Weathering Storms

During the initial time after we arrived back on the ship after our trip home in the summer, we experienced a pretty extreme case of homesickness. We really struggled with the blues to such an extent that it was difficult to get back to work and, frankly, I think that is the main reason there have been so few posts on our blog over the past few months. Now that we are less busy at the end of the field service and feeling better about things in general, I'm trying to catch up a little with blogging. I hope you will agree that late news is better than no news.

In the early fall this year, our community here experienced a period of difficulty. Three of our crew came down with malaria and spent quite a bit of time in the hospital on the ship under the care of our medical crew. All three recovered from their illness, but it was a very difficult time for them. Around the same time, Citra, one of our Gurkha security guards was out running in the morning with a good sized group from the ship. They had reached the usual turn-around point where our Gurkha friend was hit by a motorcycle while crossing the street. There was a doctor & a number of nurses in the group who tended to him. The physician in the group also insisted that the Beninese ambulance that arrived take Citra to the ship rather than to a local hospital. It took some convincing, but the ambulance driver ultimately agreed and they brought Citra to the ship. The medical staff suspected a head injury and probable internal bleeding. The cat scan and portable x-ray on board were very useful in determining the extent of Citra's injuries. He spent about a week and a half in the ICU on the ship and continued his recovery in his cabin. Despite his head injury, Citra made a full recovery from a situation that could have easily taken his life. Citra was thrilled to come back to work and has just recently gone home for his yearly scheduled vacation. We were all so happy here on the ship that he is doing well and we credit God and thank Him for taking care of our dear friend!

John

"One day Jesus said to his disciples, 'Let's go over to the other side of the lake.' So they got into a boat and set out. As they sailed, he fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger. The disciples went and woke him, saying, 'Master, Master, we're going to drown!' He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. 'Where is your faith?' he asked his disciples. In fear and amazement they asked one another, 'Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.'" Luke 8:22-25

Blackout, Ice & All That Jazz

What do the words blackout, ice, and jazz have in common? Maybe not too much ordinarily, but they describe our weekend pretty well. Last Saturday was the day at the end of a field service in Africa when all the power and most of the plumbing are shut off on the ship in order to do certain maintenance work that requires these systems to be off. So since niether Jenny or I work in the engineering department and we were aware that it would be happening, we planned to be away all day at the Hotel Du Lac letting the kids swim their hearts out in the pool there. It turned out to be a lovely day for us and we stayed until after dark and had dinner at the hotel eventhough the power and water were reportedly back on by early evening. The kids had pizza and how they love pizza, especially the boys.

Sunday held a couple of nice surprises. We had planned to have a potluck brunch with some of our friends, mostly to honor our good friends that we went to gateway in Texas with, Sam and Amy, who recently got engaged. We met up on deck 7 at 11 or so in the morning and it was almost 100 degrees F in the shade - very odd I know for the end of November back home in North Carolina. It wasn't long before the kids were all playing with water guns and wanting to turn on the hose. Our friend Peter went and filled up a cooler full of ice and dumped it out on the deck for the kids to play in. And, being the fireman that he is, did an outstanding job of manning the hose so that everyone had ample opportunity to get drenched. There were battles too between the kids and some of the adults who think they're kids to see who could get the other wetter.That involved treachery and sneaking around and also the more obvious usage of large tubs from the galley. It was quite a blast for all involved, even those who mostly watched.

On Sunday we broke with tradition and went out to eat again. A couple of our Canadian friends had been wanting to go with us to the Neuer Biergarten on the beach here because they had discovered that they have live jazz on Friday and Sunday evenings. Well, I didn't expect much and I hadn't heard great things about the food there, but Jenny and I decided to leave the kids in the care of our good friend Juan and go anyway. We invited another Canadian couple, and mutual friends, to go as well. It turned out to be one of the loveliest evenings by far that we have had since we arrived in February. The all-Beninese band they had was just fantastic, great musicians and wonderful rich vocals - and of course very laid-back. They sang songs, many of them familiar to us, in French, English, and Spanish. The food was quite nice too, and all in the gentle ocean breeze. It was like being transported somewhere else entirely for a couple of hours. We started wondering why we had not discovered this and some of the other really nice things that we have been recently discovering about Cotonou until right at time to leave!

Overall it was probably one of the nicest weekends for us in many months.

