I believe that God uses our surroundings to teach us things.  You can learn something while being in one environment, or surrounding, and not learn that same lesson while in a different environment.  Tonight I was sitting up on the pool deck (i think it's technically deck 9) reading my bible and asking God to open my eyes to some specific things.  I looked up into the night sky and could just barely see a star.  It occurred to me that right now I can only see that pin point of light.  God has only just barely opened my eyes to a situation.  But I need the  lightening! It lights up the whole sky and you can see, even for just a moment, the clear picture.   Sometimes I feel like the understanding of something is just out of my reach, on the tip of my brain and i can't quite get it. Life can get complicated and confusing but wait for the lightening.
That is my tip of the day: Wait for the lightening.  When it comes it will be bright, undeniably beautiful and you won't be able to miss it!

Today was lovely.  I went to a local church...it was...not at all what i was expecting.  What i was expecting was the traditional African church you see pictures and videos of.  Lots of dancing, very loud, very long.  It was a traditional Anglican church.  Complete with the fancy robes.  We were supposed to meet Alvin (one of our day workers) at 9 AM.  We waited for him for 45 minutes, this is Africa people are late all the time.  When he didn't show up we went and found a church and it was uh...not a church i will prolly go back to.  I would like to go to Alvin's real church though.  When we got back to the ship we heard from a mutual friend that Alvin had to leave town because of family reasons, so he wasn't ever going to meet us.  quite sad.
I slept the literally the rest of the day.  Woke up just in time for dinner.
Tonight we had a wonderful group of kids from the Wells Music School in England visit the ship.  They were sponsored by IMAT (some british army something i think).  I believe they were highschool students, they did a lovely performance.  Quite enjoyable.
Goodnight all :)

Once again during the day things happened and I kept thinking 'man i've got to blog about this!' and now i can't remember what i wanted to say!  So...until I remember...here are some pictures!

On Friday nights a group of people goes to a local school to play Ultimate Frisbee.  I didn't play tonight, i just took pictures and watched.  However, some of the kids found me and were entranced by my hair.  The girls insisted on playing and braiding it, the boys asked if i would give some of my hair to them.  I got three marriage proposals while there! The typical question is "are you married? No? Will you marry me? I love you!"  I think they want to leave Africa so they try to marry you.  Pretty funny considering the boys were all like 13 years old.

In process

The finished product of my hair :)

Ultimate Frisbee

within about 2 minutes the sky had suddenly become overrun with these dark rain clouds.  I just managed to catch a picture before the whole sky was gone.

 Swimming lessons! I'm finally getting the chance to put up pictures of swim lessons!  Today lessons went so much better.  The ocean was very calm today so we actually got to learn and practice some things. yay!

Last we have salsa dancing pictures from the other night.  it was a lot of fun!  However, since it's hard to take pictures of yourself dancing, there are none of me actually dancing (yet. i still have to find the girl who did take pictures of me dancing).

You can't see it but the ocean is behind us.  It's a lovely sight.
Perhaps if i remember what I wanted to say I will post something later tonight.

Today was fantastic! Krissy worked in the galley with me and we made a delicious peach cake for dessert.  It was really yummy.  After work i had a debate with myself about whether I should go salsa dancing tonight.  I decided to go and ended up having a wonderful time.  I took a bunch of pictures but they were on Krissy's camera and I don't know how to get them off of it :( So tomorrow when Krissy is awake I will get her help to get the pictures.  Other than that nothing exciting happened...except...i saw a real live princess!!  Princess Anne, Prince Charles' sister came to visit the Africa Mercy today.  There were a lot of rules about not taking pictures and not walking in certain parts of the ship, but i did catch a glance of her while she was walking up the gangway.  Just so you all know, princesses these days don't wear tiaras.  I thought that was a noteworthy thing to say. So that was definitely the coolest part of the day.  

