BEST PLACE TO BUY TOILET PAPER

Well friends, this week has been another full one here on the M/V Anastasis. We kicked off the week with a visit from the Minister of Health and 100 of his staff and media. It was a great visit as the Minister was extremely impressed with the ship, the crew and what we bring to Ghana. The Minister is one of the key positions here in Ghana so he came with the usual bells and whistles - - police motorcycle escort with sirens blaring of course and what I call the Secret Service because they come before the officials and secure the ship prior to their arrival. Lots of police accompanied this man. The only difference in their police escorts and ours was that there were two police men in full dress uniform holding hands. Remember, that means something totally different here and is quite the normal but I still wish I had had my camera. For these tours I have the priviledge of participating in the meetings and tours because I am a Department Head and all of us are expected to be there, greet and welcome the guests and act in some capacity for a tour of the ship. I do enjoy this but will enjoy it even more when either my clothes I have ordered from the seamstress are done or some of our boxes from England arrive as I only have 1 dress and I’m getting pretty tired of wearing the same thing to each meeting. Not that I’m that vain but the only dress I have has a big white stain on the front of this black shirt which I then have to try to hide using my Crew Badge.

My job has so many aspects to it, I never had such diversity before. One moment I’m trying to figure out how many million cedis (dollars it will take to buy an iron) and which of the 3 trillion sidewalk vendors I should buy it from and the next I’m giving driving lessons to my friend and Housekeeping Supervisor so she can help do some department driving. Or maybe I should just drive my car down the street and buy this iron from the 10 vendors who poke their heads in the car trying to sell you everything from chandeliers to toilet paper. Speaking of toilet paper, actually, I did figure out with the store of toilet paper I have currently and the timing of the arrival of our next sea container I may have to take a Land Rover on the street and hit up all the toilet paper salesman next week.

Some of the not so nice aspects of my job happened this week as well - - I have lost my long-term librarian to an unknown virus which then became more complicated with chest pains and difficulty breathing and water in the lungs. She has had this for over 2 weeks and because of her age they are sending her home not to return. This has been hard on her as you can imagine anyone who has sold their home and possessions to fulfill what they know to be a God calling to now being sent back after only a few short months. Please pray for her return to England and her total recovery.

Robert, Jessica and I went back to my favorite place, the Sisters of Charity orphanage and AIDS hospital to visit the babies and the patients and their children. You want to be reminded of how blessed you are, walk into one of these places and listen to the stories of how children were found abandoned on the street wondering around when they can barely even walk or watch a young mother in the AIDS hospital sleeping in a single bed with her 8 year old son and small baby because non of her family will take he children because of the fear they may catch AIDS from the children. It’s odd, but dispite the fact that I’m surrounded there with so much sadness, it is my absolutely most favorite place to be and count it an honor to spend one moment with the orphans and patients just being there, praying for them or painting fingernails for the women.

I am also standing in awe of how God is bringing some other ministry opportunities to the Crew Services department. You will hear more of this very shortly as I will put together a formal statement and a giving opportunity for you to partner with us to directly provide for a local Pastor’s Training school and psychiatric hospital. It is my pleasure to lead my team through the process of thinking through development issues versus paternalism with these two opportunities. God is weaving what we thought was two separate opportunities into one, providing support from the Pastor’s training school to partner with us to meet the needs of the psychiatric hospital and sustain that ministry long after we are gone.

PRAY POINTS

• Health and a new future for Susan Elliott, the Librarian returning to England Sunday
• The end to the virus that has swept through this ship
• The Community Development Crew as they venture into the tasks of water and sanitation, construction and education out in the villages. Many of these people have never been in Africa let alone done development work before so pray for wisdom, connections and relationships with the local people.
• Staffing issues, needs for increased Crew Services staff as well as technical staff for the Engineering and Deck departments.
• Getting longer term staff in service areas - - short-term turnover and training issues are difficult.