My 4th Newsletter!

Greetings from Ghana, West Africa.

Yes, I have been here just over 2 weeks now and thought it was high time I sent a newsletter out again. Sorry for taking so long in doing this.

At the Africa Mercy (AFM) we have seen them lift the lifeboats up, which is quite a procedure. You can visit my blog and watch video’s of it.

As you are already aware, I received a week and a half’s notice in coming to the Anastasis (ANA) - the other Mercy Ship. I was very excited at this news, as there were many friends I wanted to see on the ANA. Of course, this meant also that I have to leave my friends from the AFM behind and also do not get to do the 2 week sail from England to West Africa. At least I will sail from Ghana to Liberia in February or March 2007 (not sure of the exact date).

On Friday, 24 November I took my flight from Newcastle, England to Amsterdam, Holland, 1 hour at Amsterdam to find my connecting flight and board it and direct to Accra, Ghana. The flight went well. I almost had a problem with my luggage in Newcastle, but God is good and I was able to take everything through without extra costs or further problems.

When I left Newcastle it was icy cold, my hands were freezing, because I have packed my gloves into my check in luggage. In Amsterdam it was also cold, but in Accra it was really nice and hot. I arrived on time in Accra (19:15), went through customs with no problem and without waiting very long. Then, when it came to collecting my luggage, I waited very long as it was a big flight and mine was on one of the last loads they took off the plane. I went through the rest of the airport till I got outside and were met by fellow Mercy Shippers (Andy Cowie and Lisa Swan).

When we arrived at the harbour where the ship is docked, I saw many many many containers and trucks. I was informed that the drivers sleep under their trucks and I could see that there is always movement in the harbour. Finally we arrived at the ship, and what a beautiful ship she is!

On board the ship there is nice air-conditioning, so that cooled me off after the hot air outside, although I must admit, I am so grateful for it, for I do not know how much longer I could go on in the cold English weather. I am really a South African girl who likes warmer weather rather than cold weather!

That night I saw some friends I haven’t seen in a long while and it was great!!! I already joined into one of the games they play on board sometimes, called the name game. It was lots of fun. My cabin is a 3-berth cabin, where for the 1st week I had to sleep on the top bunk. The one girl in my cabin, Katrina has finished her time with Mercy Ships and left, so I got to move down to the bottom bunk. Soooo much better. Now it is just me and Helen Jackson (a teacher) in the cabin and funnily enough, she was my roommate for the 3 weeks she was with us in England before transferring here a couple of days before me. We do get along very well and she always reminds me to take my malaria pills (THANK YOU!!!)!

The next morning I received my own personal tour of the ship. I believe I found my way around pretty quickly. Obviously here and there I did get lost, but it did not take me very long to find my way around again.

The rest of the weekend I stayed on board the ship exploring it and just settling in. That Sunday I went down to the ward to the church service they hold there. The week I had many orientations and such things to go to and also did some office work, getting to know the way things get done here, quite different to how I am used to doing it on AFM, but I don’t mind. I say CHANGE IS GOOD!

The next weekend (last weekend), we celebrated Penny’s birthday and the Saturday 9 of us (girls) left for the day to go to Cedi’s Beads World and to some waterfalls in the area. We were out the whole day and came back after supper was already over. So, we dropped most of the girls off and went for pizza at the ice cream shop (yes, the ice cream shop also sells pizza’s, crazy, but cool)! These pizza’s are soooo much better than England’s pizza’s (no offence my British friends)!!!

The Sunday I went with different people to the Liberian Refugee Camp (which does not look different from the rest of Ghana) about 1½ hours drive from the ship (depending on traffic). We went to the service there, stayed for most of it, and because of how far it is and us wanting to go to an orphanage on the way back, we left before the service ended.

