12-2-06
or, as most people around the world write it, and as we write it on the ship
2-12-06
Dear Friends,
The past two months have been filled with changes as I adjust to living in West Africa. I can say truthfully that I never imagined my life would take me down this path – but at the same time, I can also say once again how thankful I am that my God is wiser than I am. I am so glad to be living here, in this place, doing what I am doing. There are so many things to write about, and once again I will attempt to share a piece of my world with you.
Blessings
The apostle Paul says it best, and I am not going to attempt to improve on his words.
How I praise the Lord that you are concerned about me again. I know you have always been concerned for me, but you didn’t have the chance to help me. Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it be with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. Even so, you have done well to share with me in my present difficulty.
As you know, you Philippians were the only ones who gave me financial help when I first brought you the Good News and then traveled on from Macedonia. No other church did this. Even when I was in Thessalonica you sent help more than once. I don’t say this because I want a gift from you. Rather, I want you to receive a reward for your kindness.
At the moment I have all I need – and more! I am generously supplied with the gifts you sent me with Epaphroditus. They are a sweet-smelling sacrifice that is acceptable and pleasing to God. And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.
~Philippians 4:10-19Even living in Africa, I still cannot claim, as Paul did, to always be content with everything I have (or don’t have). However, I have been so abundantly blessed by all of you. I can’t even find the words to thank you for your beautiful gifts. (Those of you who know me well know that I am rarely speechless!) I pray daily that the blessings will be returned to you times one thousand. You all deserve it.
Liberian Prison System
I want to relate this story about the Liberian Prison System and the impact you have had on it. I hope you can realize that prisons in West Africa, particularly in Liberia and Sierra Leone, are nothing like prisons in the West. Here, it is often the responsibility of the prisoner’s family to provide food for the prisoner, though prisoners are often disowned by their families. Justice is a relative term. An innocent person may be thrown into prison for life, without a trial. They are not provided with books, television, exercise equipment, or any of the other luxuries that American prisoners enjoy.
When the Anastasis was last in Liberia (about a year ago), the government had allocated seven cents each day for feeding the prisoners. That is less than fifty cents each week for feeding the prisoners. Shortly after the Anastasis left, a new budget was enacted that eliminated food for prisoners entirely. Aboard the Anastasis, we took an offering to feed the prisoners. No one – no matter how violent their crimes – should starve to death. We gathered enough money to feed the prisoners for a year.
Around that same time, a couple of radio stations picked up the news that Liberia was no longer feeding its prisoners. Governments are always afraid of bad publicity, and as a result of that and of Mercy Ships’ efforts, Liberia has now changed their budget drastically. All prisoners will now be fed three proper meals daily. Praise the Lord!
Computer trials
Most of you know that I brought a laptop computer to Africa with me. I had scarcely been here a week before that computer crashed. I had to return the computer to the US for repair, and it was just recently mailed back to me. The first week or so without my computer was definitely a trial. It was hard to adjust to working with paper and pen again. Despite it all, though, I am thankful for that time without a computer. I have been reading books from the Crew Library voraciously. I have spent a lot of time getting to know my roommates and other friends on the ship. I have had many opportunities to leave the ship to visit local markets or nearby “Mercy Ministries” sites, where Mercy Ships is reaching out to the community. While I have had some access to the internet, it has been limited, and I am thankful that I did not spend my time glued to a computer screen.
Low-flow showerheads and saving water
I think most Americans would agree that low-flow showerheads are a modern nuisance. Perhaps we save water, but it is hard to get a good shower from a low-flow showerhead. Aboard the Anastasis, we always aim to save water. All the water we use for drinking, cooking, or washing has to be purchased and brought to the ship by truck. Therefore, we make it a habit to never leave the tap running or pour unused water down the drain. We are required to take two-minute “ship showers”, meaning that we have to get in the shower, get wet, turn the water off, lather up, turn the water on, and rinse. I personally love our showers on this ship because they are definitely not low-flow! After a hot day of working under the African sun, it feels fantastic to climb in the shower and feel the water pounding the dirt off of your skin.
Roommates
I know many of you have specifically prayed that I will get along with my roommates, and I want to personally thank you for that. To remind you, I have three roommates: Mariane, age 20, from Ghana; Judith, age 19, from Switzerland; and Emma, age 19, from Texas, USA. Not only do we get along well, but we are becoming close friends. We have all held each other up during personal crises. We’re different, but I think our differences complement each other. Judi is a masseuse by hobby, and insists on giving free full-body massages to the rest of us anytime we have had a stressful day. Emma is a fantastic listener and will listen quietly to any saga in our lives. Mariane has been on the ship longer than any of us, and as a result she is also most familiar with all the other people on the ship. She often knows who we should talk to about a particular situation. Our room is often filled with plenty of “girl talk” as well – late nights when we will talk about anything and everything and nothing in particular. It is so nice.
Sometimes I am amazed. My cabin is about half the size of the dorm rooms I inhabited early in my college years. Never in my life could I have imagined living in a room this size with so many other girls – and enjoying it so much.
Dingy Feet
One ironic aspect of life in Africa is that my feet have achieved a state of relatively permanent dirtiness. Here, we wear flip-flops almost all the time, and open-toed sandals the rest of the time, so there is ample opportunity for feet to become dirty – so much opportunity, in fact, that they almost never become completely clean.
