TIA (Tim in Africa)

Diver Rescue Training

2011-11-01T16:12:00.009Z

As most of you know I am one of the lucky people that get to dive underneath the ship and help to clean out and maintain the intake vents for the ships salt water cooling system that keep the generators and air conditioning running.

A few weeks ago we had a drill to practice what would happen in case of an emergency with a diver been injured under the ship and how we could get them out of the water and treated best. The drill went really well and it was a good learning experience for everyone envolved as it was something new to almost all of us. Here are some pictures that show the events of the drill.

Getting ready for the drill

Jumping in

Waiting for the drill to start

Captain briefing everyone on what is going to happen

Brave volunteers jumping in to help out

Me pretending to be unconscious

Getting positioned in the rescue basket

Taking off my dive gear, ready to pull me out

Getting lifted up by the fork lift

Almost out

And safely on land.

Unfortunately not too much more than a week after we had this drill I found myself diving to save the piece of equipment that had saved me during the drill. There was a bit of an accident and our forklift ended up going for a swim. I got to be apart of the rescue effort as 2 of us dove in the murky water to find it on the ocean floor and attached a crane to it so that it could be pulled out. Needless to say its back to the drawing board on what we will do in case of needing to pull a diver out of the water.

(No Persons or animals where hurt in this forklift accident)

Update from Brisbane

2010-09-23T01:54:00.001Z

Well I guess I have been meaning to write an update to you all pretty much the whole time I have been home, but I am just getting around to it now. First off I want to say thank you so much for the prayers and support my family and I have received over this time, it has really made all the difference in the world.

For those of you that might have missed my last update and were unaware I have been back in Australia over the past 5 weeks after leaving the ship suddenly due to the much unexpected passing of my father. Although coming home for a reason such as this it has still been good to be able to catch up with old friends as well as family members that I haven't seen in a while.

So what have I been doing for the past 5 weeks or so you might ask. Well first of all we were very busy organising the memorial service for my Dad which ended up going very well and a lot of people where able to come and share the day with us. Since then I have been doing my best to try and help my mum out with all the different paperwork and government departments that she had to notify of the death as well as transferring and unsubscribing from all the memberships of different things my Dad had (who knew someone could be a member of so many different things). Also I have been trying to catch up with as many people as possible in my time home and that has been good. I am also going for my motorbike drivers license this week to hopefully make things a bit easier if and when I want to look at getting a bike to get around on next year. One of the bigger things I have been working on while home though is I have actually become a part time travel consultant with a christian travel company called Integrity Travel. The idea behind this is I can work from on the ship when I have spare time and also be there to help my friends and fellow crew members on the ship when they need to travel somewhere. Also it is a chance for me to hopefully earn a little bit of commission and help support my stay on the ship. So if anyone needs any help with travel somewhere or even if you want to book a holiday or something like that let me know and I will do my best to help you out. The website for the company is www.integritytravel.com.au and my email address for travel bookings is timbensontravel@gmail.com

So I will be heading off back to the ship this coming Tuesday the 28th at 6am, which has really come up fast on me I thought 6 weeks at home would be a little while but it has just flown by. I will be flying to Durban in South Africa as the ship sailed just after I left it and is now down there in dry dock getting the main power generators replaced. For those of you that remember I mentioned it before that the ship would be doing this. It will be in South Africa for the rest of the year as it is a big job and a hole has to be cut in the side of the ship to allow the old generators to come out and the new ones to go in. In other news with the ship, I have actually just been offered a new position on board. They have asked me if I would be willing to take on the role of Staff Purser. For those of you that don't know what a purser does on board a ship, he is the person in charge of all supplies coming to and from the ship as well as all customs and immigration for all the crew, also looking after all arrivals and departures from the ship (and for our ship that is alot). Also on our ship the purser oversees the reception area of the ship that takes care of answering the phones and email as well as monitoring the fire panel which is the ships warning system for fires. So needless to say its a big job and involves much more than I have just said here, so I am taking my time to decide. I am leaning towards taking the position after thinking and praying about it as well as talking it over with some friends, but I am not going to make my final decision until I have a chance to chat with the guy I will be taking over from back at the ship.

So yeah that's pretty much me at the moment, just trying to frantically work out what I need to get done in these last few short days before heading off back to my home on the ship.

Praise God in Everything

2010-08-03T00:30:00.001+01:00

Well at about 4.30pm my time today I got some really bad news. My Dad had collapsed while on a tour in Iceland and had to be rushed to hospital for emergency surgery to remove blood clots from his lungs. He made it through the surgery and is now in the ICU. My mum is with him, but there is no one else there as they had just taken a cruise to Iceland.

After hearing this news I didn’t really know what to think or do. So I spent the next little while getting in contact with my mum and getting an update and then trying to get in contact with as many other family and friends as possible so that they could join in prayer and support. Then I went to dinner and that must have been the quietest I have been at a meal in a long time (apart from breakfast when it’s early). After the meal I went back to get some more updates and try to contact some more people. Then I went to bible study group I have on board with this great group of guys that are just amazing. It started at about 7.30 and they were so supportive and we just shared and prayed till 10pm and it was just what I needed.