So, as mentioned, on the way back we went to an orphanage and played with the children for a while. It was good fun and the girls loved it. Then, we made it back to the ship with 15 minutes to spare before supper time. It was a long drive back and we played a word game called GHOST, where each person gives a letter of the alphabet trying to spell a word without it ending on yourself (if it does or you make up a word and your bluff is called, you get the letter G and the rest of the letters till you spell the word Ghost, and therefore losing). After quite some time, it was decided we will play a very similar game. This time we make up our own word and whenever it is decided the word is a good enough word, then we make up the meaning of the word. That was very funny what we ended up with. I will have to ask one of the people I played with for those words (he actually wrote it down for the fun of it).

Monday - Wednesday during the whole morning, we had New Crew Orientation, where we learned all sorts of cool & interesting things to help us live on board the ship. Things like community living, health & safety, the history of Mercy Ships as well as the culture and things.

Now, here is some cool things I learned:

A good book to read (so I heard) is Foreign To Familiar by Sarah A Lanier.

Culture in Ghana specifically (but mostly West Africa):You get hot or cold cultures, I am definitely a cold culture person - task and time, etc. orientated, and West Africa, Ghana too is definitely hot culture places - people orientated.

Greetings: Handshake, right hand only, If people are sitting in a row, you start with the person sitting on the other people’s right side (your left).

Sitting: For women, we mostly have to wear long skirts or skirts that ends below the knee (including for when you sit down. So, no crossing of your legs when you sit.

Meals: You do not get invited to meals, you just go to people houses (no appointments gets made here…). You also join when asked to join in (a meal for instance). The people in Ghana are very friendly. Even when they have not enough food, they will still ask you to join (if you are there over a mealtime).Then also, do not finish your whole plate of food, it is polite and also better to leave a little food on your plate. If you do finish off your plate, they will think you have not had enough and put more food on your plate. NEVER smell food before you eat. Don’t blow your nose when eating with people.

Male/Female relationships: Do not be too nice! Opposite sexes don’t show affection in public. Can show affection to kids. Same sex holding hands - ok (I.e. if you see guys holding hands, they are not gay, that is what they do here).

Respect roles: Don’t use older people’s first names… use titles. Auntie or Mama and name for older ladies. Sister for younger ladies.

Church: Can go on for hours… Sundays belong to God, not us. They give offerings 2 or 3 times (1st one done by pastor, 2nd one for those who came late). Don’t give under compulsion or manipulation.

Dress code: Dress nice & decent for Christian women. No see through clothing. No thighs to be shown. Be wise!

Money: Community/relation oriented people. Give as you are lead, do not be manipulated or come under compulsion.Hawkers - don’t’ give eye contact.Shopping - bargain with them…

Photo’s: ask permission before taking people’s photograph. No government or security stuff.

Smells: Don’t criticize, but ignore. Don’t show it smells bad. They may not have money to buy deodorant or soap, etc.

People oriented culture. People do run late. People are more important than time. Important to greet when greeted!

That is some of the things I learned about culture here!!!

We have a book at reception where we can sign up for different things to do (what we call Mercy Ministries). Mostly it is to go out to different sites, to see what has been done, also to go to churches, orphanages, women’s prison, etc. We also have a program called: Adopt A Patient.
So, the week before last I signed up for the Adopt a Patient program. On the sheet you can state whether you want a male/female or child. I stated child/female. So, I received a note on my message board that my patient is a 52 year old lady called Comfort and she’ll be arriving on Monday, Dec. 4 and her operation is the next day. So, the Monday evening I went down to the ward and Helen came along (wanting to know more about it before she signed on herself). We went to see Comfort. Now Comfort do not speak English, but 2 of the languages in Ghana called Ada and Ga. So, we had the patient next to her Sabena, that could and wanted to translate for us. We were very grateful to her for that and she joined in on our conversation. It was a little awkward at first, but good to know and at this stage, I have only learned about the hot and cold cultures (and not the more detailed things about the Ghanaian culture). So, I tried and used a bit of the information to help with my visit, like asking about her family and so on. So, after a while, also because it is difficult when we do not speak the same language we basically ran out of things to say and ended our visit, also we did not want to tire her out.

