Basic Training:✅ Gateway:✅ Field Practice:✅ Next Stop, Spain!
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 how important community is and how to thrive living in community on board. We learned so much about different cultures as well and that was fascinating to me! By the end of the 2 weeks my head was spinning, I was so overwhelmed, and felt a burden to do this well, but I'm also so excited!
The kids also had an open house for their program, they made so many projects to help with identifying and working through fears, grief, and also excitement! I am not able to share the pictures here because I didn't get a single picture of the kids without their friends and I've already sent the crafts they made to the ship, but I promise you, they had SO much fun!
The ship is in dry dock right now in Spain having some repairs and updates done so we are not able to join and board until July 28th, so in the meantime we did our Field Practice here in TX. We started out Monday doing some weeding and upkeep to the Mercy Ships Campus, they have many beautiful gardens and they were in need of some serious weeding! Paul and Margaret trimmed some low hanging branches, and some people helped out in the warehouse opening boxes and repacking items to go to the Africa Mercy in Madagascar and the Global Mercy when she is back in Sierra Leone. On Tuesday we did a Campus tour and were able to meet and pray with all the different departments here, there are so many people working together to accomplish this mission and it was incredible to learn all about it! On Wednesday the group (minus the kids and I as Margaret and Bridgett were down with another virus) went to Hope Haven which is an organization that provides residential like care for teenage girls in foster care, The group went to one of the homes and did more yard work and painted the interior of the home, it was such a huge blessing! On Thursday we went to Fatherheart which is a Maternity home right near here, they have multiple homes on the property so we did (you guessed it) lots of yard work, painted the inside of one home, deep cleaned their classroom and pool area, and took down low hanging tree branches. It was such a great opportunity to bless others and it blessed us just as much, we were able to get to know each other even better and I truly believe lifelong friendships were made.
Here are our most recent prayer requests:
- That we are able to sell our car quickly
- That we will find the right tenants for our home
- That we will be healthy in time for our flights and will stay healthy!!
- For safe and smooth travel to Spain
- For a smooth sail to Sierra Leone
- Patience with ourselves and each other while transitioning to the ship
- For Gods peace and provision for all the volunteers on both ships
- Wisdom and discernment for Paul in his new position
This is so exciting to see all that you have been doing to get ready to go!! I can't wait for more blog posts!
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