I would like to say that a couple of interesting things happened today, but there are so many AMAZING things that happen here what happened today doesn't even come under the interesting category.  Swim lessons went well, Krissy came and took pictures so hopefully i will have a copy of them soon to put up for you all to see.   I finished reading the third book in the hunger games trilogy.  For the record they are very very good books but very emotionally crazy. I had a very chill day other then that.  I talked to Gheslain while i was on my lap top.  And he thought it was so funny how old my computer is.  He said that all the western woman he has met (he's from Africa) have these fancy and expensive apple computers so he decided that western woman must like expensive things (which is pretty much true).  But i was the first girl he had met who didn't have an expensive computer.  He thought it was very funny.  Im just blessed to have a laptop at all.  Thank you Drew Woolley.  I got another comment on the laptop later in the evening from Jay Swanson.  He thought actually took a picture of it 

That is the news of the day...i work the next two days so be praying for safety and delicious food!

It was SSOOOO wonderful to have a day off today! The weekend was quite long and it was wonderful to be able to sleep in. I love sleeping in.  The ship was rocking a LOT though so it made sleeping a little difficult but i managed :)
Swim lessons started today.  They were fun and very interesting.  The pool is built in such a way that it is very very easily turned into a wave pool if the ship rocks to much.  And today it was rocking like crazy! needless to say, the swimming part of swimming lessons didn't last very long.  I think that i'm going to have to be very creative with how to teach these guys.  the pool would go from being 2 feet deep to 4 feet deep every couple minutes. I will try to put up some pictures of the pool tomorrow.
Tonight was also French class.  I would like to say i learned a lot but i think i feel slightly more confused. it's a LOT of information in an hour and a half.  So i think the biggest learning will come in doing homework throughout the week.
In other news, a canoe tipped over a little ways from the ship and we sent our rescue boat to go help get the people out of the water.  I was asleep when it happened so i just heard stories from other people who were around for the actual event.  From what I heard everyone was rescued.
I don't really have any other news...this is Emma signing off :)

Had an early morning wake up call by the fire alarm at 7:20.  Although I was already getting out of bed to go to work, it is Saturday so most of my roommates had the day off.  It ended up being a false alarm but the entire ship was awake anyway.  I've never seen that many people at breakfast on a Saturday.  Saturday is normally cleaning day in the galley so we spent the first part of the morning deep cleaning.  I always like deep cleaning days cuz it makes things feel and look so clean. Made molasses cookies today! I always remember molasses cookies as being a special treat when i was little.  I don't know why.  Maybe we didn't get them very often.  So today, it was a treat to have them! A highlight of the day for sure.  Honestly...really nothing exciting happened today. I have no big news (but i thought i should post something so i don't get in trouble lol).

So sorry that i didn't post anything yesterday! I had an exciting day and was just to exhausted to put my thoughts into order last night.  Yesterday Hannah, Lynette, Emma (the nurse), Matt and I went to the fabric market! It was so much fun! after about 15 minutes, i realized that i felt like i was back home shopping with friends.  Matt came with us cuz he knew where the market was, but i don't think he realized that he was going shopping with 4 girls.  He looked so insanely bored!

This is Matt sitting outside in the FIRST shop we were in! hehe...reminded me of when  Mom would take Asa shopping when he was younger.

I ended up getting two lovely fabrics. They were about $2.50 a yard, so a pretty good price.  There was a seafood stand selling oysters and crabs and things at the market as well.  The gross thing is that they were in huge baskets in the hot hot sun, flies everywhere.  Some of the crabs were still alive and were crawling all over the place.  It was crazy.
Here are some pictures of the day.  I can't figure out how to get them in a particular order so they unfortunately are kind of random.

A funny little car we saw on our way back from the market.

Some goats that Lynette thought were adorable and begged me to take a picture of.  

Before we left Lynette was complaining that she needed a hat to protect her head from the sun.  So Jenny ( who didn't go with us) said she could borrow her "five guys burger and fries" baseball hat.  Here's the hilarious result of Lynette wearing Jenny's hat.  Gotta love it.

This is what a lot of the clothes markets look like.  Basically all the clothes on hangers out on the street. 

