Naturally Supernatural

In rocky ground, but adding a splash of colour to the dull grey rocks.

When I signed up to travel to Freetown, Sierra Leone, to join Mercy Ships on the M/S Africa Mercy I had it in my head that things would be very different from back home in South Africa. Forget about the huge potholes, the language, the culture, the trash, the traffic, the lack of clean water, electricity and marked prices, I am talking about spiritual differences. I was almost expecting a ship full of super Christians, where by just entering into the same room as them, the overflow anointing of the spirit would send you sprawling on your face. It’s not like that at all. In fact, I am finding the spiritual climate here dryer than back home.
I have been doing  bit of salsa dancing here and am really enjoying it. When a guy is a good leader and the girl is in sync with him she flows effortlessly and naturally through the moves blowing the onlookers away. This is what I long for in my work as a missionary. I long to operate powerfully in the spirit, being instep and in sync with the Father, guided through the steps as I go.


Medi Vac
One of our team members was admitted into the ship hospital on Friday. She lapsed into a semi comma and had to be resuscitated at least once. She was diagnosed with pneumonia, but the doctors did not know why there were additional side effects. She was stabilised after receiving several heavy doses of antibiotics. While the doctors on the ship suspected they could probably handle what ever the problem was if they knew what it was, the decision was made to evacuate her to a hospital with adequate diagnostic facilities. She was finally flown out to South Africa 36 hours after the decision to evacuate was made. Her husband followed and left their 2 year old daughter in the hands of the off ships team. It was determined that she had a blockage in her urethra which was causing septicaemia. This was surgically removed and while she is not strong enough to be taken off the respirator she has gained consciousness and has no brain damage.


Slop Island

We camped on 'Slop' Island and enjoyed warm water, fish and rice, a spectacular thunderstorm  and unspoiled beaches.

Myself and seven others headed out to Burah beach a couple of weekends ago. Its about an hours drive south of Freetown, so it doesn’t have all trash in the water that the beaches closer to town have. When we got to the palm lined white beaches we were met by some locals who took us down and showed us around. We eventually decided to catch a boat out to an island and spend the night there. I put my bags on the boat and then swam across. The beaches on the island were quite small, but untouched and our guide slashed a clearing for our tents about five meters from the high water mark. After taking a walk around the island we decided to rename it ‘Slop’ island as if you have ever lost a single flip flop, it is probably there. That night, sitting around a camp fire, eating fresh fish and rice, we were treated to an incredible display of God’s might and glory as a large thunderstorm rumbled above the peninsula mountains, ripping the sky apart with lightning bolts and shaking the ground we were lying on. It was breath taking. We finished off the trip the following day by joined the other mercy shippers on the main beach, doing a bit of surfing and piling into a taxi and holding our breath the whole way home as the driver barely kept his car on the wet roads and scornfully told us how bad the poda poda drivers were.


Word of Life Church/School Latrine

The view of the area where we will be building the VIP latrine

A few days ago I headed out to the small village of Old Yams Warf with Tracey, my manager. There is a fresh team of long term MSers who will be coming out from the states and we will be constructing a VIP Latrine (see last blog). I have recently completed the design, quantifying and costing of the project. The point of the trip to the village was to meet with the local chief and make sure we had his co-operation before we moved into the Muslim village in force. It went really well. He showed us around the parts of the village we hadn’t seen and instructed us on the arts of boat building. He also informed us that we could buy sand from him at a fraction of the price of the other suppliers. This was great for two reasons:

• It cuts our project price by almost half
  
• It would have been political death to buy sand from outside of the village when they themselves supply sand.

Up Country Hospitals and Lassa Fever

The burnt out remains of the Maternity Ward of Makeni hospital which we visited to do a preliminary 

assessment

One of the managers from the International Operations Centre(IOC) in Texas came out for about a week to have a bit of ground time, meet with the team and dodge Freetown traffic. Mark Palmer (IOC Manager), Frank (my team’s assistant manager) and I headed up to Bo. We visited Bo and Makeni Hospitals. In September we are planning to host a team of engineers who will be assessing some of the hospitals in Sierra Leone for future development.

Bio hazard signs had us on our toes in the Lassa Fever department

Sierra Leone Bush Ambulance

On the way out Mark asked me if I had ever tried bush rat. While in Makeni the hospital directed us around and took us into the Lassa Fever department, telling us that the disease was more dangerous than HIV and highly contagious. We nervously looked around asking ‘how exactly is this spread’ only to find out they don’t really know, but suspect it spreads through eating rodents, or the excrements from a particular species. Needless to say we didn’t try the bush rat.


Centre

Me, Mark and two of the ag team

On the way back from Bo we stopped in at the MS Agriculture centre. It is parts of Off Ships Projects and it was great to get to see what the team was doing out there. Basically they teach the community sustainable farming techniques which don’t destroy the soil or use expensive pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers. It is a bit more labour intensive, but promises to increase agricultural output by up to ten times those of traditional methods.The principles used are the same as the Farming Gods Way program. I think that this program has the potential of transforming Africa’s farming output as we know it.


