We're Here!

We made it. After a week at sea, we have arrived safely to port at Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Sailing was a nice adventure, most days. Bethany had a little trouble with queeziness, but the seasick meds our friendly pharmacist gave us kept the feeling away during the rough part of the journey. Even though the weather was beautiful on the sail, the winds were quite high which caused fairly rough seas.

We did enjoy watching from the outer decks the ship's bow crashing down into the waves and sending up a great splash. I also really loved the colors of the water! It was exciting to watch as the ship would cut through the deep blue water and send it peeling away into frothy white and tourquoise waves. Yum! Even David declared that he felt like jumping off into it!

With the help of a couple of tugs, we docked at the port Friday morning around 7:30 to a warm welcome by a local fellow playing the trumpet. He played several Christmas selections and a very memorable "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus". We heard that he welcomes the ship and it's crew that way every time they come in. What a blessing! By Friday evening, nearly everyone had disembarked and made their way into town to enjoy beautiful Santa Cruz with it's lovely parks and lively, festive streets.

Even though some of us still have work to do, we are looking forward to several weeks of exploring this beautiful island and it's many interesting towns and features. The kids have begun their 5 weeks of winter break, so I'm sure they, with John, will be making good use of the bus pass we just bought. Jenny, on the other hand, will be working in the office making preparations for the outreach to Benin, West Africa, that will begin mid-February. We do have some holiday time and a few days of vacation coming up. Mom-Mom and Pop will be flying in Dec 31st to spend a week with us. We are SO looking forward to their visit!

Jenny

Sunsets at Sea

One fun thing I did while we were sailing was to photograph the sunset every day that I could. Here are some sunset photos I made while we were sailing. Each was taken on a different evening.

John

The Past Four Months

I just wanted to share some more photos of the time we spent in Liberia. Here they are.

John

Goodbye Liberia

Scenes like these have been common this past week. All of the items on the dock had to be loaded onto the ship. Much of our time over the past couple of weeks has been spent preparing for the sail. We had to help secure all of our work spaces and make sure that all the equipment was secured and strapped down. We also had to secure our cabin for the sail and make sure that nothing could slide around too much. We have had lots of drills too. We said our goodbyes to friends and yesterday we pulled away from the dock and left Liberia. Our feelings are mixed of course. The sunset was beautiful over the open ocean and the moon was full last night. Jenny saw a beautiful bird today and we've also seen some dolphins at a distance. I am amazed too that I can post this blog entry from this desert of ocean. The phones are working well too. Jenny got a call not long ago from a friend in New Zealand. We are constantly in motion rolling from side to side, but we are getting our sea legs. Bethany had a little trouble feeling sea sick yesterday, but it didn't last long. We are thankful for a smooth sail so far and are praying for a safe time at sea.

John

Blackout

Last Saturday there was a "blackout" on the ship. There was some maintenance work that needed to be done that required shutting down most of the systems on the ship, including the electricity and plumbing. A lot of folks decided to leave for the better part of the day and we were no exception. We decided to spend the day at Cece Beach with some of our friends. We had a pretty good time. The kids enjoyed the day the most. I wondered toward the end of the day if they might begin to grow gills, as much time as they were spending in the water. Below are some photos of them playing on the beach. The boys found some other boys to play with and had a good time tossing a coconut they found in the surf. Bethany hunted for clams and built sand castles with our friends Sabrina and Sarah, among other things.Lunch was one of the highlights of the day. The kids had some chicken with fries and Jenny and I had fish. (The open air kitchen is pictured in the background - behind the bar - of the photo below.) The fish was really wonderfully prepared, quite possibly the best either of us had ever had! It was probably caught that morning by one of the fishermen in the fishing village that neighbors the beach (we saw many canoes bringing in their morning catch not long before noon). We also got to listen to live music, some reggae and some African, most of the day. We heard some interesting versions of some familiar songs. It was a nice way to spend the day. We waited a few hours when we got back to the ship for the showers to start working again, but it was worth it.