A view of the street, there are shops all up and down the street on either side

Lovely Lynette and her hat ;)

The last couple of days have been rather eye opening to me.  Sometimes you think you have something figured out but when you try to explain it to someone else you realize your grasp on what you thought you knew is very limited.  I think God uses our witnessing to others to further our own knowledge of Him.  To make us really figure and find out what we really believe and what we just say we believe.  God is so great.  There is no one like Him.  I'm realizing, over the last couple of days how great and powerful He is.
 Today I started reading Praying God's Words by Beth Moore.  I'd been putting off reading it, honestly because i thought it would be boring.  One of the first things she talks about is knowing truth by reciting truth, over and over and over again.  Really letting it sink into your head.  It's really interesting that I would read that particular part of the book today because I'm also reading a book called Mockingjay.  The main character, Katniss, is struggling with knowing and remembering the truth about life.  So she repeats over and over to herself what she knows is true.  I found it very coincidental that I should read two very very different books on the same day about reciting truth to remember and know that it is in fact true.  I'm certain it wasn't just a coincidence.  God is doing something in my life, and it revolves around reciting and believing truth all day every day.  Oh the things that I am learning here in Africa! Thank you to everyone who helped send me here for this experience...i never would have learned all these things in this exciting way if it weren't for you.  I don't know why God chose to send me to this place, but He did and i'm so thankful.
Goodnight world :)

It's my friday!!! yay! I don't know why but it seems like i'm always exhausted on 'Fridays' until the work day is over and then i have all this energy! So I spent the evening making chocolate chip banana bread and onion rings. Two very different things i know, but i saw a picture of the onion rings while looking up a recipe for the bread and just had to have the onion rings.
Exciting news of the day is that around 10 AM they announced that water would be cut off until further notice.  It was quite exciting!  The water came back on around 10:30, so it wasn't as exciting as it could have been.
Today in group devotions Rachel talked about taking time to remember what God has done in your life.  I thought about how God got me here to Africa.  On my travels to get here i just kept thinking to myself God got me this far he will get me to the ship.  And then when we finally landed in Sierra Leone and all our luggage was precariously perched on top of a truck i thought "God you've been faithful this far, please help my luggage to all be safe".  And it was.  I prayed for friends and have made some very close friendships.  I asked God for support to get here and I am totally funded.  I was nervous about my passport coming in time and that worked out.  I didn't have a computer and was randomly given one before i left.  God has been very very faithful to me.  Honestly, this whole adventure with MercyShips is the first time in my life i can clearly see God working in my life.  I know that sounds crazy (especially to my parents) but it's true.  It's the first time that there's no chance of coincidence making it happen.  Even if all i learn from this trip is that God really truly is faithful to bring about what He has promised, thats enough.
I was talking to a fellow crew member who i work with in the galley about differences in the church in Africa vs. the church in America.  He was astounded that in America people don't walk down the street talking to everyone they see, or offering a helping hand to anyone who needs it, or going out of their way to just say hello and how are you to someone.  He brought up the passage in the bible where it says 'knock and the door shall be opened'.  He believes that passage is not only talking about us knocking on the door to heaven but also about us literally knocking on neighbors doors and asking for help when we need it.  He made it a point to say that he's not trying to judge or criticize but he's certain that something is very wrong with the christian church in American if we aren't teaching people to be loving and caring and compassionate to all.
Goodnight :)

I just love it when i forget to say something! before I left a lot of people asked if i would have a snail mail address.  The answer is yes (see the right of my blog).  I have received one package from home.  yay! It takes about a week to get here from Texas.  not long at all.  I would absolutely love to hear from any and all of you! It's always wonderful to get a letter or package.  Please note though that I have to pay for packages to be shipped from Texas to Africa.  so Please try to keep packages light or include a couple dollars for shipping. Looking forward to hearing from you guys!

The last couple days have been lovely ones spent in my room :)  I spent the entire weekend with a cold in my room trying to get better.  Matt, Ben G., Jenny and all my other friends (except Kelly) went on a really awesome overnight trip to the beach.  Awesome!  Kelly and I made cookies and watched movies on the ship.  Boring.
Here are some pictures of my day in the galley today.  It was a pretty long day honestly.  We made snickerdoodles for the crew and then had extra time so we made chedder Jalapeno dinner rolls.  They were so delicious!

In preparation of Africa night tomorrow (every tuesday) Josh is peeling plantains to make fried plantains.