You might ask where the title of this post comes in, well you see I went and made myself a cup of tea after the meeting with the boys and I was wondering around the ship and decided to go outside because it was quite cold inside. I went up to the top deck of the ship and as I was climbing the last stairs something came to mind that had been said by our managing director here on the ship not that long ago. He had said something along the lines of “Praise God in everything” and at the time he said it there were a few families that were going through some tuff times and had to leave the ship and it had really hurt the community, but he encouraged us that the best response to this was to praise God. So after remembering this that is exactly what I did I went to the back of the ship and look out over the water and just started singing praises to God. And you know what it was one of the most amazing times I have had with God in my life just standing there with a breeze blowing and a cup of tea in my hand singing my lungs out to God. Then I got to singing “My God is and Awesome God” and that was it I just started crying my eyes out, but it was strange the more I cried the louder I wanted to sing and it was just one of the most amazing feelings ever.

So my Dad definitely isn’t out of the woods yet by any stretch of the imagination, but I just wanted to let you all know this, no mater what praise God in everything good or bad.

It's been a while so here is an update

2010-06-20T19:12:00.000+01:00

Hello Everyone,

Well it really has been a while since I last sat down and wrote to you all. I have been incredibly busy over the past period here on the ship as 3 weeks ago I took over a second job on board the ship. So I am now not only the sales manager taking care of the ship shop and café affairs, but I am also filling in as the IS manager for the ship. What is IS you might ask well you are probably more familiar with the term IT which here on the ship covers everything to do with computers, printers, scanners and the phone system. So to say the lest the last few weeks have been a steep learning curve for me as I have been working long hours trying to help out as much as possible in our already short staffed IS department.

How did it happen you may ask that I of all people have ended up been the IS manager when I actually have no official background in IT. Well, why I was chosen I am not completely sure about, but the reason someone was needed to take over the position until a permanent replacement could be found is because the old manager had to go home do to health reasons of her husband who was also serving on board. So if you could keep them in your prayers as they are still waiting on some test results now that they are back home.

One thing that has really kept me busy over the past 2 weeks is we are currently working on upgrading the email server for the whole organisation of Mercy Ships. This is a huge project, but one that is really needed as our old email system is an antique by IT terms. We are fortunately nearing the end of it which I am really excited about as it will mean I can hopefully work a little bit less in IS and do some more of my other job in the sales department.

One thing I am really looking forward to is I am going to get to see my whole family together for the first time since 2008. My Mum, Dad, Brother and Sister will all be coming to visit me on the ship at the end of this month. They will be staying on board for a week and then we will all be travelling to Ghana which is the country next to Togo and going up north to where my grandparents, my Mum’s parents used to live as missionaries. This should be a great time for my family together and a much needed break for me as I am going to be ready for a break by the end of this month.

Looking ahead we still don’t know very much about what is going to happen when the ship goes to South Africa in August, but we do know that we will be going and getting the much needed work done to the ship. There are still a lot of smaller details as well as some big ones that need to be sorted out before the ship leaves to sail down there, so please remember this in your prayers. Also the advance team for the ship that is down in South Africa trying to prepare things for the ship could use some extra prayer as they are having trouble meeting with people, because everyone is so focused on the world cup currently.

Well that’s about it for now, sorry it’s been so long. Please feel free to write to me and tell me how you are doing I would love to hear about your lives as well.

Tim.

Giving Blood

2010-05-06T13:54:00.003+01:00

So just last week on Thursday Naomi who works in the lab on board passed me in the hallway just before lunch time and says “Oh I’ve been looking for you do you have time to pop down the lab and give us a unit of blood” (or at least something like that). You see this might not seem like a very normal thing to ask in a passing hallway conversation or even a very casual way of asking it, but you see it’s just how life here on board is. I know that if it’s been more than 8 weeks since the last time I gave blood, that at pretty much any time they might contact me to come and give a unit of blood. The way it works on board is we don’t actually have a blood bank or anything of the sorts. So what we do is if a patient needs to receive some blood then the lab tech will look through a list of people willing to donate and find a match for that patient and the blood will be taken straight from the crew member and given to the patient just minutes later. Sometimes the blood is for a patient who is just on the ward and might need a transfusion to just help them along a bit, but most of the time it seems that blood is needed for a patient that just currently in the operating room/theatre been operated on. This was the case when I donated last Thursday. The person I was donating to is a 19 year old girl who was having a major plastics type surgery and was loosing a lot of blood. I was the first person to donate to her so that was all the more encouragement to bleed as fast as possible so that they could get the blood into surgery as soon as possible. I am not sure how much blood she ended up needing, but when I had finished donating they were saying that she might need up to 6 people to make donations for her to be able to make it through the surgery.