Ghanaian Speeding Tickets
Already, I have seen Ghanaian police give out speeding tickets “African-style”. The traffic is much worse in Ghana than anything I’ve ever seen in the United States. If a police officer wants to pull someone over, he literally will step into the street in front of the car. He will take the driver’s license, then tell the driver what law he broke – or allegedly broke. The police officer then waits for the driver to offer him a bribe, perhaps 100,000 cedis. Often, the driver didn’t even do anything wrong, but the police officer will pull him over so that he can get some pocket change. However, if the driver does not offer a bribe, the police officer may threaten but will usually let him go, since all traffic tickets are dealt with in a court of law and the police officer is usually unwilling to do the great amount of work that is necessary issue a legal traffic ticket.
The Academy
Since I’m sure many of you will be curious about my work on the ship, I’m including a bit on the Academy. The Academy serves children between birth and eighteen years old. There are eight teachers, one principal, and one secretary, serving approximately thirty-four students (the number sometimes varies as people join or leave the ship). Like the rest of the ship, we are a very international group. The teachers are from six different countries; the students are from even more than that. We teach an American school system, meaning that students who graduate from this school will receive an American diploma. I teach English to the 7-11 grades (currently, we have no grade 12 students on the ship, but I would teach them too). At various times, I have taught IT to the 7-10 students and Art to the 5-6 students, but other crew members have taken over those positions. I have two English classes: a 7-8 class with four students and a 9-11 class with five students. Later in this school year, I will take over the social studies classes for those same nine students.
The Markets – The Craft Markets and “Community One”
Shopping in Africa is different from any other part of the world that I have experienced. The closest market in Tema, and the one that we shop at most frequently, is nicknamed the “Community One” market. (Community One is a part of the address.) Community One is a much more low-pressure market with reasonably priced items. However, even there we will engage in a great deal of bargaining. We can’t find nearly everything we want at Community One, so often groups will go into the Craft Markets in Accra on weekends (there are several!). In the craft markets, the pressure is intense. Similar to Community One, products are laid out in “booths”, and each store owner rents a booth for the day. Naturally, the store owners want you to buy their products. Often, if you just walk past a shop, the owner will call out, “Sister! My friend! Come here, come see my products! I have products you like!” In the worst markets, the owners will leave their shops, blocking your path and sometimes grabbing your elbow, saying, “No pressure! No pressure! Just come look at my products!” They quote outrageous prices, even by American standards, but I am proud that my bargaining skills are getting much better and I can often bargain them down to much more reasonable prices.
Living on the Ship
One adjustment on the Anastasis, no matter where you come from, is the change you have to make in your shopping habits. In the US, generally, Wal-mart is open 24 hours a day, and if Wal-mart isn’t open, you can often find a grocery store that is open. On the Anastasis, we have the ship shop, which sells many necessities, like toilet paper, shampoo, batteries, and some snack foods (including my personal favorite – M&Ms!). However, the ship shop is only open for two hours, four days each week. There is a snack bar on board, where we can buy many of the American sodas that cannot be found off ship, as well as candy bars and some Ghanaian snack products. It is open for between thirty and ninety minutes, seven days each week. The bank is normally open four hours a day, five days a week, but due to staff shortages it has cut back to two days a week. The biggest change with the bank is that I am now required to order my money one to four days in advance. That means that I cannot just go to the bank and request a withdrawal of $50 (or 500,000 cedis). I have to place the order for dollars or cedis (or Euros, or Pounds Sterling) via the ship’s intranet to allow the bank employees to go to a local bank in Tema and collect that money. The bank on the ship does not stock large amounts of cash.
Blood Donations
Aboard the Anastasis, the crew members are a walking blood bank. Since we perform many surgeries, of course, we need blood donations. There is no place to store the blood, however. To compensate for this, two or three crew members with matching blood types will be excused from their job duties on the day of a surgery. The donated whole blood is taken from the donors and quickly taken to the patient. The downside of this system comes to light when a medical emergency occurs outside of normal working hours. One such emergency happened at the end of October. A woman had come to our ship to have her goiter removed. The surgery went well, and she was taken back to the ward. At about 9:30 that night, a young nurse named Stephanie was checking on this patient when she noticed that her vitals weren’t quite right. Two or three of the internal stitches had popped, and this woman was bleeding profusely from her carotenoid artery. (That’s the big artery in your neck.) She was rushed back to surgery. The prayer coordinator was notified, and prayer teams assembled around the ward. Meanwhile, they needed a lot of type A+ blood, fast. I just so happen to have type A+ blood, and I was among the many people who were called to come to the lab. Blood donor stations were set up all over – in the lab, in the crew clinic, in the dental chair, even in one of the cabins. They collected 14 pints of A+ blood, and the patient wound up needing 11 of those pints. She was watched closely for a long time – 11 pints of whole blood is a lot of blood! But, surely due to the many prayers that surrounded her that night, she pulled through the whole thing beautifully. She has since been released and sent home, where she is now telling everyone she meets about the miracle God performed on the Mercy Ship.
Friend, there are so many more things I could write about, but I’ve already taken enough of your time and my time. I pray for each and every one of you. I have been overwhelmed by your generosity and thoughtfulness. I leave you with the words of our Savior.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other.
If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.
John 15:9-21Together in Christ,
"Tidy Bowl"