Little Ben making crutons.

My ol buddy Matt

Iroro(left) and Oreta also known as mama (right)

me and Iroro

rolls for 450 people. wow!

After work i rushed through a shower (imagine rushing through a two minute shower) and went to...drum roll...French class! The ship is sailing to Togo in a short while where they speak French.  So one of the galley cooks is a french teacher and is offering classes to the crew.  So i'm learning french! yay!  The other news for the day is that i'm going to be teaching swim lessons for the long term crew's kids! i'm so excited!  Hopefully the first lessons will be starting the beginning of next week.  Prayers would be much appreciated for that and also for my health.  I had a cold all weekend and the cough remains. and it's awful.  I miss you all.

I realized today that i haven't posted in a couple of days! shame on me. So first some quirky things about living on a ship.  There are little metal ledges on the floor on all of the doorways.  I spent three whole weeks tripping over them every time i went through a doorway.  I've gotten better now though.  I guess it's something you just adjust to.
Yesterday i realized how very blessed i am to be here.  If it wasn't for all of the people who gave financially and emotionally i would not be here.  I am so very very thankful to everyone who helped me get here.  I can never say thank you enough!
I know this was short but...well...not much has happened...night!

Wow! So much has happened in the last two days and i didn't blog last night so be prepared for a long post tonight! Yesterday morning I went to the last eye screening.  Basically it's when they do an initial screen of the patients for eye related things to see if we can help them.  We only had 9 surgery spots open and over 150 people vying for the spots.  The way the screening works is that everyone lines up in a line and they get a prescreening to see if they qualify for the screening.  In order to qualify you have to have two cataracts.  if you qualify you go into the "yes" line and if you don't you go into the "no" line.  I was in charge of guiding the no line to the gate and saying goodbye.  It was a really depressing job. Most of them don't speak very good English and when they realize your leading them to the gate they are so sad.

This is Kissy Hospital where the eye screening was held.  This complex has a church, school and hospital in it.

The line of people waiting for the prescreening

On our way back from the screening we ran into this MASSIVE crowd of people who were waiting for the dental screening.

We went to the hope center last night and did a puppet show for the kids of Shakira's Waka Waka.  They loved it! It kind of turned the evening into a performance time and this volunteer got up and did a couple of magic tricks for the kids.

You can't really see it but this little girl has a cleft pallet

 Today I got to go to the Cheshire Home.  It's a Christian home for people with polio.  They also have a school for kids.  It was such a cool experience!  A lady named Tiffany Bergman takes a group of people there every week.  So the kids all know Tiffany.  She teaches a bible lesson and then brings games and crafts for the kids.  Today she taught on the breast plate of righteousness.  Jenny, Ashley and I did a puppet skit about the breast plate of righteousness and right in the middle of it it started pouring rain...welcome to Africa! lol.  So we moved inside to the kids classroom.

The classroom

The Belgium beauty queen(in the yellow head scarf) visited the ship today and also came with us to the Cheshire home.   The craft today was making breast plates of righteousness and writing/drawing pictures of what the plate protected you from.  This is Tatiana helping one of the kids.

proudly showing off her  isolation gown turned breast plate of righteousness

my favorite part of the day!!! There was this adorable baby named Isha (eye-sha) .  She's three months old and i pretty much just held her most of the time we were there.

Baby Isha!!!! Isn't she beautiful!

playing Janga with Samantha, Lucia and Thomas

Tiffany

Upon return to the ship we found out that someone ( a local) had driven a fork lift into the area between the ship and the dock.  We went up to deck 7 and spent the next hour and a half watching them try unsuccessfully to retrieve the fork lift.

So folks, that is the news for the day.  Some people have asked how my stomach is doing.  It's great! thank you so much for all the prayers.  I think that i'm getting a cold or something but stomach wise i'm doing quite well.  I miss you all.  Thank you to Meaghan Ward, Ann Wolfe, Monica Willard and Drew Woolley for all your wonderful emails and comments.  I love hearing from you all!

