Week 15: This is Not a Drill

Fantala is turning around and might be
headed our way.

Every time something happens, I never cease to be amazed at how the crew of the AFM handle things with such grace and peace. This week, we’ve been dealing with an approaching cyclone/tropical storm called Fantala. I didn’t know much about tropical storms before, but now I certainly have a better idea! The storm has been heading to the north of the island and is now making a sharp turn (no idea why, but they could predict this somehow). It’s headed south east, but every time we get an update it seems it’s headed more south and less east, which means it will come much closer to us. We are still in that iffy stage where we might have to leave (cyclone level Orange), we will hopefully know more in the next 24 hours.

Throughout the whole process, the captain has kept the crew very informed on what is going on. Everyone has been working very hard to strap things down, cook extra meals, and other general preparations in the event we have to sail. Of course there has been a lot of speculation, but at the end of the day, all we can do is pray that the storm passes us by. If we do have to leave the port that will cause a cancellation of many surgeries, which means that many people might not get the help they need. All the patients will have to be evacuated to the HOPE Center. We are just praying that none of that will happen.

Scott, from the Australian radio team, interviewing Bruce,
our Infrastructure Projects Manager.

This week I also had the pleasure of hosting an Australian Radio team. They were really great – very easy going but they also had big hearts to share what it is we are doing here. This is the first Christian team I have hosted and it was really encouraging to hear them share that aspect of our mission. This job is a big blessing in the sense that I get to hear people share their stories and testimonies with these media teams. On a side note, I (barely) managed to avoid being interviewed live. That involved sneakily running away…haha let’s just say I talk too much to do a 3 minute interview!

My last piece of super exciting news is that my mom will be arriving here in 2 ½ weeks!! I absolutely cannot wait to share with her all the amazing things that God is doing here, as well as this beautiful country! To be able to show her why this place and the people here mean so much to me, is such a wonderful blessing. Knowing how much this would mean to me, she has even been working 6 days a week to make up for the time she will be gone. We always knew we would have an adventure in Africa – we just never would have guessed that it would be in Madagascar!

One new thing: I got to help the dining room staff wash dishes the other day! The ship arranged for a speaker to come in and speak to our day crew about entrepreneurial stuff, because they are trying to prepare them for when the ship leaves. This meant all of our day crew was up at the seminar, so they asked for some volunteers to help wash dishes. It was fun – although I’m sure if you have to do it three times a day, 5 days a week, it might not be as fun. But it was cool to see what goes on behind the scenes – lots of hard work and heavy lifting, that’s for sure!

Two of my favourite goofballs - can't wait to be reunited!

One thing I observed: As we come closer to the end of the field service, many more changes are happening. People are announcing the new roles that they will be doing next year, others are coming into departments for the summer months, and in general, people are coming and going like crazy. After the majority of my bus family left, I hibernated for about a week and then finally decided to be intentional about making new friends. I’ve met another great group of ladies, and have been really blessed by their company and conversation. Everyone has such unique and amazing stories, I love hearing all of them. On a semi-related side note, two of my closest bus family friends are coming back for Benin (one of them, for the whole field service), and I am so stoked about that! I cried when she told me - we are going to have such a blast.

One thing I felt God was telling me: Well, this week was definitely an intense internal struggle – I feel like the closer I got to being accepted for 2 more years, the more the doubt the devil threw my way. At first, I was starting to doubt if I am meant to stay with Mercy Ships, or if I am meant to stay in Madagascar, because I absolutely love this country and the beautiful people in it. Then I got really overwhelmed with thinking about how long two years is, and how much I will miss and why am I doing this, it’s crazy. I could be at home, nice and comfortable, surrounded by friends and family and part of my sister’s life. Chaplaincy is leading the crew in a study of the gospels, focusing on the grace and truth, and so this week when I was reading I was really struck by this concept: Jesus calls his disciples to follow Him and they leave everything behind. They leave their work, their families, their friends, their stuff and follow Him. Their mission is to share the gospel and help the least of these, the poor, the orphans, the widows. And I realized, this is exactly what we do here. We leave everything we’ve known, all our comforts and come serve the least of these. 

And then, as if to confirm this, the crew member who shared his testimony with us on Thursday was answering the question, why do you keep returning? He said that back home, people always ask him, haven’t you given enough? And he was thinking about the story of the rich young ruler, where Jesus tells him to sell everything and follow him. Jesus calls us to give Him everything. That was a lot of confirmation for me about why I am coming back and why I am choosing to do this work – I want to give Him my everything. As so, this week I got confirmation that I have been accepted to return to the Africa Mercy for another 2 years. I am so excited and I definitely have a lot more peace now about everything that will come.

When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." - Luke 18:22

Some of our beautiful OBF ladies!