Shrinkwrapped for sea

I almost felt like a little kid again, wriggling into my footie pajamas  and duck-walking around the poolside to jump off the diving board.  Except the suit was bright orange, with a tight-fitting hood, mittens, and a chin flap that closed over top of my nose.  It was also a lot warmer than my childhood footie pajamas, floated much better, and held at least two gallons of water...per leg.








After jumping off the diving board in my immersion suit, all the trapped air inside blew up the suit like a pillsbury doughboy.  With the top flap unzipped and feet back down in the water, the air rushed out and left my suit shrinkwrapped around my body.  Big mitten flippers made swimming floppy but effective.

Friday night's pool practical wrapped up our week of maritime Basic Safety Training, with exercises in immersion suit use and group swimming and huddling (how to stay together and move and keep warm in the ocean).  We also learned all about life jackets and life rafts, practiced hauling each other into the life rafts and streaming a sea anchor, and ended the night by taking turns flipping the life raft upright (see the video below!).  Sadly, we did not  do the last activity with anyone in the raft, even though it could have been very entertaining.  Lord willing nothing will happen while sailing, but if it does we will be well prepared.


 One more day and we'll be headed out to Sierra Leone!  We leave Wed morning for Freetown, and will be spending 2 1/2 weeks in a village outside of the city, helping to build a school.  Because we will be living in the village, we won't have internet access until we reach the ship in early November.  I look forward to updating you on our next adventures then!

When firefighting...watch out for snails!

This week has been a bit of a different tack - from theory and classes to...theory and practical!  The first two days included basic firefighting strategy, gear, and search and rescue, and a morning of practical techniques.  

After trying on all our gear the day before, we suited up for instructions and took turns extinguishing fires with hose and extinguishers, and rescuing "Buck," our 165 lb firefighter dummy.  

I have a newfound respect for firefighters - the gear is quite a bit heavier than it looks, and we had a great and very warm workout.  We successfully rescued Buck (a group effort) and extinguished our fires, and learned a lot.  We have an awesome team to work and learn with, and we definitely had a lot of fun.

 I did learn one unexpected lesson, though...when fighting fires, it is important to watch out for snails.  Yes, snails.  Halfway through fighting our Class A fire in the container, my partner Esther and I suddenly lost water pressure.  After troubleshooting for hose kinks etc and not finding the problem, we retreated and sent in another team to continue the firefighting.  It turns out our hose problems were due to snails that had climbed up into the hoses in search of water.  Sadly, although they did successfully find water, they did not survive long after that.

 The rest of the week promises to be interesting as well, with personal survival techniques and water safety.  One week from today...we'll be on our way to Sierra Leone!

Vapour

I'd like to share this video - a powerful and touching short film based on quotes from the people of Freetown and some of our Sierra Leone patients, and filmed by Mercy Ships crew.  Much of the footage was shot within Freetown, where we will be going in just two weeks!  The hospital footage is within the ward and on deck aboard the Africa Mercy, and transports you for a few moments to where I will be working again shortly.  Let Amara speak to your heart on behalf of his people.

The stories are real.  The heartbreak is real.  Please pray for unity and purpose, for healing and for hope and release from fear and guilt, and for forgiveness.  

Quilt blocks

Curled up on the couch mending the freshly washed quilt spread across my knees yesterday, I glanced back at the last few weeks of life.

We have been in Texas three weeks now.  Three weeks of sitting in a classroom stretching our brains to wrap around deep theological concepts of spiritual warfare and the power of prayer, of opening our hearts to the differences in culture and worldview, of creating and performing skits and summaries of everything...for the challenge and education and entertainment of our crewmates. 

After each evening run my lungs and feet are dyed burnt-orange from the clay that could be mud if there were water.  I step outside and wonder at the deep untouched blue of the sky, the constant steady sun, the green and brown of trees that (in my mind) should already be gold and orange and red.

I can’t imagine what living by myself would feel like again.  I have three roommates, and our room feels spaciously empty sometimes because of the unfilled last bunk.  I share a kitchen and living room with 19 other men and women…each of them wonderful in a unique and different way, each of them family despite different languages and countries and cultures, each of them friends.

I have been in Texas for 21 days.  I have been here forever.  I stepped off the plane yesterday.

If my life were a quilt, this block would be a patchwork log cabin, with all different colors and patterns worked together, carefully designed to make a temporary shack along the trail to adventure.  There is a mix of wild African fabrics, sedate patterns and colors, and a bit of Indonesian batik.   Worked in among the other bits are the deep orange and bright blue of this place we call not-quite-home.

It feels like we might be here forever.  We fly out in 17 days.  I watch time come almost to a standstill; as one foggy breath evaporates it will disappear, leaving me with learning, with memories and friendships, with one hand-stitched quilt block.