After a long four months, the Africa Mercy is put back together, freshly painted, and ready to take on another field service in Madagascar!
We made many connections in the Durban area, and we are grateful for the prayers and send-off we received from our adopted church family in Umhlanga. Our time in Durban was a great experience. Living life almost in a usual way! Dan is commuting to the ship, the kids are heading to school in a shuttle van, and I’m back to grocery shopping, cooking, and caring for our household. It was a blessing to have more time living with just our family of 5, yet being close enough to hang out with our ship families as well. One of the hardest parts was saying goodbye to our dear friends, the Hovies family, who were unable to continue on this Mercy Ships journey with us. We will miss them, but know God is directing them onto a new path that he has for them.
Thank you for your prayers. We saw how God answered them along each step of the way, including a sudden release of much-needed medical supplies, an AMP that went as planned, four main engines online for the sail, and an on-time arrival despite departing more than a day behind schedule. We sailed into rough seas, experiencing some of the biggest listing (rolling) we have yet, more than 16 degrees from center! The ship was fine, but a lot of the items inside were not. We quickly discovered which things were well secured and which things weren’t.
Fortunately, we only needed a few changes to secure our room. Unfortunately, many of the ship’s common areas weren’t secured, which meant crew who weren’t feeling sick from the rocking teamed up to tackle cleaning and securing the ship. In the galley, that meant cleaning up dozens of bottles of soy sauce and balsamic vinegar that had fallen and broken, the liquid flowing across the floor and out of the galley. In the cafe, appliances and candy racks were tossed about, covering the floor with liquids and broken candy. Many other places had boxes tossed from their shelves, goods strewn about, and many fridge doors in cabins flew open, spreading their contents all over the floor.
Thankfully, the waves calmed during the first day, and by the second day of sailing, we had calm seas and fair weather. That didn’t change throughout, and we made excellent time. People slowly emerged from their cabins as they adjusted to the sail.
One of our biggest excitements of getting back to Madagascar was that our sister and brother-in-law joined us in serving! Jacob will be our mechanic for the year, and Carla will be a HOPE Center facilitator! We were excited that Carla and Jacob joined us in Durban just before the sail, and got to experience the joy of sailing into a country. We are all super pumped to share this next year of service with them! What a blessing!
Sailing into Toamasina, Madagascar, brought mixed feelings this year. We had heard of the major cyclone and the damage it caused from a distance, but as the sun rose over the city and we approached the shore, we began to see some of it for ourselves. Generally speaking, we were surprised that some of the similar sights from the ship were still there. But the signs of the storm were hard to miss. Sparse trees, missing building roofs, piles of rubble, rebuilding homes, and businesses rebuilding themselves. The people of Toamasina are still a people rebuilding from the storm.
But the people of Toamasina are strong, and they greeted the arrival of the Africa Mercy with all of the joy, love, and gratefulness we have come to appreciate. Since our arrival, it has been a mad dash to the finish line of getting everything set up and ready for the opening of the HOPE Center on Sunday, the 17th and the hospital shortly after. Our ship filled up amazingly fast with new and familiar faces we will work alongside during this field service. As the first bus of patients makes its way here (mostly orthopedic patients and their caregivers to start), we pray that this mission of hope and healing would go beyond the physical, and that the great love of God would shine for all to see. We pray that God would use us even in our weaknesses. May He give us the strength, health, skills, resources, and anything else we need this year. We trust His goodness and mercy over us and submit to Him in all we do.
Pray points
- Patient safety in travel and courage are needed in this journey of healing
- For leadership and the decisions needing to be made for now and for the future
- For Madagascar’s government and infrastructure to improve to benefit its people
- Rebuilding of Toamasina and people’s homes and businesses
Praises
- Safe sail back to Madagascar
- Provision of our needs (like the medications for surgeries)
- Carla and Jacob are joining us in this mission, community, and work
- New families and new people joining us
- Those we already know and love are coming back to work
- Safety for our Malagasy friends in the terrible cyclone
- For the rebuilding that has happened and more that will be rebuilt
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