Church Paraplegic Ramp
About 20 minutes away from the ship is an anglican church attended by many paraplegic children. I have been asked to assist in the planning and construction of the ramp. Since the last blog post, I have completed the costing of the ramp and it is currently in the process of ship approval. This will probably be carried out in the end of July.

The staircase we will be building a paraplegic ramp on.

Conclusions and Prayer requests
The last two weeks have been quite productive, but has also been an extremely tough. With two of our team members being evacuated to South Africa the team htaken strain. At the same time we have come under spiritual attack and I am coming down with a cold. Please keep us in your prayers.

One month already

It is crazy to think that I have been here for one whole month already. Time has absolutely flown by, but at the same time it feels like I have been here for ages. As usual a number of things have happened since the last blog and I’m not really sure what to write down and what to leave out. I will try my hardest not to ramble on about un exciting things.

Life on the Ship

One of the things about Mercy Ships is the high turn over of people Every week about 15 people arrive and leave. This is quite something, because just as you get to know someone, they leave. I have been here for one month and I am starting to feel like an old hand as a whole load of people who I have met and done stuff with have left already.

This can get really tiring and many of the long term crew form exclusive groups that are really hard to break into. It took me a bit by surprise when I asked to join a particular bible study and the guys said nope sorry we have too many people, but in two weeks a few are leaving, try again then. I understand why they said this, but it is quite hard to not take offence. Ah well such is life… maybe I must just take a few character references next time.

Exploring, Dancing and other such fun…

Dancing the night away

Laugh if you must, but I recently went to a Salsa dance lesson. The restaurant was in an area called Aberdeen and is the upmarket part of town. Aberdeen is completely different from the rest of Freetown and it is like moving into another country all together. Decent wide roads, nice houses, good beaches. The tourism potential of Sierra Leone is huge.

I have never done Salsa before, except on chips, but I had an absolute jol. It was so much fun, but the fact that the girls outnumbered the guys two to one may have helped things along as well.

Sugar Loaf Mountain

Victorious Conquerors! We made it to the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain

Towering high above the squalor and chaos that is Freetown is the beautiful Sugar Loaf Mountain. It is the highest mountain on the Freetown Peninsular and the view from the top is absolutely incredible. The mountain is covered by thick dense jungle and the air is so thick and humid, you could almost swim up. It was incredible to stand at the base of trees which must be over a hundred years old, staring up the trunk to the canopy towering above. It was quite a technical route and quite a few of the people slipped and hurt themselves, but the view at the top of the route was well worth the effort.

Working hard

Stream lining and forward thinking.

The Off Ship Projects is still a young department made up of a number of teams and groups. The restructuring is an attempt, among other reasons, to improve the sustainability and focus of construction projects carried out by Mercy Ships through partnering with long term NGO’s and local governments. The short time spent in a particular country means that many past projects were left unsupported and are therefore were unsustainable.

This new strategy combined with  the fact that my manger left on Holiday a few days after my arrival left me guessing for a while. Tracey, my team manager, returned from holiday last week, and was shortly followed by our team director. After chatting with them, I am really excited about the upcoming projects and visions. I was under the impression that I would be jumping straight into hospital infrastructure improvement, however this only looks like it will start late this year to early next year. In the mean time there are several small projects which we are looking at. These will allow me to get a feel for the process of construction in West Africa.

Word of Life Church

Some of the students from Word of Life Church/School where we will be building a latrine.

The word of life church is a church planted in a predominately Muslim village. The leadership of this church has forged ahead with the construction of their building with very limited resources. The building, including the foundations has been made from mud block and was then plastered with cement render. During the week end this is used as a church and during the week the pastor has turned the building into a school. The village has been so impressed with the children’s results that they have donated adjacent land for further future construction. Due to the initiative taken by the community and its leaders, Mercy Ships has identified this church as a project to assist.

Basic 3D design of Ventilation Improved Pit (VIP) Latrine to be built at word of life school.

In order for the school to be recognised by the government they must have a VIP (Ventilation Improved Pit) Latrine for the children. The community has dug the pit, however are short of the funding needed for materials. I have done the designs and measurements for the buildings and am in the process of getting a cost for it. There is a team coming out in mid July and we aim to assist the community with this project. In addition to this we will be screeding the floor of the school which has been made out of mud and is very dusty.

Instant dockside housing

I have spent a few days putting together a conceptual design and outline of costs for dockside housing.

There is a shortage of housing on the ship and I have been asked to look at various options and do concept designs for extending this on the dockside. I have been looking at converted shipping containers and am in the process of getting costs and drawing up conceptual designs.

Completion of the Hope Centre Ablutions

About 500m from the ship there is a building which has been converted into an overflow facility for the hospital, increasing the hospitals capacity by 100 beds. There were no adequate ablution facilities at this building, so Mercy Ships brought in two prefabricated ablution blocks. After many delays and redesigns, we finally got the last few parts to complete the construction of these buildings and get them operational.

Conclusions and Prayer Requests

All in all the Last week or so has been a good on and has been quite busy. Please keep me in your prayers. Pray that God will daily guide me and lead me. That he will show me what I must do and who to speak to. That he will refresh me and strengthen me and that I will not do things out of my own strength, but his. It is really easy to get into a rut where we do not rely on God daily.