The next evening we went again and our patient translator wasn’t there in the bed next to her. So, we got one of the translators and visited for another while. Every time Comfort said she is grateful for our visits. Then, the evening after that when we went to visit her again, we were told they moved everyone around and we found her next to our translator patient! Very cool, because we got to see Sabena again. So, this time we came armed with our photo albums (after asking for suggestion from fellow crew members on what to do/talk about). This was a great hit and they loved looking at the photo’s! Then Comfort informed us that she was to be discharged the following morning, but that she will come back for dressings and she wants to see us again. Sabena asked that we must keep coming and visiting her. We agreed to it and also organized with the nurse that we must be informed when Comfort comes for her dressings and checked it was fine that we can visit Sabena.So, the next evening I came to visit Sabena and one of the other very short term crewmembers were also there visiting her. Unfortunately she (the other crew member) was leaving the next day and told Sabena. Sabena was so sad at this and started crying. We tried to comfort her and I told her I will visit her everyday until she gets discharged, and not to worry, that I will be here and she‘ll be leaving before I do. She was happy about that.
Then, last night I went to visit her again, and it is also the start of our Christmas festivities on board the ship (they were going to show a Christmas movie on aft deck). The nurse suggested I take her up to see the movie with me (which I gladly did) and Sabena was grateful to get out of the ward for a while.

So, after the movie I took Sabena back with a promise to see her again today.

This morning I went to the Save Them Young Children’s Home. We played with the kids and made Christmas cards and angels and had lots of fun.

So, as you can see from this newsletter (I hope), I am having a good time here and trying to get involved with things, but trying to not overdo it either.

Hopefully I will have more wonderful news for all of you soon! I will try and keep everyone updated regularly!

Till next time.
God bless,
Mathilda

Going to West Africa!

Hello everyone,

Great news!!!

Wow, where do I start? Ok, let's start with the original plan...

Original plan:
Me to go to Texas from 10 - 17 December for training in the new accounting package that Mercy Ships have acquired. In order for that to happen, I have to go to London for an interview for a non-immigrant visa for USA.

New plan:
I am going to the ANA (Anastasis) in Ghana due to staffing problems / shortages there. Christine (my colleague) will go to Texas. I am needed to go by 24 - 26 November (whenever I can get a flight).

I am very excited about this! I was excited to go to Texas, and unfortunately won't get to go anymore... but I do not care about that now! I want to be where God wants me to be, and am very excited to see some familiar faces on the ANA as well as to experience an outreach! PRAISE GOD!!!

This is very sudden... I just found out myself and after getting approval and such... I got to inform everyone!

Let me know what you think!

South African Luncheon on board Africa Mercy!

As the title suggests, we had a South African luncheon on board the ship today! These are all the South Africans currently serving with Africa Mercy here in Newcastle as well as the new National Office Director for...you guessed it, the South African office. From left to right are: Carrie Holmes, Dana De La Rue, Lee De La Rue, Christine Martin, Joshua Ward, me, John Rae (NOD) and Eugene van Niekerk.

Raising the life boats onto the Africa Mercy!

Click on the title to check out the video clips of how they raised a life boat onto the Africa Mercy! This is very cool!

Testing of the Lifeboat Davit Brakes

In this test you will see these enormous bags of water weighing over 13.6 tons each... drop and then stop as they test the brakes on the cable to ensure that it will hold and stop the weight from falling! Tomorrow the Lifeboats will be raised up on the ship! Thank you for your prayers!

Community Meeting on board the ship!

This was taken straight after our community meeting on board the ship! We tested our new audio/visual system. It was great to finally have a community meeting where we are going to have it once we live on board the ship. Currently we are using a local church in Hebburn for our meetings (St. John's). As you can see, we had to have hard hats on to come on board the ship (we didn't have to have it on during the meeting though...

Hard labour!

YES! This is me, in overalls, cleaning in the café on board the ship! Believe it or not, but it was actually fun!

There is a lot of stainless steel products in the café and they need lots and lots of cleaning!

I also helped to clean out a medical air storage tank used to provide oxygen to patients in the hospital.

Pirates & Fairies

Tom Schoenit and me at the Pirates & Fairies party at the Holmes' house!

