He is risen indeed! What a way to rejoice in that! I have to
say, I have never experienced Easter like this. Every moment of this weekend,
and even this week, pointed to Him and his sacrificial love for us.
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| Natalih is full of joy and laughter. |
I’m going to start by explaining what the Esther project
was. All crew members who commit to serving more than one year, have to
complete onboarding. This is what I will be doing this summer. As part of
onboarding, the teams do three weeks of hands on, in country missions work. For
the last four onboarding groups, they have gone
to Akany Avoko, a foster home/orphanage in Tana, the capital. The lady in
charge of onboarding has had a dream to bring some of these girls to the ship.
Several things came together and her dream was finally realized this weekend!
They paid for 50 of the girls to come to the ship and spend Easter with us.
They called this the Esther project. Interestingly (and not knowing this), our
chaplaincy has focused on the book of Esther for the 7 weeks leading up to
Easter, encouraging the crew to read through the book of Esther each week and talking about where we can find God in a book where He is never mentioned by name. God was at work in so many ways in this project – for example, when
trying to figure out sleeping arrangements, they decided the girls would sleep
in one of our warehouses, and when searching for mattresses, they discovered
that the HOPE Center had spare mattresses (in case a cyclone came and crew
needed to get off the ship), and it turned out that they had exactly the number
of mattresses needed.
I was so excited for the girls to arrive, and they planned
so many amazing things for them. When their busses drove up, they were so
excited and happy, greeting us with lots of hugs, and so amazed to see the ship.
The first night, they had pizza and popcorn and watched the ‘Jesus Film’, in
Malagasy. The next day, was the big day – they were going to get to come on the
ship. I led one of the groups in a tour of the ship, including spending time in
the wards with the patients, seeing the bridge, and enjoying some of our
delicious Starbucks hot chocolate. They had lots of questions and were amazed
at all the before and after pictures they saw. One of the girls had just
finished nursing school and was in the process of looking for a job, so this was
really interesting for her. After the tour, we took the girls to a restaurant
to eat and then walked down to the beach. This was the first time seeing the
ocean for many of them! We played in the ocean and bought each of them a
coconut – another first for many. After that we headed back to the restaurant and
had a pool party, and then dinner. After that, they headed back to the ship for
a big dance party, but by that point I was exhausted and went right to sleep!
The girls were incredibly loving, always holding on to us and holding our
hands, and trying to teach us Malagasy.
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| Tinah blessed me with so much love! |
I talked to the director and she told me that most of these
girls were there because they had been removed from their homes by the
government, due to physical or sexual abuse. Tragically, the government
provides no money to the home, to help support the girls. She said their
attitude is basically, you’re the one who opened this home, if you don’t want
to do it, just put them out on the street to take care of themselves. The
people who work at this home are amazing, and have clearly poured out so much
love on these girls. Every month they aren’t sure how they will have enough
money to take care of everyone, but every time God provides. They take care of around
180 children. Even though the government only mandates that they help the girls
until they are 18, the director was telling me that often that is when they need
the most support, so they have a house in town that they rent out and all the
older kids stay there and go to university, which the home pays for. Those ladies then help out at the home during their free time. This is just so amazing to
me! They are making sure these girls have a future and don’t have to turn to
prostitution or crime to support themselves. If anyone is interested in
learning more or donating money, you can visit their website: http://www.akanyavoko.com/index.html.
On Sunday morning, the girls joined us for sunrise service, sang us some songs,
had breakfast and then headed back home. It was hard to say goodbye – they were
very sad to leave. On my way home I will be spending a day in Tana, so I hope I
will be able to visit them again! The most beautiful girls you could imagine.
I have to share another amazing Easter story with you, that
I was blessed to play a very small part in. Being a ship driver (which means I am allowed
to drive the Mercy Ships vehicles) is a fairly rare thing here, especially
among the short termers, who are only allowed because of their jobs. I am so
blessed to have this ability and it has allowed me to help others and to
witness wonderful things. We have a program where you can befriend a patient and
follow and support them in their journey. One of my roommates befriended a
plastics patient, and she has been here quite a while as it is a long healing
process. Knowing that she hasn’t been able to see her 8 year old son in all the time she
has been here, my roommate paid for the patients’ son and sister to come here
and visit. She paid for their travel and meals, and found a day crew who
generously offered for them to stay at her place over the weekend. When I heard
of this, I offered to go pick them up (the day crew lives quite far from the
ship), so at 5am on Sunday morning we got up to get them (that was a whole
adventure – a story for another time). The moment we arrived back at the ship,
the little boy was so excited to see his mom – he was crying and jumping in her
arms. It was absolutely beautiful. I was so touched by the thoughtfulness of my
roommate, and am really praying that God helps open my eyes to opportunities
like this. I want to see how He is working around me and be part of these
little miracles! I am so blessed every time I step out beyond myself, and I
want God to continue to push me to do more. 
On top of all of this, we had our Easter celebrations and
services organized by the chaplaincy team and let me tell you, I was absolutely
blown away by the amazing job they did. They thought through every aspect of
the things they did and it was incredible. During the Good Friday service, the
focus was the cross, which was set up at the front of the room and the speakers
spoke and read scripture from the back of the room. They also had a cross laid
on the floor of the room and they invited crew to come write down things that
they wanted to surrender to God on a piece of paper and hammer it into the
cross. Sitting there praying, thinking about Jesus dying on the cross for our
sins, while listening to nails being hammered, was overwhelmingly powerful. On
Sunday morning, during our sunrise service, standing there watching the sun
rise and thinking about Jesus rising from the grave and conquering death, was
equally moving. During our second service on Sunday morning, it basically
turned into a dance party, as the worship team sang “Happy day”. We sang and danced and clapped to these words:
The greatest day in history, death is
beaten, you have rescued me, sing it out, Jesus is alive. The empty cross, the
empty grave, life eternal, you have won the day, shout it all, Jesus is alive, He’s alive. Oh happy day, happy day, You washed my sins away, oh happy day,
happy day, I’ll never be the same, forever I am changed. I felt such an
overwhelming sense of joy and peace! The last symbolic moment I’ll mention is
that after communion, they invited people to come up and put flowers in the
cross that was currently empty. This was to signify that the cross conquered
death and is now alive. Christ is risen!
These are just a few of the wonderful, amazing moments that
filled this marvelous Easter weekend. I couldn’t possible explain all the
things that happened, but just know that it is a very happy day, because Christ
our king is risen!
He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. - Matthew 28:6a
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| Seroga, Tinah, Tahina and Natalih - four of the beautiful girls I got to meet this weekend. |
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