Karate new belts

Andre performing.

Rick and Andre with Montez, the teacher.

Rick in attention stance..waiting for his turn to perform.

The whole karate class together. They train in 3 different groups 2x per week.
Rick received the brown belt and Andre blue. These colours according to the Africa Mercy colourscheme!

School foto's

Creative Arts Open House

Last Wednesday the Academy (the school onboard) held a Creative Arts Open House. Rick & Andre participated in a presentation for hand bells, recorders and they sang in the choir. After the presentations, the Academy was open for crew members to wander through the classrooms and hallways to look at some of the art work the kids have made throughout the year. Here are some pictures of the art and performances.

Diver Down

I mentioned at the beginning of the outreach that the Engineering team is challenged everyday with issues in the engine room. One of the main struggles that we have been having while in Freetown, is the amount of garbage in the water. It seems the more it rains, the more the garbage flows into the water and surrounds the ship.

We have intakes at the bottom of the ship that take in the ocean water to help cool the generators. These intakes get blocked from the outside and on the inside the filters get clogged up as well. This causes great problems to the A/C and the generators.

Divers go down every day to clear the intakes on the outside and in the Engine room the engine hands clean the filters every 30 - 60 minutes. This is a difficult and hard job for both the divers and engine room team.

This picture shows Olly and Dan diving in the garbage floating next to the ship.

Andre's Pain

This week I broke my leg and got a cast around it. I went to the dentist on Wednesday and he pulled out my tooth (moler) because it was hurting me. He also cut open my gums for my 2 front teeth to grow in.
from Andre.

Easter

The children sang a song during the Easter Sunday service.

Brunch after the service with delicious food.

Colour Eggs for 450 crew!

Running Club

The kids' physical activity is quite limited on board and for the last few years the school has organised a running club. Every Thursday evening the children run up and down the dock as many times as possible in about 45 minutes. Some can only do a few laps, others many. Most of the kids participate and they love it.

Albert the Baker

The Africa Mercy is a hospital ship with 6 operating rooms but it also houses over 400 people that need to eat. We are so blessed to have a bakery on our ship that bakes fresh bread, rolls, croissants and other goodies every day. Albert, is a retired baker from Germany and he comes every year for a few months to bless us with his gift of baking. Oretha is our full time baker who has learned much from Albert this year so, hopefully when he leaves she continues the great baking.

Rick and Andre are enjoying fresh croissants and cheeserolls for breakfast.

Easter week on the Africa Mercy

Every year we have a full schedule for Easter on board. This is the schedule for this week.

Donation of Books

A few weeks ago the school library flooded and many books got destroyed. Schools in the Tyler area (Texas, USA) were asked to help in an effort to replace the books. John Tyler High School is one of the schools that responded and yesterday our kids could enjoy the new books.

(The link takes you to an article written in Tyler Paper about it:

http://www.tylerpaper.com/article/20110317/NEWS08/110319806)

Why is Mercy Ships in Sierra Leone

Here is a link to a short video of why we are here!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf17tN9LD0g

Caribbean Mercy

This picture was taken in December 2010 at Colon, Panama. Sad to see our old home in such a state. Mercy Ships bought the M/V Caribbean Mercy in 1994. It was a Norwegian ferry, "Polarlys". Ananda flew with a small crew to Norway and sailed with the ship via Rotterdam to the USA. I went and visited the CBM in Rotterdam. Picture below is a picture of the Polarlys. We left the Caribbean Mercy end 1998 and Mercy Ships retired the CBM in 2006. Below a picture of how we remember her. This link gives some history on the amazing service she served.

http://www.mercyships.ch/fleet/fleet-history/caribbean-mercy.html

Second Big Screening

The Africa Mercy held the second main screening in Freetown, Sierra Leone on Saturday, 26 March 2011. The setup of the place where the screening was held was completed on Friday afternoon and there was a security team present throughout the night. Many eye and dental patients were referred to the appropriate screenings. Three hundred people were seen by Mercy Ships medical personnel and sixty-three were scheduled for surgery, 96 were scheduled to return to the ship for a later surgeon screening, and 39 were waitlisted for surgery if a surgery slot becomes available. Some were referred to the Ponseti program, physiotherapy, and X-rays, while others we were unable to help. God provided a cloud cover to keep the day cool and the screening was peaceful without any disturbances. It was a good day.

View from our cabin

This is the view from our cabin. Nice and peaceful, although I would not have mind to look out onto the dock, this is beautiful.

National clean up day in Sierra Leone was last saturday. From 8-12 everyone is required to help clean up the streets/gutters in preparation for raining season.

Below view of the ocean taken from Freetown.

The big Cotton Tree, an famous historic symbol in the center of Freetown.

Shops in Freetown.