So today the topic of conversation is food.  Before I came here I was asked what kind of food would be available to cook with.  I've been here over a month and i've got a pretty ok handle on what is available to us. Not much.  And what is available is very very very poor quality.  Stuff that would NEVER be sold in US markets.  Imagine cutting green peppers for 450 people but the peppers you have to cut are only 2 inchs big and half rotten. Or peeling carrots for people and the carrots are 2 inches long, half an inch in diameter and soft.  Or picking through hundreds of leaves of lettuce to find all the bugs, worms, and crickets hiding out. or opening up a 25# bag of onions, reaching inside and squishing into rotten onions.  Produce wise...our selection is very sad.
We drink a strange concoction they tell us is milk but it's called Milch and it's uh... definitely not milk.  An ok substitute in coffee but not the milk we drink in the states.  The sugar is a much coarser grain, so when i make cookies or something the dough feels really gritty.  But they bake up just fine.  Along the cookie line, i've become the cookie queen! We usually have time left over after we've finished all the prep for the day so lately Rachel has taken to asking me to make dessert for the crew.  My go to thing has always been cookies (because they're so freaking delicious!). We're talking 600 cookies though! It's no small process to make that many cookies.  Matt and I have a system down though.
Tonight we went out to dinner for Clinton's last dinner in Sierra Leone.  He goes home tomorrow :( very very sad.

first bite of african sushi...it was interesting

all dressed up for dinner

"ew clinton get your arm off of me"

sushi!

Goodnight all and Happy Birthday Mourad!

Nothing much to report today.  I worked...it was a ship holiday.  I think technically that means that the crew gets a day off of work.  But i'm not sure who actually got a day off cuz everyone i knew had to work (the hospital and galley crew had to work)
After work we had a puppet meeting.  We worked on some new scripts because we have two invitations to do puppet skits in this next week.
That was pretty much what i did today...not very exciting. sorry :(

Today was incredible.  The morning started, with an early wake up call (AGAIN!).  We went to the film screening and it was amazing!  It was at the British Council.  We dressed up in our African best and drove the 2ish miles that took over an hour.  We had one to many people to ride in the Ship vehicle so Matt took an ocotta (motorcycle).  Here's a picture of him from the back of our window

He's just about to enter the intersection on the left.

I promised to put up a picture of a poda poda and here it is! there are like hundreds of these vans all around.

The British Council building.

We got to the screening early (it's always hard to judge how the traffic is going to be) so we wandered around a little bit.  We saw these little goats.  So cute!

Here's a picture of the view from the building.  You can actually see the Africa Mercy in the harbor.  It's directly in the middle of the picture.

This was the "theater" the film was shown in.  It was daylight so the picture was slightly hard to see but there were enligsh subtitles so at least we could understand what they were saying.  The man standing up at the front of the room is John Calkins, the founder of Fambul Tok.

I don't remember what I told you about Fambul Tok yesterday but here's what I learned about them today.  They are an organization created to restore Sierra Leone to it's post war state.  Relationships are so important in this culture!  The entire village plays a part in raising every single child.  Your father is my father, your mother is my mother.  So when the conflict happened, villages and families were ripped apart.  Uncles were forced to rape neices, boys were forced to rape their mothers and sisters.  After the war ended only 9 people were convicted of war crimes.  The rest of the rebels were given a blanket amnesty and they moved back into the remains of villages and homes and never talked or reconciled relationships with the people they had hurt.  Imagine living in the same village with the man who beat you and killed your father? or the Uncle who raped you.(both of those are situations that happened to people who were interviewed int he documentary).  So Fambul Tok comes into the villages and sits everyone down and asks if they want to forgive each other.  I was amazed that for the most part they do! They are so willing to forgive if the offender will just confess.  They have a big bonfire with a time for the victims to tell what happened to them and basically call the offender out and ask for an apology.  Relationships are restored and friendships are mended.  Is everything perfect? No.  But it's a start. The amazing thing is that this is not a christian organization.  I don't really understand how someone can offer forgiveness and healing without also offering Jesus.  The key though is that they are using the traditions of the culture to bring healing...they're not offering them money or some magic cure.  They are restoring relationships which is the foundation of all communities. It was a truly amazing experience to be a part of.
In the last week God has really made me fall in love with Africa.  I don't know why but I LOVE it here.