So as the sales manager on board the ship I don’t get too involved with what goes on down in the hospital as I am busy with my other work, but its good to know I can still be involved in such a crucial way like this and it helps make me feel connected to what is going on downstairs in the hospital.

Election Day

2010-03-04T17:37:00.002Z

Well today is the day of Togo's national election. So for all of us here on the ship we have spent the day inside without leaving in case things go bad the captain wants to be better safe than sorry. As far as we have heard today there has not been too much to report on the election so I assume that means its all been going well which is good news as we have been praying for this for a while now. One of the main reasons we are been so cautious is that the last national election Togo had didn't go so well and there are still refugees in neighbouring countries from that time. The real test of how things will be is going to be in over the next week as it come up to the date that the results are due to be announced. So please join me in praying that this will be a quiet and peaceful next week especially when the actual result is announced. Don't worry about anyone here on the ship though, we have alot of plans in place and are taking the safest approach to this time possible so if something does come up we should be fine.

Anyway just letting you all know what is happening here in Togo at the moment so please just keep the whole election process in your prayers.

Becoming a Diver

2010-01-21T11:28:00.004Z

As some of you may remember I have previously talked about wanting to become certified in diving so that I can help out in performing cleaning and maintenance tasks on the bottom of the ship. I have decided that now is the best time for me to do this as 1. There are lots of diving schools here in Tenerife and 2. The dive team is going to be a bit shorter on people this next period while the ship is in Togo, with there been only 3 divers left on board and all 3 of them have other full time jobs as well. I am not yet sure how often divers will be needed to be used in Togo as we will have to wait and see the port and how bad the water and rubbish situation is. While in Benin though divers were needed to be used as much as 2 or even 3 times a week (Togo should be better than this).

I have contacted some local dive schools to see what sort of price they could offer me to get my PADI(Professional Association of Diving Instructors) certified open water diver certificate. This is a lifetime certification and allows me to dive anywhere in the world pretty much. I was shocked at the response I got from one company as they replied to me offering me the course for 183 Euros which is down from their regular price of 395 Euros. I feel like this might be a little hint from God telling me that I am doing the right thing.

I don't normally like asking for money, but this is something that I never planned for in my original budgeting and thus I didn't budget for it (funny how that works). So I was wondering if there was anyone who would like to sponsor me for a part of the cost of my diving course.

For information on how to support me go to http://tiatiminafrica.blogspot.com/2008/12/support-tim.html

Or if you would just like to put money directly into my bank account on the ship go to http://www.mercyships.org/page/outreach/view/crewmates/Timothy

I am planning on doing the course sometime in the next 1.5 weeks before the ship leaves Tenerife. There are a few other guys who also want to do this course and help out with the dive team on the ship, but they are having trouble working out the best time to do it as they have to work around their work schedule to get the 4 days to do the course. So please pray that we can find a way for them to also have time to do the course before the ship leaves.

So What are we doing in Tenerife?

2010-01-14T15:11:00.004Z

So some of you may ask the question why in fact is our ship in Tenerife of all places at the moment. Well that is a good question as it is quiet the tourist destination for Europeans. Well one of the main reasons is Maritime law. The ship is required to go through various inspections, obtain various certificates, etc and this is the closest place a ship of our size can go for these services. Without the required certificates, we would not be permitted to sail. Currently on board we are working on Cleaning out all our tanks to get them surveyed. This is a big job as there are alot of tanks to be cleaned so alot of the work is been done by crew volunteering from other departments to go help out the engineers and deck hands. Everyone from receptionists to nurses are down there getting their hands dirty, its great to see people willing to help out in a role they are not used to. Mercy Ships has also had a long term relationship with the island and our agent and vendors here which helps in our dealings with them. There are also many ship repairs that need to be done when the hospital is not in use and when the number of crew members on board is lower. Many short term crew leave at this time to go home as well as many long term crew take vacation with the advantage of cheap flights been available to Europe from the island. So even though its a great change of scenery and a holiday culture there on the island we are still getting alot of work done as well as getting a bit of rest ready for the next outreach.

Visiting my Brother

2010-01-14T15:00:00.003Z

So the day after the ship docked in Tenerife I set off to go and see my brother for Christmas. I flew to Istanbul via London and Rob met me in Istanbul. Unfortunately I had flown into the airport that was on the opposite side of the city to where Rob was staying with a friend so we proceeded to take about 1.5 hours and various forms of public transport to get to the house we would stay at for my first 2 nights visiting. So we spent 2 nights in Istanbul and Rob showed me around as he used to live there for a while. I really enjoyed seeing the city as it has such a rich and long history that there is lots to see, we even went to the archeology museum there and saw some artifacts that were from Babylon from the time of King Nebuchadnezzar who is in the Bible. We traveled by bus to Haskovo, Bulgaria on the 23rd which is where my brother is currently living. We had a fairly relaxed time together and on Christmas day met up with an Australian family that lives there and went to a park behind the world’s second largest statue of Mary holding baby Jesus and we played a game of cricket :). Then in the evening of Christmas day my brother took me to a local Church he has been going to and said the service should go for about 1.5 hours and we left about 5 hours later, so I defiantly got a good dose of culture there. For the rest of my time there we just hung out and relaxed and I got to see a bit of how Rob lives there and the work he is doing so that was really good.

