Dirty Jobs

Dive, dive, dive!

Dirty job Every week two divers clean garbage and marine growth from the screens that cover the cooling water intakes on the Africa Mercy, so that the cooling water continues to pass, so that the engines and generators don't overheat. The visibility is usually very low, which makes their job extremely hard... Pictured: Olly Peet.

Sharing

"Will John or Jenny Rolland please report to their cabin...Will John or Jenny Rolland please report to their cabin?"

Well...it wasn't really a question that we heard over the ship's loud speaker today.

It was around 5:20pm and I was still in the OR, but about ready to meet the family in the dining room for supper. A few minutes before, though, I got a page on the beeper and the number displayed was our cabin number. I suspected that the page was from John and that he wanted to know when I would be ready to meet them. Then...everyone on the ship was silenced by the "BONNNNNG" that means "shhh...there is an announcement coming". And announcements over the ship's paging system are not granted lightly!

My eyes got really wide, I might have said "CRAP", and then I couldn't decide weather to run to the phone or up the 3 flights of stairs to Deck 6 and our cabin. OK, phone. The line went straight to voicemail. OK, stairs. Up, up, up..."someone must be hurt...where's John?...it must be serious for them to have paged..." When I got to the top of the stairs on deck six, I had a clue as to what was the matter. It was on the floor outside of the captain's cabin and I had to step over it very carefully as to not get stomach contents on my OR shoes!

John had already made it to the cabin, our friend, Juan, was dialing the duty housekeeper and another friend, Joan, was in the cabin and had assisted David from the hallway to our bathroom. David was dazed and pale, but felt better after his stomach had been emptied on the deck! John ended up doing the clean-up and had just finished when Bethany asked if he had gotten the spot in the hallway on Deck 5. Nope, it was still there! Mop to Deck 5. Finally, the clean-up was complete and three fifths of the family went to the dining room for supper!

I felt very famous in the dining room as many people gave me a glance and raised their eyebrows as if to ask, "what was that about?" Several did ask and were not surprised to discover that the bug-of-the-month had visited our cabin. That's the thing...we live in such close community that we share EVERYTHING! We love our neighbors, though, and believe that we ought to share each other's burdens. So, David is just doing his part!

But, really, we are very thankful for those around us who share our burdens even on days like this! Thank you to our friends who helped us out and enquired about our well being. It's nice to have such a big family here on the ship that looks after us!

Jenny

R & R

I can't believe it's been so long since we posted a note! We've been home in Pfafftown, NC at Mom-Mom and Pop's for a little rest and refreshment since June 23rd. Our bodies have not had much rest, but our brains have had a break and we are loving being at home and visiting friends and family.

These are some of my favorite spots at Mom- Mom & Pop's house...

The left half of the front porch.

The right half of the front porch.

The back deck where you can look out at the garden and Pop's "lean to" that houses the gardening equipment and such.

The chickens on the "farm". Each of the two hens that are left lay one egg per day. Yum!

The playhouse that Pop built.

Jenny

Our Father, who art in Heaven...

This week in our Thursday morning devotionals, Nari Palmer encouraged us to reflect on God for a moment and write down the first 7 characteristics of God that came to mind. I thought I would go through the list one by one and share each here as a post. The first one I wrote down was "Father".

I am blessed to have a wonderful earthly Father who has loved me and been an example of how my heavenly Father loves me. But I know that many people go through life never knowing or having been let down by their fathers. Our Father in heaven cares for us so tenderly, providing for our every need, drawing us to himself when the world disappoints us.


This week we found out that one of our little patients who was on the ship with us for many weeks passed away. Odelon was only a few weeks old and severely underfed when we met him. He suffered from a cleft lip and palate and had been all but disowned by his family. He and his mom came to the Africa Mercy and began a feeding program designed to help him gain enough weight and strength to undergo surgery to correct his deformity. The program was successful and his lip and palate were repaired by Dr Tertius Venter a couple months ago.


Odelon stayed with us for awhile after surgery so that his mom could get used to feeding him now that he was "normal". They were doing very well and finally returned to their village. But our joy over Odelon's triumph was turned to sadness when we learned this week that he had not been accepted back into his family and eventually died from lack of nourishment. Please pray for his family and village, that their eyes would be opened to the Truth and that the Truth will set them free from all that keeps them in darkness.

Psalm 68:5 ~ A father to the fatherless, a defender to the widows, is God in his holy dwelling.

Psalm 27:10 ~ Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.

