I’m On A Boat… errr I mean Ship!

That’s right ladies and gentlemen! For the wonderful month we like to call ATL (ask the Lord) I am working with the amazing team Rhema ON A BOAT – Well technically its a ship and I get corrected every time I call it a boat ha!

Team Rhema and team Increase have partnered with Mercy Ships this month here in Lome, Togo. We are loving our time on the ship! If you haven’t heard about Mercy Ships you should definitely check them out! (www.mercyships.org) It is mainly medical, but if you want to spend 2 weeks to 2 years on a ship and can push a mop you can join! Thats what we are doing haha! The Africa Mercy is currently docked in Lome and offers life sustaining medical care. They have a hospital onboard (with 6 ORs) and set up clinics in different areas around the city. The nurses and doctors offer optical, dental and medical care. They perform minor life sustaining surgeries such as cleft pallet surgeris and cataract removals. Someone told me the other day that they on average perform 100 cataract surgeries a day!

Of course that is all fun and exciting, but lets talk about where the real fun happens! It all centers around a day in the life following a man named Sam. Sam is ornery, funny, and works his butt off everyday on the ship, BUT knows how to have a good time doing it. He knows everyone and almost everything about the ship and can probably get you anywhere you want – and everywhere you don’t want – trust me I have been in too many freezers!

Our day starts out around 9 am where Sam comes to find us in the dining hall. Sometimes we are given the job of cleaning up after breakfast, sweeping, mopping and putting food away and sometimes he takes us straight to deck 2. Ahhh Deck 2. . .run in the other direction when you hear that name! He usually drags us down 3 decks into some storage room packed with food that we get to clean, restock or “tidy up” haha! Its actually a lot of hot, back breaking, but fun work. Our day last Friday consisted of us cleaning up multiple cartons of eggs that had been knocked over and fallen all between the pallets in the cold room. Did I mention this happened a couple weeks ago? We helped haul ALL of the veggies and fruits that were delivered for the ship that week from the 5th deck down to the 2nd which involves “THE LIFT” and multiple “trollies” (maybe you haven’t picked this up yet, but Sam isn’t American).

In the midst of this we have taken a short break to chop vegetables for lunch and open cans of tuna and sardines. After lunch we finish cleaning up the egg mess, haul more fruits and veggies and Jordan and I get put on maggot patrol. Oh yea we had to transport a whole pallet of maggot infested milk from the 2nd deck to the 6th deck to throw it away in the dumpsters. This ended beautifully with Sam breaking a bag of maggot infested milk as he threw it into the dumpster – spraying gross, rotted, smelly, maggot infested milk all over himself just barely missing us! After a couple more odd chores it was finally dinner time and the day was over!

Needless to say our days are random and totally unpredicatable! I love it!

Thanks again for all your love, prayers and support! LOVE YOU ALL!