So we traveled back to Istanbul on the 30th and I caught a plane back to England on the 31st. Where I spent the next 7 days meeting up with friends mostly from Mercy Ships past and present, which was really good. I was due to travel back to the Ship on the 7th of Jan, but the night before I looked to find that my flight had been canceled due to snow and cold conditions that England has been experiencing. So I got my flight rescheduled for 2 days later and in the afternoon which was nice, because my original flight was in the morning at 7am which would have made it harder to get to the airport. So I went to the airport 2 hours before my flight on the 9th only to find that it had been delayed, but wasn't shown as so on the website so I proceeded to sit around for about 5 hours and finally after much waiting I was on the plane and then after a bit more waiting to be deiced we were on our way.

So now I am back on the ship, but I am no longer working in accounting. I am working back in the sales department as acting sales manager while the real one is away for a break, so I am in charge of the shop and cafe on the ship. I will be doing this for at lest as long as the sales manager is away and then I am not sure where I will be working, but I am unsure if I will be staying in this department or going to work somewhere else, so please pray that I get used in the best position where I can be most effective.

Sailing

2009-12-16T09:44:00.009Z

Sailing, Sailing to Tenerife. with Christ in the vessel we can smile at the storm, smile at the storm as we go sailing to Tenerife.

Sorry for my poor effort at rewording a song to make it fit my current situation, but it really does. We have been having a fantastic time at sea, with clam waters and great weather and even got to smile at a storm as we passed by it a few days ago when we were able to see a water spout (tornado at sea) just a few hundred meters from the ship.

We left the port of Cotonou, Benin on time at around 10.30am on the 8th and set sail for our next destination of Tenerife. This was no mean feat as in the days leading up to our departure there had been alot of last minute things going wrong and needing to be fixed, there was work that needed to be done on the engines and even our radar system was waiting for a part to come the night before we sail it was flown in. So thank you to everyone who has been praying for us, because if everything hadn't fallen into place just right then we could still be stuck in Cotonou waiting to leave.

The sail has been going great and I have been shocked with how calm it is and how little the ship is rocking compared to my past experience on board while sailing. We have been blessed to see all sorts of Gods wonder in nature, I feel like he is throwing something new at us almost every day. From the water spout I mentioned earlier, to dolphins, to whales, to flying fish, to a meteor shower and to top it off some of the most amazing sunsets you will ever see. I can truly say my God is an awesome God.

The sail has been a time where I have felt relaxed and rested but also it has still been a time of work as I have been finishing up and closing out some things from our time in Benin for accounting and as I prepare to hand over the job for when I go on holidays to visit my brother in just 4 days.

here are some pics of what I have seen on the sail, enjoy.

Water Spout

Dolphin playing
Flying Fish
(these are my favourite and yes the actually fly the don't just jump really far like I thought)
Hammer Head Shark
Amazing Sunset
Another Amazing sunset
This one looks like it has a face

If you couldn't tell just by looking at them none of these photos where taken by me, its good to have really talented friends.

Just a "quick" trip to Togo

2009-12-03T10:19:00.006Z

On Tuesday I had the opportunity to join a convoy of some of 9 of the Mercy Ships owned vehicles that would be driving to Togo to leave the vehicles there for when we arrive in Togo in February. Of course not having been to Togo yet and wanting to see where the ship would be next year I jumped at the chance to go. So we had everything ready to go we had 9 drivers who all had the right paperwork and visas to get across the boarder and back. We even had 2 mechanics and a bunch of spare parts just in case.

You may ask why would we drive these cars to Togo and just leave them there for a few months when we could fit them on the top of the ship and take them with us to Tenerife. Well you see the thing is the cars that we took at the oldest ones in the Mercy Ships fleet and are at the point of after been battered around in West Africa for long enough that there is no way we could get them to pass any inspection to be able to drive them in Tenerife so if we took them with us it would just be taking some extra weight.

So now that you know the condition of the vehicles we were driving is not the best, you can imagine the inevitable happened. about 1.5 hours into our trip we had our first break down. The Land Rover we call the Ambulance suddenly started making a high pitched squealing noise out of the front left wheel and we knew that the wheel bearing was gone. So the whole convoy pulled over as we didn't want to leave anyone behind along the way. So the Mechanics and a couple of others set about replacing the wheel bearing (luckily we had 4 spare with us). This took about 30-40 mins and then we were back on the road again. Not much more than 15 mins later though it happened again, same car, same wheel. We weren't really sure what happened to make it break so fast, but all we new was that what was a brand new wheel bearing 15mins earlier was now nothing but a small pile of scraps of metal been pulled out. So this time the mechanics set about pulling apart the entire wheel section of the Land Rover and cleaning it out and rebuilding it piece by piece. There were a couple of resourceful local guys to came to watch to helped us out by getting us a hammer and chisel we needed as well as a few small metal rods and some wire to replace the parts we didn't have (a real good African fix). I would say about another 45 mins we spent doing this and then we were back on the road again and all the cars were driving well.