John

Poverty and Industry

The above photos show some of the gritty scenes that are common in Monrovia. These kinds of photos show a little of the challenge that the people of Liberia face in surviving and giving their children a future. The photo below of the men trying to jump start a taxi with the word "challenge" on the window sort of sums it up to me. The recent civil war here is much to blame for the immense scale of poverty in Liberia. It is not so much just the visible signs of poverty, but the scale of it in this sprawling city that is so striking and difficult to digest. What is clear is that many people here are making an effort to do what they can to improve their situation, but many are barely surviving. I met a Liberian fellow named Franklin on a walk around town this past weekend and he had something interesting to say about the situation: " Those who are not determined to face the challenges of the future say that there is no job or 'this job is not fit for me'. Those who are ready to see a brighter future for themselves and for the next generation to come will seek whatever job comes their way." It is encouraging for me to see, even though it is done more out of necessity due to scarcity, rubber being recycled and used to make replacement parts for cars (as the man is doing in the photo below) and soles for sandles. At least something is being slowly done with this particular mound of "trash". Another place where people are hard at work is Rock Hill in Paynesville. There people dig up large rocks and pound them with hammers to make gravel to be sold. This is a very hard way to do the job and very dangerous since no one has safety goggles. There are many eye injuries, as a result, in this area. Machines are just not available to do the job. Another common sight are the gas stations where gasoline is sold in glass jars. The fuel is stored in a below ground tank and the fuel is pumped with a hand pump into a barrel and the barrel is emptied into glass jars. When someone pulls up for fuel the jars are emptied into the tank with the use of a funnel. In a place where the infrastructure has been so devastated by war, many of the things we use to make our lives easier are not available and so people have to use what they can to make things work however they can. It's quite a hill to climb though. One thing that is so sad about Liberia is that so many of the children here are not in school because their parents can't afford to pay their school fees. Instead, they are out on the streets selling whatever they can find in order to make a little money to live on. Education is certainly a major part of the solution for Liberia, but many times immediate needs win out. May God give Liberians the strength to move forward into a better future.

John

Weekend Outings

We were very busy last weekend and have only just caught our breath. On Saturday we had a vehicle signed out and the five of us took a spin about town. We made our way to the intersection of Gurley and Benson streets and found a shop where there were about a dozen tailors producing shirt/trouser sets, dresses, etc. Each tailor has a sample of their work hanging on the walls above their own work station. I found a very dressy outfit that will be nice for Christmas, and we bought a few other articles of clothing, too. My outfit needed some adjustments, so as we waited, we walked around the block to kill time. Of course, John got some pictures as we walked...

After the tailors, we drove further downtown, and shopped at one of the craft shops across from the US Embassy. There were lots of interesting things there, and we just HAD to have a couple flip-flop cars. They were a good example of how you can recycle here!

On Sunday we were blessed to be part of a celebration and dedication of a new church in Bomi county, about an hour up the road. The church is in a village in 'the bush' and was started after a team from Mercy Ships took the Jesus Film to them a couple of months ago. Several of the villagers were deeply touched by the message and wanted to disciple new believers. Part of the celebration was a baptism. Everyone walked about a mile away from the village to a 'good' spot in the river where those being baptized could be immersed.

"Don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." Romans 6:3-4

Jenny

Clinic Dedication

Friday I had the pleasure of travelling to the site of the Tenegar Clinic that Mercy Ships helped to rebuild at the request of the Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The Tenegar village is just up the road from where she was born.

The ceremony on Friday was a dedication of the clinic and the guest of honor was the President, herself!

There was a great crowd, both from the community and also from the ship, that came to celebrate the opening of the clinic and to see the President. The event was supposed to start at 2:30pm, but true to the culture, the President and her entourage arrived a couple hours late. Around here, the time serves as a rough estimate to when things may happen. This whole issue of time keeping was emphasized in a humorous way as we waited. To my left, Glenys, my fellow OR nurse from New Zealand, happened to look at her watch and announce the time was 3:30. We agreed that surely the President would be there at any moment. Then, ten minutes later, my Liberian neighbor on my right looked at her watch and exclaimed that it was already 3:15! Their watches were 25 minutes different! And I think Glenys' was closer to correct. But what is time, anyway?

One part of the ceremony was the "gowning" of some of the key facilitators of the revival of the clinic and it's surroundings. Below is the managing director of the Africa Mercy, Ken Berry.

Not only did the team from Mercy Ships help the villagers to rebuild the clinic, they also helped them to plant crops and to dig a well. It was very exciting to see the work that is being done in the communities while surgeries are in progress on the ship. This was my first "field trip" to see what some of the other Mercy Ships team members are doing in Liberia. It was a good day!

Jenny