John

Port Police Escort

My friend, Craig, and I had been talking about trying to get a ride in one of the multitude of fishing pirogues that move about the waters along the coast of West Africa since we were in Liberia last year. Well, Craig made a connection with a local fisherman during the course of his work here. The man actually offered a trip on board his canoe and so Craig invited me along. We went to the fishing village with our two young sons in the harbor here on Saturday morning to meet the fisherman there. There were a few maintenance problems with the canoe so we got some net mending lessons from an older fellow there to kill time while we waited to see if things were going to work out for the ride. After a while, we realized we would have to come back another day, so it was decided that we would return this past Monday morning and try again. So Monday morning early we headed over there without the boys this time and watched as one of the fisherman's adult sons carried a boat motor across the slick, algae-covered landing to mount it on the boat. The motor slipped and fell into the water, but was quickly recovered and mounted onto the canoe. It wasn't long before we were invited aboard and headed out into the harbor next to one of the half-sunken boats here. There one son cast the anchor and while the other son helped the fisherman work on the motor to get it running. After a little while we were off and headed out past our ship toward the mouth of the harbor. It was really quite odd to see our ship and everything else around from the water level. We waited at the mouth of the harbor while one of the enormous automobile carrier ships passed in front of us to find its berth in the port. I felt a bit like a small fish at that point riding in a canoe next to one of those giant ships. Soon we headed out to sea and began paralleling the coastline headed east. We were gone not more than five minutes when a Beninese port police boat came screaming toward us. The boat carrying three uniformed men pulled alongside us and ordered us to return to the port. The boat followed as we headed back. As we arrived back at the mouth of the harbor, our motor stopped working again. The men on the police boat ordered us to throw a rope so we could be towed back into port. So we again passed by the Africa Mercy, but this time it was clear to all watching that we had been busted! Some of the deck crew were watching and waving to us from the ship to our humiliation. We were more concerned, however, about any consequences that may result for our hosts who had so graciously offered to give us a ride. Soon we arrived alongside one of the small gray naval vessels on the dock opposite our ship's berth and were ushered out of the canoe, across the deck of the vessel and onto the dock to the station there. (The gray vessels can be seen in the photo below taken earlier - we don't have any photos after we were confronted by the police boat as it would have been inappropriate to have our cameras out during that time.)Surrounded by uniformed men we were questioned mostly in French about what we had been doing. Craig, who has a very much better understanding of French than I, explained that we worked with Mercy Ships and had just been out for a spin around in a fishing canoe. Once they knew we worked with Mercy Ships and were apparently not involved in illegal activities (eg. smuggling, illegal immigration, piracy, etc.) the mood became much lighter. I guess we did look a little suspicious because it is very unusual to see a "yovo" (the fon word for white person) riding around in an African fishing canoe - at least in the not at all touristy port area. One of the officers there had trouble with his knee and so Craig, being a physician, examined his knee and gave him some advice concerning it, which the man was grateful for. We were then offered a ride in the police boat, which we graciously declined, and given permission to freely continue our voyage in the fishing canoe. Both Craig and I felt we had done all we needed to so we got back into the canoe with the fisherman and motored the short distance back to the landing. We were assured that there would be no further problems for our hosts, thanked them and returned to our ship home. Craig returned later in the day to follow up and to take photos we had taken of the trip to our fisherman friends. They were delighted and we had a great story to tell about being arrested in the port a stone's throw from the ship!

John

Wrapping Up

We are quickly approaching time to leave Benin. We will soon be sailing back to Tenerife and making preparations for Togo next year. There are quite a lot of things to be done before we can leave so we will be quite busy over the next few weeks. That's not anything new, though. The last couple of months have been very busy for us also. Preparing to finish the field service is a very busy time of year. It is also the time of year when we host most of our groups of visitors and donors who come to see the ship in action. During this time most of us on the ship are feeling a bit more stressed than over the summer months. We will be sad to leave Benin as this has been our home for nearly 10 months and we have developed relationships here, but we are really looking forward to finishing our work and heading out too. Jenny has been religiously counting down the days til the end of surgeries over the last few weeks . Officially the last surgery was this past Friday. This year has been very full of challenges for us. We are very happy to have passed through them. There have been many times this year that we have struggled to want to continue, but we are still here. At this point we are feeling much more positive about being here and are looking forward to a much needed break in Tenerife and to seeing what the coming year brings. We have certainly weathered a storm this year, mentally and spiritually, and are very grateful to those who have supported us. I think really for the first time since we left home 15 months ago we are finally beginning to feel a bit settled. I knew from our time adjusting to living in Italy years ago when I was in the military that it would take a while. I'm sure we will have more struggles coming, but its nice to see that "finding a new normal", as Jenny frequently refers to our process of adjusting to life here, is not completely outside the realm of possibility.

John

Over Board!

On Thursday night we had a special thanksgiving community meeting and it was all about ,well thanks , and I certantly have something I am thankful for! Just recently the ship has installed a bascetball hoop on deck eight. So just today we perchested a bascetball for five dollars and eighty five cents , and with so many people playing with it and we had not played with it for twenty minutes and it hit the back board of the hoop and BLOOP into the water it went! I had no hope and I thought it was gone forever cause some fisherman would come and find it and keep it for himself. I rushed down to the dock to see if I could save it , I waited until the ball came into veiw , then I was sure there was no hope. Then a man from a nearby boat dove into the icky water and grabbed the ball , he was going to keep it for himself , until mommy yelled -"it's her ball can you give it back?" And sometimes people want money for good deeds - he did. So we went back to our cabin , wrapped a few nougats and a 2000 cefa bill in a plastic bag and gave it to him , and he smiled so I got my ball back! and that is what i'm thankful for! It was a complete mirical until he said he wanted to marry me!

Bethany

Have You Hugged a Plumber Today?

For the past week in our cabin, we've been tolerating low water pressure from all the fixtures in our bathroom. The toilet would barely fill, the faucet was just a trickle and the small stream from the shower head allowed the water normally spent on a 2 minute ship-shower to be spread out over not less than 10 minutes!

Well, today I put in a work request and asked the plumber on the ship, Tom KenKnight, to "please help!" He came quickly to rescue us from this problem and had the water flowing to all fixtures by this afternoon. GO TOM!

We were all very excited about the restoration of water flow and there were gleeful giggles heard as all three kids (and Momma) turned on the shower and sink faucet to test and see for themselves the wonderful sight! As much as I love sitting in a bathtub, I thought to myself that our restored shower is almost as good as a bath! WooHoo!

Before

After

Hug a plumber today!

Jenny

Elisee Visits from Cote d'Ivoire

On Tuesday of this week I realized that a singer whose music I had become familiar with (when I was looking for music to include in a slide show to show on our visit home this summer) had been visiting the ship here in Cotonou. He goes by the name Elisee and lives in Cote d'Ivoire. All of his music has French lyrics, but he is working on Enlish versions presently. My favorite song of his is a very encouraging song called "Ca Va Aller" roughly translated "It'll be Okay". It was great to have an opportunity to meet him!

John