Trip to Ghana

A couple of weeks ago now we had an opportunity as a family to go to Ghana. We took a few days off of work and took the kids on a little adventure. Our friend Miriam, our English pharmacist, and Philip, who is from Ghana and works in engineering on the ship, went with us. It was really helpful to have Philip with us because he knew the border procedures well and had made the trip before. We were also very grateful to our other Ghanaian friends here, Richmond and Esther, who helped us arrange transportation and lodging. We had a wonderful time. We stayed most nights at the YWAM base in Tema just east of Accra. Many of the African crew members aboard the ship are from Tema so it was very nice to see the place they call home. Our impression was that Ghana is still very much West Africa, but much more like home than any other West African country we have visited so far. There is quite a bit of development there and even a western style shopping mall in Accra! There were a few moments while driving around in Accra when we could imagine ourselves being in the U.S. somewhere, until we were jolted back to Africa at the red lights where dozens of vendors weave between the cars hoping to sell whatever they are carrying in the large containers on their heads.

On Thursday, April 30th we traveled from Cotonou to Tema. We didn't expect to have any trouble leaving Benin, but that was where we got stuck. The border police wanted us to pay for Benin visas, which, given the work we do, we are not required to have. So rather than paying $100 extra we made a few phone calls and waited an hour and a half til everything got sorted. After that, we crossed into Togo and then later into Ghana without any trouble. Altogether the trip to Tema took about 9 hours. That evening we met our gracious hostess, Betty. We were very grateful for all her hospitality while we were there. Philip went on to his home to visit until our return to Cotonou, but Miriam stayed and traveled with us. Friday we went to Boti Falls to the north of Accra along with Dixon, our driver. We listened to lots of African praise music, South African reggae, and some interesting Nigerian hip-hop during our journey. It turned out to take much longer to get there than we expected, but it was beautiful and the kids had fun splashing around in the water.

On Saturday we got up early and left at 5:00 for Winneba for the annual Aboakyir Festival. We had timed our trip so we could try and catch this event. During the night two companies of men had gone out to try to catch live antelope. So Saturday morning not long after we arrived they paraded in from the hunt with great fanfare carrying their catch. The local chief came out too with his entourage all dressed in their traditional clothing. It was fascinating to see all of this, but the crowds made it a bit difficult to see the animal and quite hazardous to get any photos. We had lunch that day at a little restaurant run by one of Betty's relatives. Below is a photo of the kids and Emmanuel, a wonderful man who does church planting and who was kind enough to drive us to the festival, at the restaurant.On our way back to Tema that evening we tried some tiger nuts we bought from a street vendor.

On Sunday we rested a little and left with Dixon for Elmina. We toured Elmina Castle, an old Portuguese fort used during the slave trade. It was a very interesting tour, but also very sobering. We stayed at a very nice lodge on the beach that night and tried some local food called kenkey, a smoked corn meal cake wrapped in plantain leaves. We also had a nice chicken kabob and spaghetti for the kids.

On Monday we went to Kakum National Park and went on the rope bridge canopy walk up in the rain forest canopy. It was quite high up and quite beautiful. It reminded David, Joey and me of the Ewok village from Return of the Jedi.

We tried fresh cocoa there too. The beans are white on the outside and taste very sweet. You only suck the flavor off the outside without biting the bean. Neither the sweet taste of the outside of the bean nor the interior of the bean if you bite into it taste anything at all like chocolate.

On our way back from Kakum Park we stopped off for lunch at a place called Hans Cottage Botel. The restaurant sits on stilts on a lake that is infested with crocodiles. There are also thousands of yellow and black weaver birds in the trees within arms reach. That was a really neat place to hang out. The caretaker let us watch her feed the crocodiles and let everyone touch the tail and hind legs of one of them. None of us had ever done anything like that before. I'm sure it would have been no big deal for people like Jeff Corwin, Bear Grylls, or Steve Irwin, but it was a big deal for us.

When we got back to Tema Monday evening we got to see Esther, one of the ship's photographers who just returned to live in Tema, her hometown. We visited briefly with her mother as well and Cathy who was also visiting from the ship.

Tuesday we linked back up with Dixon and Philip for the return to Cotonou. We said goodbye to Dixon at the border and crossed into Togo. Unfortunately, our ride was not there. We had a few refreshments at the Shell station and waited for a couple of hours for the van to come. It didn't so we got a couple of taxis in order to make it into Benin before dark. The taxi ride was a little unsettling. The drivers obviously knew the road very well, but even so 100 miles per hour through Togo is frightening! It was the first taxi speedometer that I had seen that actually worked and I'm pretty sure it was not measured in km per hour. Perhaps it would have been better for me if it hadn't worked. Nevertheless, the Lord was merciful and we all arrived back at the ship safely. It was a very nice, refreshing trip.

