’s and other security vans.  We were watching the events from the top deck, when they all arrived.

Some of the Crew watching from Deck 8

  At one point a van pulled in past our security entrance on the deck, and riot police complete with helmets, face shields and weapons stormed out of the vans and ran to the gangway to surround the FIFA president and his associates as they got out of their vehicles and prepared to go up the gangway.

The Delegations meeting Mercy Ships Leadership on Deck

In Reception on the Africa Mercy

The visit lasted about 20 minutes, but Mr Blatter was very moved by what he saw aboard the Africa Mercy.  He toured the hospital and even visited patients in one of our wards.

the Lab Visit

D ward patient 

D Ward Patient Greets Mr Blatter

We were all reminded in our community meeting that evening, that we are representatives, not of any particular country (we currently have people serving from 34 nations), but representatives of Jesus Christ.  Our presence brings blessing to this country well beyond the patients and families who come for medical help.

It’s good to be reminded why we are here.

So that beautiful game, called football around the world (and soccer in the US) brought peace to this city on Thursday..

There are still many needs for this country to progress in democracy and it is a hard battle.  Progress is made little by little and person by person.

Chuck

Everything you need

Feeding everyone here on the Africa Mercy is a really big job.  Especially at lunch.  The ship hires day workers- people from Conakry who fill jobs as pastors, translators, housekeeping, patient care, laundry, galley workers, deck hands-lots of local people.

The day workers are on board for lunch, so there are lots of people.  For most of the day workers, lunch is their main meal.  I have never seen so much food on one plate.  Then, they often add 4-5 slices of bread to top off the plate.

Some of the weekly food delivery

The food here is good.  I have told people that I've forgotten how to cook.  I love it that they cook for me!  I also love that the lab is closed for lunch.  We are on call, and I have been paged in the lunch line, but it's pretty rare.

We have a Starbucks on board.  We are told that it's the first Starbucks in West Africa.  On the weekends, Starbucks is only open if we have volunteer staff.  This kind of makes me laugh, since all the crew is volunteer.  But I guess this is a volunteer volunteer position.  So I work as a barista on selected Saturday nights.

Starbucks on the Africa Mercy

I don't know how well you can see this, but the sign has a different Starbucks logo.   The Starbucks logo is offensive to some in West Africa, so ours has been modified.
When I work in the Starbucks, there is a sign on the register.

WE HAVE EVERYTHING YOU NEED, YOU JUST NEED TO NEED LESS.

It makes me think.  Really?  Everything I need?  I think about what I want, and what I need. Really, I do have everything I need.  That and a lot more.

We are the only Starbucks I know that sells laundry detergent and "loo paper," so maybe it's true.

Debbie

Sunglasses

Dr Glenn is on board doing eye surgeries.
He's a whirlwind.  Two operating rooms are set up, so when Dr Glenn is operating in one, the other is being set up for the next surgery.  He moves between the two rooms.  We have a friend on the eye team that says that with Dr Glenn here, everything just moves fast!  He also trains local surgeons his techniques for African cataracts.

Dr. Glenn has also operated on 28 children.  These cases are more complicated, and they also require general anesthesia.  He can't train local doctors for pediatric eye surgery.  They just don't have the facilities to do that kind of surgery here.  But the changed lives for those 28 children is pretty amazing.

When the children come who have been screened for eye surgery, they are very subdued.  They don't smile, or play.  They sit quietly with their parents in the waiting area.

We were able to see a video of the children when they come back to the ship a week after their surgery.  The nurses have balloons to play with them so they can determine how much they can see.  The kids are jumping around playing with the balloons with big smiles!  They're excited and giggling!
Their parents see personalities that they didn't know they had!  It's like they have new children.

One week after surgery

I don't know if the happy kids with their sunglasses inspired the sunglass pictures of the crew kids, but they sure are cute.

Crew kids on deck 8

We have loved to see the kids on board.  I love watching the families in the dining hall. The little boys race around the deck on their scooters, or play tag.

I love to see this little girl eating cheerios with her Dad in the morning..

OK, this is just really cute.

Debbie