We finally made it to the boarder much later than we had intended and proceeded to spend a bit over an hour there getting our passports stamped and the vehicles approved to go across. After getting through the boarder we were on the final stretch to Lome the capital of Togo. We arrived finally at 4.30 in the afternoon after leaving at 10am and made our way past the port and stopped in at a restaurant to grab some food as we had planned to be there for lunch we were all quiet hungry. While we were eating the advance team from the ship who have been living in Togo getting things ready for when we come, met up with us. They then took us about another 30 mins away to a AOG compound where we left the vehicles to be stored until the ship arrives. We then went to the hotel where the advance team is staying and picked up a Land Rover to drive home in and we keep one of the ones we took across. We had a good bit of fun on the way back as we had a radio in both cars and were about to talk to each other and keep ourselves entertained for a while.

The trip back was much less eventful as everything went smoothly even the boarder crossing. We made good time all the way and got back to the ship a bit after 11pm. So all in all it was a good fun day, but a long day.

Remember, Remember the 5th of November

2009-11-09T10:23:00.010Z

For those of you who don't understand what I am talking about in my title please click on this link Guy Fawkes Night.

Last Thursday the 5th of November after work myself and a friend of mine Sarah set out on a mission in town to see if we could find some sparklers or fireworks or anything to do with fire and is pretty to look at really. So we set out on my vespa and stopped in at several small shops that looked like they might have some sparklers or at lest a party section. And then there they were in this one shop actually not that far from the ship they had both sparklers as well as these small flare type fireworks as well.

We returned triumphantly to the ship and made plans for all the British as well as some commonwealth countries to meet on the dock at 9pm to celebrate. We had quite a gathering out on the dock with plenty of people wanting to come celebrate so we barely had enough sparklers to go round. We ran into a small problem though when it came to lighting the sparklers. We held them over the open flame of a cigarette lighter but because the humidity was so high it just would not light any of them. So we turned out focus to the 3 small fireworks we had bought and not really knowing what they would do as we could not read the packet we all stood back as one of them was lit to see what it would do. It shot a bright flame about 4 inches in the air and burned for about 30 seconds before running out of fuel. So after this test we knew what they would do so I went up and lit the next one and then stood close enough to light my sparkler off of it. It worked and then it was a mad dash from everyone to get theirs lit from mine and we all had fun as we were taken back to our childhoods withe fun and the bright lights of the sparklers. We then finished off the short evening with the last firework which suitably burned higher and longer than the first 2.

Some people had more imagination than others (note the scarf)

Me lighting the second firework

There it goes

Everyone enjoying their sparklers.

Why I work for Mercy Ships

2009-11-02T22:16:00.003Z

A friend of mine sent me these questions so she could use my responses in a talk she is doing and seeing the questions made me think of answers I thought I would post them here.

How and when did you first hear of Mercy Ships?
A friend of mine Kat Stout was a nurse on the Anastasis for 5 months and she told me all about it.
Why did you decide to join the crew?
I have always had an interest in Medical things, but never wanted to go into it as a field and recently before hearing of Mercy Ships I had been feeling an urge to go on a ship and had been looking at OM ships, but then Mercy Ships just fit me better
What did you plan on doing on the ship? What are you doing now?
I originally planned on been an assistant cook on board working in the ships Galley. However not too long after arriving I found myself been stretched as I learnt alot taking on the role of cooking team leader in the Galley. I did that for a year before leaving as my time serving was up, but later decided to return and since returning I have worked in the sales department helping to provide the essentials as well as a few extra luxuries for the crew, working in the ship shop and helping run the cafe. Most recently though I have been thrown (willingly) into a whole nother role entirely. I have taken on the role as one of the accountants onboard the ship for the rest of the year. I have no formal training for this but have a head for numbers so I am feeling stretched but learning alot. I take care of all the business transactions of the ship and transfers between US$ and the local currency as well as looking after the payroll for some of our locally employed staff such as translators.
How long have you been on the ship? How long do you plan on staying?
I have been onboard the ship for a total of 19 months over a time period of just over 2 years and at the moment do not know when I will be leaving, so I will keep working till that day comes.
What is your favorite part of Mercy Ship/ being a part of the crew?
I would have to say the community, it isn't the best point for everyone but I just love it. The fact that I am living on a ship with 400 other people from over 30 different nationalities and cultures and yet it somehow works. I like that there is always a friend around when you need one or someone to support you when you are down. And the crazy fun stuff you can get up to in you time off.
If there was one thing you'd like people to understand/know about Mercy Ships what would it be?
The fact that although Mercy Ships is a great organisation that’s main focus is Medical work with surgery there are opportunities for people with a whole range of talents and skills to come and get involved and play a role in helping support the doctors and nurses get there work done. The fact that without the non-medical staff there is no way that Mercy Ships would work at all.
What are a few of the lessons (if any) you have learned on/about Mercy Ships/mission work?
I have learnt to be aware of cultural differences even more than I was before and that to make any lasting change you need to work at the base of the problem and not just focus on the end result. Not only that, but changing the smallest thing in someone’s life such as a simple corrective surgery can drastically impact someone’s life here for the better.