John

This and That

The most important thing I have to report today is that for the last two and a half weeks we have been livin' a dream! That dream is the realization that we now have a TEENAGER IN THE HOUSE!

It's true. Joey turned 13 on April 7, 2009!! Joey celebrated by hosting a "Lord of the Rings" marathon in the Youth Room for a few of the guys on the ship. They started the first one at 1pm and finished up after 11pm! And at Joey's request, I made pizza for dinner and baked a chocolate cake with chocolate chips and chocolate icing. We even bought ice cream (Fan Ice from a local super market) to top it off. It was a "fun, Lord of the Rings-y" day, according to Joey. And a highlight for the guys was when they pulled the head off the breadman from our previous post. Poor breadman!

On Easter Monday, we played in the rain with our friends, the Albrechts, at Au Jardin Helvetia, a rustic hotel about 45 minutes from the ship. We really enjoyed the rest and refreshment that day provided.

Here you can see the snail round-up by the kids.

Joey and John have been working on scouting merit badges in their spare time. Here, John is having fun testing Joey's knowledge of First Aid.

And below is a phot of Joey navigating an orienteering course that John mapped out for him in Cotonou. It may not be the typical Boy Scout orienteering course, but it's the environment we have to work in.

Joey's hope is to advance to the rank of First Class before he joins with his old troop for Boy Scout Camp at Camp Raven Knob in June. Yes, we have plans to go home for a visit in the summer!!
On another note...I had the opportunity to give blood to one of our patients last Friday. There was one fellow who lost a good deal of blood during his surgery. The blood bank is made up of crew members who are willing to donate on a moment's notice when the need arises. So when you get called, you go to the Ward where you hop onto an empty be and the lab technician pulls a nice unit from you which then goes directly to the patient. It's a pretty cool thing to know you are providing warm, life sustaining blood to someone in need! We were critically low of this patient's blood type, but when people heard of the need, more signed up to give.

Below you can see three crew members who were giving at the same time this past week to meet an urgent need while a patient was in surgery.

Jenny

Been Busy!

Life's like a river current, isn't it? It just keeps on flowing, and we do best to lay back on the water and flow right with it. If we try to stand up and stay in one place, we hit a good deal of resistance, but the current keeps moving...just swirls around us and flows on. And I've learned that you are supposed to float down the river feet first so that you aren't as likely to get your feet caught on things on the bottom of the river that will pull you under. That position also keeps you face-forward. There's no point in looking back at where you came from. You need to keep your eyes on what's ahead, or you'll bump into a rock or get caught in low-lying branches, and cool things will pass by without you even noticing!

So, we've been caught up in the river of life. We are now about to begin the 7th week of surgeries on board the M/V Africa Mercy. Monday through Friday the current is the swiftest for me. As I've been trying to juggle the things and situations that need my attention, I've also been able to spend a little time playing my favorite roll..."scrub nurse". And I've been witness to what may be the fastest surgical time in the world! The other day, I worked with our neighbor and fellow North Carolinian, Dr Bruce Steffes, on "hernia day" (which is every day in the general surgery room. There are SO many!). He was able to repair bilateral hernias on a 5 year old in 10 minutes, with a total OR time of 22 minutes! Amazing!

Dr Bruce working with Dr Mark Shrime on a goiter a few weeks ago

John's been spending a little spare time fishin'. Last week he had some interaction with a fellow on the dock that gave some good insight about asking and receiving. Below are some photos of the strange looking fish he caught. It wasn't big, but it was interesting. Some of the locals called it a "snake fish".Joey got to spend 3 days in the Galley with Eddie the Baker this past week. The Junior High and High School kids got to have some "Work Experience". Joey got up around 4:30 am and learned about baking. He also was able to help make the pizzas for the crew's dinner on Thursday evening. That was one of the highlights of his time in the galley. He's very passionate about pizza! They had a little extra fun making this "bread man" too.

Bethany and David have been trying to get as much "Deck 8" time as possible. Deck 8 is where the pool and climbing frame are. The pool is a refreshing oasis in the hot climate. And David has been challenging himself to cross the monkey bars without falling. So far, he's crossed more than 13 times! (He's counting!)

And so we float on down this river that's life. The nicest days are the ones where the current is slow and we can pay attention to the beauty on the river banks. Those would be the weekends of life, I guess!

~Jenny~