We are sailing!

So today we sail out of Liberia!!!! I have already taken one of my special seasickness pills from my friend that are meant to be better than generic as they are from Switzerland and have the slightest amount of caffeine so you stay awake to enjoy sailing! So here`s believing in faith that it will do the trick!
I feel like a small child anticipating a holiday!
So exciting.
We did a lifeboat drill this morning this gives us one more practice but also allows for us account for all crew before the sail. This is known as a "mustering".
When the first alarm sounds emergency teams go to their stations. At the second alarm all crew go to their muster station which is on deck 7 while at sea. We await the captains order`s and if appropriate he would call for an "abandon ship".
Here is a picture of my lifeboat station, Michael is on the bridge(the part of the ship where the sailing happens and orgnisation during these drills occurs) as assistant purser its his job to help account for everyone as muster sheets are handed in and then would just walk out the door and join me if we had to go in the lifeboats.



Goodbye Liberia....



Love from the smooth seas of West Africa.

Last days in Liberia

This is little Kwelyon. He is the boy that needs lots of prayer. We sent him to a local NGO pediatric hospital on friday until a neuro surgeon sees him in a few weeks. He is doing better.



This is little Eddie. He was burnt at 1 month old by a mosquito net catching on fire while he slept. He has had skin grafts to his eyes and scalp. His scalp was severely burnt. He will need a lot of surgery in the future to release the tight tissue but for now he at least doesn`t have horrible open wounds!. He is a beautiful baby that brings tears to my eyes. He is cuddly and loves to touch your face. His mum Fatu is sassy. She is all of 19. She was in school before he was born and loved to play basketball. She has no one to teach her how to be a mum. She has loved the supportive environment of the ward and will miss it a lot she said!. She insisted on Eddie having a photo with Michael too :). I have been trying for days to upload more photos without success!.

I am looking forward to sailing now!
I will miss Liberia but I feel like our goodbyes are done. It is time for rest and recuperation and then time to take Hope and Healing to a new country!. God was here before we came and he will be here after we are gone. We are merely his hands and feet wherever he sends us!.

Great things He has done Greater things He will do.

be the Solution

be the One

be the Restored

be the Miracle

be the Story

be the Daughter/Son

be the Voice

be the Hands

be the Change

Every 3.5 seconds someone dies of hunger. Every 11 seconds someone dies of aids. Every 15 seconds a child dies from a waterborne illness. Forty Million people live with HIV /AIDS. One billion have no access to clean water and 2.6 billion live without basic sanitation. Five million live in refugee camps and 1.08 billion live on one dollar or less per day. Two million children die each year from preventable diseases and 11 million children die before they reach their 5th birthday. Enough food is produced to feed everyone on earth and statistics tell us that in a modern and supposedly sophisticated world, 27 million precious sons or daughters live enslaved.

We live in a world that is full of injustice and hardship, but we are called as followers of Jesus to reach out and do something about it! Sometimes the biggest thing we can do is PRAY!

The numbers are overwhelming I copied them from a website today. I see a small part of the reality everyday here in Liberia and it is still hard to grasp. I know its hard to feel in touch with this as you read it from your office or home. We are so blessed. Did we choose to be? No!.

Right now we have patients on the ward that are feeling desperate. We close at the end of this week to pack for our sail next week. We need your prayers we are praying 24/7 for our patients literally, the whole crew can sign up to pray in our prayer ward! in particular we have 2 little boys. Kwelyan is 6yrs old and has a contagious smile. He is from neighbouring Guinea so speaks no english. He had an encephlocele repair which is facial deformity but also has neurological involvement so he is leaking CSF which is the fluid in the ventricles of your brain. He will end up with a brain infection if this is not healed! PLEASE PRAY FOR DIVINE HEALING! there is no room for anything else! There is nowhere local to send him the closest we have heard of is Kenya!

Then there is beautiful Nicholas who is 4 and has suffered from a closed oesophagus since he was 2 yrs old from accidently drinking caustic soda (an awful phenomena here in Liberia). He has survived by having a PEG tube for feeding. He has had a very complicated surgery last week and is in a lot of pain and discomfort. We are praying he would recover very quickly. He has a little sister who has been in hospital since she was born because of her brother her name is "Surprise" the best name ever I think. She has never had the attention she needs! I asked her what noise a chicken makes the other day and her mother said she doesn`t know what a chicken is because she never goes outside. she is always in the hospital. Over the last few weeks we have had many of these chronically ill children who are unable to eat due to caustic soda burns of their oesophagus. They struggle to swallow a sip of water. One boy was 14yrs old and only weighed as much as a 5yr old. Crazy!. The surgeon says he has kids like this die from malnutrition everyday. Without education this will continue to happen! Not even a disease just a preventable accident! Caustic soda looks just like water when it is being prepared to make soap apparently.

I am sorry if this is depressing! Its hard not to get upset about the inequality of life for so many people in the world. I believe Our God is just and that it was not his intention for life to be this way.

We took our friend Chris to the airport this morning to head to Ghana for DTS so that mid next year she can join the ship. I believe God has the best plan for her life even if it doesn`t look how we expect it to or want it to! Our God is just and good in all his ways.

Please join us as we pray to finish this outreach without any problems.

What a year it has been starting with our wedding in february and who would have thought that by our first wedding annniversary we will have spent more than half of that year in Africa again. What an amazing adventure!.
" Great things He has done Greater things He will do!" as the african song says.