80's Party

2009-09-15T20:25:00.001Z

This Saturday just gone by some of my friends here on the ship decided that it would be a good idea to throw an 80’s dance party just because we could. A fair bit of work went into the planning and advertising of the party mainly by my friend Meg. There was an emphasis in the advertising put on the fact that everyone coming needed to try and dress up as “80s” as possible. Now been in a West African country this is not as hard as you might think with there been loads on cheap cloths in the second hand market in town (a lot of which probably are from the 80s) and also there is a boutique on the ship full of people old unwanted cloths free for the taking.

The party kicked off at about 7.30 and we had it up on deck 8 of the ship which is the top deck out in the open so we wouldn’t disturb too many people. There weren’t many people there to start with but once the music was going and some people started making idiots of them selves on the dance floor, people started showing up and really getting into it. The costumes that people (mainly girls to be honest) came up with were amazing and you could really see the people that enjoyed dressing up.

All up it was a great evening and people had loads of fun and we will defiantly have to do something similar again.

Football Match

2009-09-15T20:17:00.003Z

Last Sunday was quiet an experience for some of us from the ship. A group of what ended up been about 45 of us decided we would go to cheer on the country of our current residency Benin as they played in a world cup qualifier game against Mali. I would have to say the Mali with a few more well known players than Benin would have to be the favourites in my book, but it was a do or die situation with both teams needing a win so it made for an exciting game.

The day started with us going to get tickets for everyone in the morning to make sure we got in before they sold out. There were 3 options in tickets a 1000CFA, 2000CFA and 5000CFA(460CFA = $1), we were told by a local driver who was taking us to pick up the tickets that the 1000 and 2000CFA tickets were the same the only difference was that one cost more and then the 5000CFA ticket got you a nicer seat in a sheltered area. So we bought a bunch of both tickets with some people wanting to the cheaper option and some wanting the nicer seats.

We went back to the ship and handed out the tickets and went about our days before gathering together at 1pm to head to the game. We hired a few local mini buses to take us to the stadium and made sure we left early knowing that the traffic would be bad and the line to get into the stadium would also be bad. After getting in we sat and waited for the match to start as the stadium rapidly filled up. We were easy to spot in the crowd a bunch of Yovos (white people) all sitting in a row in Benin supporter shirts.

For most of the match it wasn’t very exciting football although the atmosphere in the crowd was great. With about 10 mins to go though Mali scored a goal and then things got a bit exciting. Benin was doing all they could to try and get the scores back level but to no avail. Until just before the game finished Benin managed to get the goal and the stadium erupted with cheers from the crowd. The game ended in a draw 1-1 and now you would think this would be the best fair outcome, but what it means is now both Benin and Mali have no chance to qualify for the world cup.

Fire Drill Training

2009-08-28T15:08:00.011Z

Well First off I am going to make an apology for my lack of blogging well that is if there is anyone still checking this almost dormant blog I am apologising to you.

Thursday last week we had a fire drill here on the ship. Now that is not at all an uncommon thing as we generally have a drill every fortnight (or 2 weeks for those who don't know what that means). This drill however was different because A. it was in the morning and most of our drills are in the afternoon, and B. we didn't simulate a fire instead those of us on the fire teams got to have a go at using some of our special equipment that we have heard and talked about but never used.

Some of the equipment we tested includes the foam dispensing nozzle and the container penetrating nozzle, as seen below. The foam nozzle is very good for laying down a blanket over the fire and suffocating it out and the container penetrating nozzle as the name suggests is great for penetrating through the side of a shipping container or even a thin wall in the ship and putting out the fire without having to open the door to the space. After we had tested and learnt how to use both the nozzles we did a test that no one was sure would work we tried pumping foam liquid through the container penetrating nozzle to see if it would be a possibility in a real situation with great success.

Foam dispensing nozzle
Container penetrating nozzleShooting the foam dispensing nozzle

Using a sledge hammer to poke the nozzle through a practice wall
How the nozzle works once its gone through the wall
Testing if the penetrating nozzle works with foam (success!)
Shooting foam over the side of the ship into the wind.

