I’ve got a new
house! And I don’t even have a mortgage! There’s so much that has happened in
the last couple of months but the biggest excitement has to be the arrival of
our new home and work place, the Africa Mercy. After 8 years of sitting in a
dockyard in England West Africa ? Mercy
Ships continues to blow my mind and remind me that it’s about something so much
bigger than me. It’s exciting as we move from one ship to another. There’s
still so much to do and I find myself fighting the frustrations of some who
thought the Africa Mercy was going to be perfect. Life ain’t like that eh.
There’s things we’ll miss, there’s things that we’ll have to adapt to, there’s
a huge amount of work to be done before surgery begins in 4 weeks, but the
constant reminder of seeing these 2 big ships docked together acts as a
beautiful picture of God’s grandeur and our need to focus on Him through all
this topsy turviness.
And just for the
Brits (I’m sure you’ll embrace this opportunity to talk about the weather)…
it’s raining! The sun sets and rises pretty much at the same time every day,
the whole year round which makes it a little boring. In an effort to
compensate, the weather is enjoying some craziness right now. It’s the
beginning of rainy season and I have already experienced a few soakings when
I’ve been caught out and about! The rain mostly confines itself to the evenings
and nights but not always (if only England
In amongst all
the excitement here and successful patient stories there’s also the nitty
gritty of what it sometimes means to be a nurse. There’s busy days, patients
who don’t do as well as you’d hoped, patients who go home without the
perfection they had hoped for. Even in these situations I have to hold on to
the fact that God brought these people to the ship and have to believe that it
may not have been just for the surgery. That He had a higher purpose. There
have been beautiful testimonies from people who have felt loved for the first time
as they have spent so much of their lives feeling rejected. I remember one
message from a man who was leaving after some facial surgery. His writing was
poor, but the message was clear, ‘Thank you to the nurses. I know that Jesus
loves me’. Beautiful stuff. There’s death too. Just a couple of weeks ago a 6
year old boy died after his discharge from our ward. He had just had a simple
hernia repair, there had been some post op complications but he was doing well.
Then, out of the blue, we heard he had died. Too sad. My mind is completely
baffled and whilst I’ll never quite get my head around why it had to happen or
the pain I saw and experienced at his funeral, I trust in a God who is bigger
than me. Bigger than all of this. With purposes higher than I can imagine or
ever understand. Someone who I know sees the bigger picture.
There’s lots of
fun stuff I’ve been up to as well. There’s been lots of ‘the last Anastasis’
events. Like the last movie shown on a big screen on Aft deck. I loved sitting
out on a balmy African evening on movie night! It always felt a little surreal
sitting there, on the edge of some West African country with ‘life’ going on a
few hundred feet away and me there with a bowl of popcorn watching the latest
blockbuster! It’s definitely a special experience that I’ll miss. Check out the
photo of the last Anastasis lifeboat race! It was fun! There have been lots of
beach trips and goodbye outings too. Many of the nurses arrived in Ghana
So there we go
folks! I’m popping home for a couple of weeks on June 1st to go to a
wedding, it’s a great excuse to catch up with friends too, though 2 weeks is
just too short so it’ll be a whirlwind I am sure. Whether I get to see you or
not, I am so grateful for your love and support. When I return it’ll be time
for my role as ICU and Recovery Manager to fully begin so I will certainly
appreciate your prayers. For now, I will say bye bye, KWW xxx
