MEET THE REAL GEORGE WASHINGTON

Here it is Sunday night and I’ve been thinkin’ back over the last week. This has been a great week! It’s been a full week - - Robert’s first full week of herding cats (trying to find and manage his department) He’s been so funny telling me “You just don’t know what it’s like!!!!!!!” HELLLOOOOO!

I’m still having a great time with my team. When I got here in June we were 5 strong and now we are a department of 16. We are a very close-knit group who love getting together everyday for devotionals, prayer and a time to bless each other. They are creative and very talented. We are also very very diverse. Germans, Dutch, Americans, Swiss, Kenyan, Togolaneze and Ghanian - - we speak a multitude of languages, pray and bless each other in many languages. This past Friday we had a friend that spoke very little English leave us so we all took a scripture and gave it our best shot to read to her in her naïve tongue in Dutch. It was such a hoot. She really appreciated it.

We just had a ship-wide Olympics of sorts. There were about 12 teams of 6 people. I was on the Geezers team as you can tell by my outfit. We even had a flag. It was a crutch with a giant Depends undergarment flying proud. We got extra points for the flag and our song (something, something, something, hummm,) We had a balloon volleyball toss, shuffleboard with brooms, throw tennis balls into the pool and try to hit the swimmer, run around the cone till you puke and other games of great skill. I know we didn’t win so I won’t be too awfully surprised at tonight’s barbeque/award ceremony. But we did have the best costumes and song.

Yesterday 3 ladies and I went to the Liberian’s Refugee Camp about 2 ½ hours west of here. My department raised money by selling homemade cinnamon rolls and purchased fabric, scissors and sewing notions. We also found a treadle sewing machine in the hold of the ship we pulled out, cleaned up and got running. We took all these things to one of our former patients. It was Chris Slay. Some of you would remember her story. She is the young woman running from the rebels in Liberia, saw her parents murdered, kept running, went into labor, a friend delivered the baby but yanked on the babies head to hard and fast and broke the babies neck. All this trauma caused delivery complications which she came to the ship to have repaired. She needs to learn a skill to help support her very large family of uncles, aunties, nieces and nephews. Her and her family was very pleased with the gifts yesterday. We made about 40 new friends and I made a new best friend in a little boy of 7 who’s name is George Washington - - he wants me to be his new momma. We had a great time until our car broke down on the way. Sitting in the middle of the street hours from the ship just 4 women isn’t the most comfortable place to be. We had plenty of helpers who wanted to push our car but then again they all wanted paid and we just didn’t have enough money to go around. Then all the way home the car was running in the red zone (temperature) so we filled it up with water but it kept running hot. We decided the best thing to do was run the heater in the car to pull the heat from the engine - - can you imagine Africa, in the heat with EXTRA heat on in the car??? We would run the car about 15 minutes and then stop her for 15 minutes to cool her off - - over and over. Our 5 hour trip took 8 hours and we got so close to home (20 km) and the car just died and filled with smoke. We were able to get a team to come out and tow us home. You can always count on an adventure here even over the siimpliest tasks.

And to top off the week we were also interviewed for the Midland Daily News. Which I think may have already been published this weekend but they didn’t know exactly when. But if you missed the article I’m including the pictures of Robert and myself and me and my team they were given.

Have a really great week. Blessings to everyone. Write when you get a moment, we do so enjoy hearing from you.

Robert & Susan Blanchard
West Africa – Ghana
M/V Anastasis – Mercy Ships