Generators

2009-06-07T16:22:00.001+01:00

One thing I would like to bring up that is needed here on the ship is the fact that we are in need of some new generators to replace the ones we currently have, which we are constantly having problems with. The way things are set up in the engine room on the ship is there are 2 large generators which we call the harbour generators and then there are 4 smaller generators called the Fricks generators (spelling probably wrong). In order to have enough power to run everything on the ship we have to run 3 out of the 4 Fricks generators or the 2 harbour generators or a combination of both. Now we don't have any major problems with the harbour generators, but the Fricks have been giving us lots of problems. So why not just run the harbour generators you may ask well you see the problem is that the harbour generators while running cause alot of noise and vibration through some of the hospital wards and even some of the operating theaters. So therefore we try and run the fricks generators as much as possible so that none of the hospital needs to be shut down. Except when we have problems with the fricks we need to run the harbours and thus the hospital is not going at its full potential. So the plan you see is that we are hopefully going to get 4 new generators to replace the fricks, about the same size but slightly more powerful so that it only takes 2 of them running to power the ship and then the other 2 can be on standby and maintenance. The plan was to hopefully do the change at the end of this year, but due to lack of funding it has been postponed until hopefully the end of next year, because it is quiet a process as a hole needs to be cut in the side of the ship to get the generators in and out. So I would ask that you pray for this, That the money would come in over the next year so that this generator switch is possible and also pray that the generators last for another year without giving us too many problems and don't hinder the running of the hospital at all.

A new means of Transport

2009-05-18T19:03:00.011Z

Well I have done it what mum probably never really wanted me to do even in Australia because its too dangerous, I have bought a motorbike. Well not a motorbike exactly more of a scooter or moped really, in fact its a Italian made 1982 Vespa 150cc. You may ask why this rather strange choice of bike. Well there are a few reasons the main one been the person who owns the other half of the bike only wanted to get a vespa and nothing else, and then there is the fact that they are very well built and reliable I mean there are lots of 1960s vespas on the streets here. The only other real choice unless u want to spend alot of money is to get a cheap Chinese made bike that are everywhere but are known for breaking down. We got the bike for US$600 so my half was $300 and I am quiet happy with it at the moment. I got the bike mainly to help with getting around town as there are not taxis everywhere like Liberia and I am unable to drive the ships vehicles due to been underage for the insurance.

On this Saturday just gone by I got to give the bike a good test out as I went on a bit of spontaneous bike cruise. I was sitting in the dinning room just eating some lunch and one of the other guys that owns a bike came up to me and asked me if I was interested in going for a ride to Porto Novo which is the capital of Benin. I said sure why not I didn't have any other plans. So at 1 o'clock we gathered together 4 bikes in all and set out on our road trip adventure. It was great fun riding up the highway to Porto Novo and really getting to test out the vespa fully and I must say I was impressed with her. I was able to keep up with the other 3 bikes without too much effort at all and it was great just feeling the wind in my face cruising along the highway (although next time some sun screen for my face would be good as I forgot this time and regretted it a little). Once we got to Porto Novo we took a short break and then proceeded to drive around the streets all over the city just looking around. It was a lot of fun and we got a lot of strange looks and shouts our group of Yovo's (white people) on bikes just riding around. We had a great day and ended up been out for about 5 hours which is the longest I have ever spent on a bike, but the vespa was surprisingly comfortable for such a long ride.

meeting Ambrose

2009-04-30T08:10:00.003Z

First of all I would like to say sorry for my period of silence. I don't have a good excuse for not writing so I won't give one.
I have been well, as you may remember I gave blood not long ago, well I thought I would follow up with the rest of the story.
You may recall that I had struggled a bit with giving blood as I was less than sufficiently hydrated. You also may remember that I was videoed a bit for a documentary, but it seems that I missed out the fact that there was also a photographer there taking pics for the ships communication department (they write stories about the crew and patients on board). Well this photographer came up to me at work about a week later and asked if I would be willing to come down to the ward and have my pic taken with Ambrose who was the one who received my blood. I was one of eight people to had donated blood to Ambrose so he had lost alot in surgery and it was good to see the end result that all the cysts had been removed and he could now use his right arm again. I posed for a photo with him and then sat and talked with him for a while through a translator, it was good to just get to see and meet the person that I had given some of my own blood too.

A Short Sail

2009-04-18T15:11:00.007Z

Well this Saturday just gone by we packed up the ship and decided to go on a short pleasure sail......

Well not exactly, what really happened was we needed to get some fuel for the ship so we can run the engines and generators and power everything on the ship. The good news is that compared to Liberia there is actually a ship refueling station here in the Cotonou port, but the bad news is that we have to move to get the fuel where as in Liberia a tanker ship would come to us.

So it couldn't really be called a sail because we went such a short distance and most of the way we were been pulled by tug boats. But I would have to say that it defiantly benefited alot of people. We spent the night there and came back the next days so all the technical crew could put it down as sea time for their log books. Then also there are all the short term crew that otherwise would never get to experience sailing on this ship because we sail so rarely, and especially there are some crew such as doctors that come really regularly to the ship and have done for years but may have never gotten to sail with it get to experience it as well.