Doesn't Tom look sooooo much like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Carribbean as Captain Jack Sparrow!!!!

This was a real fun themed party and everyone went all out. A great way to just have some fun!

My 3rd Newsletter!

Miracles

We, here at Mercy Ships receive many prayer requests from people who are or were part of Mercy Ships and families and friends.

One of these is a very special family. Jan & Elizabeth Tuinier. They went on maternity leave quite a couple of months ago.

Elizabeth has been experiencing problems with her pregnancy at the late stages - what is called preeclempsia (something to do with high blood pressure, not sure of it all). Now, as you can imagine, we all were very worried for her and all prayed a lot for her.

There was a possibility that the labour will have to be induced for the baby to come earlier than the expected date if necessary.

So, this has basically happened. The baby had to come earlier. Elizabeth was in great danger during all of this. She had a lot of bleeding and all sorts of other things were happening - basically her life was in danger. Then, the beautiful little baby girl, Grace Isabella, was premature, so she was not yet out of danger herself. Elizabeth had to be put in an induced coma (I hope my terminology is correct).

A lot of prayer went up! The Lord did wonderful things! Elizabeth was finally after a long time out of immediate danger. After having been in the coma, she was incoherent, not knowing a lot of things and not being herself and sure of her surroundings and all.

God is wonderful and brought her back to the here and now!

Grace Isabella is also healthy. Now, both mother and daughter is safely back at home!

Elizabeth is from the Dominican Republic and Jan from Netherlands. They are currently living in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Jan has been trying to get Elizabeth’s 1 sister to come and stay with Elizabeth and Isabella, in order for him to be able to go back to work. I am not sure how many of you are aware of the difficulties of getting visa’s . In the DR it is very difficult to get a visa to Europe. With lots of prayers going up, Elizabeth’s sister got a visa within 2 weeks (which is unheard of in the DR)! GOD IS GOOD!!!

This picture is of Jan, Elizabeth and Grace Isabella!

Miracle 2

Angela Curtis has been working in the Mercy Ships New Zealand office. She became ill and went to hospital.

Angela got pneumonia and her life became in danger. She was put in an induced coma. She actually experienced God giving her a choice to live or to go to heaven.
She has a daughter, Tessa, who has not left her mother’s side if she could. Tessa was the reason Angela chose to live. A lot of prayer went up for her as well!
GOD IS GREAT!!! Angela has become ill again, but this time they knew what to do and what it was… She was interviewed on the BBC Radio Station here in the UK.
My words cannot express what she actually went through, but it can give you a glimpse of the miracles we see or hear happening all the time! It can also give you hope of what God can do for you!
God loves each and everyone of us! He is great, good, merciful and kind! He is our Abba Father! Hallelujah!!

Life in general…

Life in general here with me is going well. I am missing everyone, but am enjoying it here!
Please always keep me in your prayers and I will keep you in mine. Let me know if there’s anything specific you would like me to pray for.
We have been going on hikes on 2 different occasions thus far! What exercise I tell you! It has been fun and good for trying to get fit or trying to stay in shape…hehehe…
Also, we now have Lorah Styer here, who is part of the Crew Services Department. She came from the IOC (Mercy Ships Head Office in Texas). There she was a hairdresser. She has been offering her hairdressing services to us, which we gladly accepted!
Lorah has also been organising events for us. One of these events is called Ultimate Frisbee. For those of you who do not know it, here is a link to the website (which will give you much more accurate information than I can) www.whatisultimate.com .

Comments are always welcome on my blog!
Thank you for your support!!!
God bless,
Mathilda

Out in the country!

July 2006 288
Originally uploaded by MercyWatch.

A couple of us behind a hay bale on our hike near Allendale (a little village in the country). From left to right, Christine, Anique, Lorah, Megan, me and Tatyana!


Hay Bale Walking

Hay Bale Jumping - Jeff

Hay Bale Jumping - Lee

Hay Bale Jumping - Lorah
Hay Bale Jumping - Rodrigo