Our Family Afloat

Hi Everyone!  So much has happened since our last post, I will try to fill you in without making this post too lengthy!  Spain   We arrived in Spain Tuesday July 29th after the smoothest travel I have experienced in a long time! We only had a short delay leaving the airport in Madrid so we arrived at the Jerez airport 1 hour later than we were scheduled, that is a miracle in my book! We were the only people in line for passport checks in Madrid and all our luggage was delivered to us without incident upon arrival in Jerez, Praise the Lord! Despite this we were exhausted and we still had a 40 minute Uber ride to Cadiz and then embarkment procedures to go through upon arrival to the ship. We arrived at the shipyard and were immediately met by friends! Friends we had met through our onboarding process who had arrived ahead of us, and friends we had met last year when they were in Texas for their own onboarding before joining the ship. We were energized and excited and made i...

 This is a short post just to say that we are on our way! We are so excited and READY! I never thought I’d be able to say that but finally we really are ready! Please be praying for us as it will be a long 24 hours of travel to Madrid, Jerez, and then finally Cadiz! 

What a crazy couple of weeks it's been! Did I start out my last post this way? It sounds familiar...  We finished up our Gateway (onboarding) with Final Projects from all 43 participants. We were each allotted 5 minutes to do a presentation on our biggest takeaway from the training and I was terrified! It went so smoothly and I was able to communicate what I was thinking and feeling and I was really so proud of myself! Paul also had a wonderful speech mostly focusing on our being the Gatekeepers for the culture and maintaining the Mission, Vision, and Core Values of Mercy Ships and it was so inspiring! The Gateway program took us through the history of Mercy Ships starting with Don Stephen's vision when he was just a boy of a hospital ship serving in Africa, we went on to learn about how over the years they have worked hard to keep to their mission of following the "2,000 year old model of bringing hope and healing to the world's forgotten poor", and also learned ...

Well, we finished our first week of onboarding with Mercy Ships! Paul did one portion of onboarding close to 5 years ago for his role here at the ISC so they're not requiring it of him this time although it is recommended he attend as much as possible. Because of this he is able to be the contact person (or the primary caregiver if you will 😉) for the kids. So our day looks a little like this: 7:00am Wake kids and ask them to quickly dress and make their beds 7:05am Wake kids and ask them to please  quickly dress and make their beds 7:10am Wake kids and tell them to quickly get dressed 7:15am Pull covers off kids and help them get dressed, forget about making beds 7:25am Breakfast 7:45am Rush out the door, and back in the door to grab multiple forgotten items, rush back out the door then jump in the car (something I insisted we would not be using to get the 1/2 mile to onboarding 🤭)  7:54am Drop off kids while pretending to be calm, cool, and collected 7:59am Rush into adult...

 Hello and Happy Monday! I thought it would be fun to do a post from the kids point of view! I asked Margaret to write a little blurb and she was a bit nervous, and then fell off her bike and got a concussion and was told no screen time or reading for a few days so she is officially off the hook 😂. So instead I decided to interview the kids and just ask them a few questions about our experience so far. This was a great experience for me as well, to get to know how they're feeling and some of their fears. Here's what they said! Jill: Hi Margaret! Why don't you start by telling everyone how old you are and what grade you're going in to. Margaret: I'm 9 and will be going into 5th grade. J: Ok, now where have you been sleeping this week? M: On the Mercy Ships Campus where people stay before going on the ship J: What are the accommodations like? M: We're in a house near a lake J: Are there any other kids here? M: Yes, and I've made a couple friends! J: Where are...