Spain, Sailing, and Sierra Leone!

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 it through the embarkment process and to our cabin and were finally able to sleep! The kids were exhausted and slept for 13 hours straight, Paul and I struggled with jet lag and didn't sleep well, but it just felt so good to lay down! We spent 4 days in Cadiz and were able to visit the beach and shop and recover from jet lag before sailing and it was such a wonderful time! This was Bridgett's first trip to the Ocean and the first trip Margaret and Sam remember so it was extra special. At one point I looked around me and saw our little family swimming and riding the waves and just couldn't stop grinning!

Sailing

We set sail for Sierra Leone on Sunday and had a smooth sail to Gibraltar where we stopped to fuel up. It was beautiful seeing the Rock of Gibraltar and watching all the other ships come in and out, and the kids loved watching the fuel ship come and fill up our tanks!

We left Gibraltar, and the smooth sailing behind. It seemed that every day the waves got bigger and the ship rocked more, but we were doing great! There was some initial dizziness and mild nausea but that passed and we were all having fun watching and feeling the waves! We saw dolphins, flying fish, and (most of the family, I'll let you guess who missed out 😑) Orcas! Then something changed and suddenly we were no longer only rocking from side to side but front to back as well and we felt it! For almost 2 days we fought sea sickness and were suddenly very much looking forward to getting off this ship! Tuesday morning things settled down which was wonderful timing as it was the first day of school! The kids woke feeling great, and excited, and had a wonderful start to the school year which was made even more excited by our arrival into Freetown, Sierra Leone!

Sierra Leon

I was going to headline this "Arrival" but realized I already had 2 S's and needed to keep it going 😆.

Our first view of Freetown was a bit of a surprise as our cabin faces the sea side and we didn't realize how close we were until I ran up to the playground to bring the kids snacks for recess! I immediately ran back down and grabbed Paul (he was in the cabin fighting the latest virus to attack us 😖) and ran out to the deck. We were so happy to see dry land and to know that we had actually, finally, made it! There were flags from the home countries of all the crew, we had singing and drums on the deck and on land there was a band with trumpets and drums and people dancing, waving, and cheering! It was so beautiful! We plan to explore a bit as soon as we can and I can't wait to share that experience as well!

Please continue to pray for us as we adjust to life onboard and adjusting to living in close community. Also please keep Mercy Ships as a whole in your prayers as this new field service begins, for the Employees at the ISC, the Crew on board, and at the Hope Center, and all the patients!