Our Family Afloat

 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...

It's the weekend before Mercy Ships Basic Training begins. Friday was our last night sleeping in the house that's been our home for nearly 5 and a half years. Which turns out to be the longest stretch of time either Jill/I have ever lived in a single place since becoming adults. It's been emotional, for sure.  I've been out of work for two weeks, but it's been a tough two weeks. We've been prepping the house for rental, organizing a garage sale, getting travel vaccines, preparing a sermon, then preparing for the move onto Mercy Ships campus. I was given advice to give ourselves two weeks before heading into onboarding, but in hindsight I wish I had taken much, much more than that. My back is sore. My leg that suffered nerve damage as a result of my back injury last year, has seen the nerve come back to life, and it's screaming at me several times to "STOP!" I've not frequently been challenged physically since my back surgery in September of 20...

Hi Everyone!  Welcome to our blog! We are hoping to be able to update this frequently to have a way to kind of bring you all on this adventure with us!  When we moved to East Texas in 2019 for Paul to work with Mercy Ships we knew we were open to, and even hoping for an opportunity to serve on board one of the ships as a family. Paul would occasionally check the postings to see if there was anything available we qualified for and in January 2024 there was a posting! We discussed it and Paul was a "yes" and I was a "no". I couldn't imagine giving up the lifestyle I'd recently started diving deeper into (homeschooling, nature living, organic eating) to go live on a ship in a port in the middle of a city! Very quickly after that I started questioning my response and honestly starting to regret it, but it wasn't until the next winter that I actually admitted that to Paul. After some discussions and prayer Paul checked again and there was another posting! We ...