August, September, and October!

Hi Everyone!

Has it really been almost 3 months since we've done an update?! Time has flown since docking in Freetown! We will try to do as thorough of an update as possible without making this into a book!

August

August started off on a high with our arrival into Sierra Leone and the kids starting school.

The kids were excited and a bit nervous to start school, and I (Jill) was feeling more apprehensive about sending my babies off to school when I had always thought I would be homeschooling at least through their elementary years! We all quickly realized that school teachers and staff are just amazing! They truly love the kids and their jobs and they work so hard to make learning fun and engaging! The kids have been adjusting really well and academically are right where I hoped they would be which was such great news! The mornings are a bit rough and every Thursday and Friday the reality of having to get up and go to school EVERY DAY hits the kids and causes a bit of grumbling but we've gotten into a good rhythm and mornings are smoother every week!

Just after the kids started school I came down with a nasty illness, we still don't know what it was but for 8 days I was quarantined to our cabin and for most of it I was so ill I honestly didn't care! I still get ill randomly and have to spend a couple days isolated in the cabin but it seems to be lessening in severity and frequency so I'm fairly certain it's just my body adjusting to the foods and ship life. I was able to leave quarantine just in time for the all crew photo in front of the ship! I have seen many of these photos over the years so having my family in one was so exciting and surreal!

Then came the hospital open house for the crew. We were able to tour the hospital and the kids were able to try out some training equipment! Margaret intubated a patient in respiratory distress, Samuel diagnosed Malaria with the microscope in the Lab, and Bridgett removed a foreign object from a patient in the OR! (After the "surgery" Bridgett asked me "Mom, is she going to be ok? She had a hole in her tummy!". I hadn't realized that she thought it was all real! There was a woman on the table and a drape over her with a bowl on her tummy and Bridgett used tweezers to remove a gummy strawberry from the bowl 😂. We went back in so she could see it was all staged and check in with the "patient" to make sure she was ok 🩷)

We had a partners event on ship and the Vice President of Sierra Leone attended as well as the Minister of Health. Paul and I got all dressed up and volunteered and Margaret and her classmates performed a flag ceremony where they paraded all the flags from the countries our crew represents. It was such a beautiful event!

September

In September the pool up on the recreation deck opened for the year! It didn't escape us that while most of our friends in the states were closing up their pools for the winter ours was just opening! We are so happy to have the pool available and we even have a friend willing to give swimming lessons!

We are able to start getting off ship more frequently now and have visited some really beautiful beaches and delicious restaurants and I was even able to visit the fabric market with a friend while the kids were in school! Everything here once you leave the dock is loud, busy, and to us seems very chaotic. The kids really struggle with the traffic and crowds of people in the busiest parts of Freetown but they're starting to see the beauty of the culture and love watching the women carrying increasingly larger loads on their heads, and the many market stalls offering a huge variety of items for sale. We always come back to the ship with questions for the native Sierra Leonians who live and work on ship!

We celebrated Margaret's 10th birthday with her classmates and some of their siblings! I didn't know what to expect for a ship kids birthday and I was blown away by the excitement all the kids had in celebrating Margaret! Turning 10 on the ship is a big deal because it means you can move around the ship without always having a parent present! There are still boundaries and rules of course but Margaret is so happy to be able to be able to go play games and hang out at the cafe with her friends.

October

October brought more change as I was feeling healthy enough to start thinking about volunteering on ship. I am able to volunteer between 10-20 hours a week in the mornings while Bridgett is in preschool. At this moment I can't even imagine having the capacity to contribute that much time as the transition and establishing new boundaries and routines here has been exhausting and Bridgett especially needs me more but I'm so excited to be involved where I can! We also were able to attend visiting hours at the hospital and the kids did so well just jumping in and playing games with people they'd never met and couldn't even communicate with without a translator, it was so wonderful to see them overcome their shyness and see the joy it brought to them AND to the patients!

City Gate is a filming company that has filmed the show The Mercy Ships for Angel network and they were on ship through October filming for Season 2 of The Mercy Ships (Stay tuned for updates on when the new season will air!). It was also a bit surreal seeing filming crew around the ship, but they were so friendly and we all were able to decide if we wanted to be part of the filming or not so they were so respectful of everyone's privacy! As part of their filming they had Jake Isaac who is a singer and songwriter from London come and perform a concert for us! It was so much fun to dress up and enjoy a candlelit (battery operated candles of course, real candles aren't allowed on the ship!) night of music. Jake is so talented and he performed songs with 2 incredibly talented crew members as well!

We celebrated Bridgett's birthday at school and as a family on her actual birthday but had to postpone her party with her friends as she ended up with a cold and wasn't feeling up to it. She has already made so many sweet friends here that I know when we do celebrate it will be wonderful!

Prayer Requests

1. That the values and culture of the mission will continue to be upheld.

2. That the surgery's will continue without delay or postponement despite all the complications that come our way such as delayed flights for incoming crew and illnesses on board.

3. That we will be able to enjoy to get out and enjoy nature frequently despite the complications of illness and Paul's ongoing back pain.

4. That the kids will continue to thrive in school.

5. That we will continue to find comfort and strength in our God and our community as we struggle with homesickness, especially during the upcoming holiday season.

More Pictures

Here are some random photos from around the ship I thought you all might like to see! It's easy for us to go through the motions now and so many things that were strange at first have become normal now, but every now and then we have moments where it just will suddenly hit us: we're living on a ship, and it's a hospital ship, and it's docked in Africa!