Giving Blood

2009-04-18T15:10:00.002Z

It was my first full day of work because I had only done a half day before because of my knee. We had just finished work for the day and one of that ladies I work with just came up from giving blood and she is the same blood type as me so I wondered why they hadn't called me because I was on the list. Then I walked past reception and the receptionist called out to me and said the lab needed to see me straight away and I knew it was for my blood. So I rushed down to the lab as fast as I could, where Sarah one of the lab techs and a fellow Australian saw me and took me straight into the ward to start taking my blood. I walked into the room to find there were some others already in there giving blood, one of whom is a nurse but they were having problems getting the needle in her veins so it took 5 tries but they got it. There was also a photographer and a video camera (not a little hand held one but a bigger portable movie making one) in the room also and I later found out it was because the patient we were giving blood for is been operated on by a surgeon that is having a documentary made about him.

They came to get my blood and the needle went in ok (and what a needle it is its a 14 gauge needle they use for those of you out there that know what that is) and my blood started flowing fine. Then there was a bit of a problem. my blood started coming out slower and slower and then eventually just stopped all together(I later worked out it was because I wasn't hydrated enough because I hadn't really had very much to drink all day). After it stopped I started to feel sick in the stomach and was sweating alot and they said I looked really pale. I had no idea what was wrong at this point because this had never happened to me before when giving blood. So i lay back and just prayed for a few minutes while the nurse tried moving the needle around in my arm to get the blood flowing again. Then all of a sudden just like that it started coming again and they brought me a sprite to help me feel better. I was able to just make it past the minimum amount before it stopped flowing again, which I am so glad and thankful to God for because If I had not made the minimum they would have had to just throw it out and not use it.

I then rested a bit before going and having some food and drink some more. The next day the videographer came up to me and asked if I could answer a few questions for the film so we sat down and she filmed me while asking the usual "how did it feel" questions. So I guess I am going to be in the Documentary then.

changing jobs

2009-04-17T13:44:00.005Z

Well This has come sooner than I thought it would, but I have just gotten back into the swing of things in the Galley and I am changing jobs already. This has always been the plan except I wasn't supposed to change until later in next month. Although the job I have changed to which is working in the sales department will be understaffed very soon with people leaving and others going on holidays so they wanted to train me up before we were understaffed. What is the sales department you may ask, well basically put we are the department that sells stuff to the crew. We run a shop on board as well as a snack bar and a cafe. The shop is a place of constantly changing stock that we get shipped in from the USA and Holland. We sell things like cooking and baking supplies for the crew that may not like what is served in the dinning room or maybe just love to bake, toiletries such as toilet paper, toothpaste, shampoo etc, mercy ships clothing and many other things. The snack bar and the cafe on the other hand is more of a luxury for the crew so they can get a cold soft drink and a snack or maybe a nice coffee at a decent price and we are open when most of the crew take their break time in the morning and afternoon. More than just running these 3 places working in the sales department also includes a lot of time spent stocking up and working in the store rooms down on deck 2 and also alot of work when new shipping containers come to be unloaded.

So far I am really enjoying it but I am also sad that I am no longer working in the Galley, I enjoy both jobs but it is unfortunately not possible for me to do both at once and working in Sales will hopefully allow me to get more involved with other things on and off the ship.

A little Slip up

2009-04-17T13:43:00.006Z

On Monday I was at work in the Galley, it was just another normal day at work and we had almost finished getting dinner ready and sent down to the dinning room. I realised that I needed to go and get some aprons I had been washing from the laundry so I went to walk out of the hot prep side of the Galley like I have done hundreds of times before, except this time I hit a bit of water on the ground as I rounded the corner and both my feet went flying out from under me and I landed heavily on my left knee cap. I sprung back to my feet straight away hoping that no one had seen me, but everyone had so I continued on to pick up the laundry. I limped there and limped back and when I got back it was really starting to hurt so I went for my dinner break thinking some rest would do it good before coming back to clean up. I went and sat in the dinning room with my friends 2 of which at the table are nurses. Then when I went to get up after dinner I tried to stand on my left leg and found it was too painful to even put any pressure on my left knee at all. So my great friends sprung into action and in no time my knee was strapped I had ice on it and another friend had gone and gotten me a pair of crutches. So I spent the rest of the evening getting used to using crutches on the ship with all the stairs we have while also answer the same question a thousand times "Tim, what happened to you?". The next day I went to the crew doctor to find out how bad it was and I was happy to hear that it was just bruised and I needed to keep off it for a couple of days. So after 2 days of been on crouches I got the ok to stop using them and since then I have just been taking it a bit easy on my kneed and now the only time I am still noticing it is when I am using the stairs (which is actually fairly often).

Easter weekend

2009-04-17T13:32:00.005Z

Well as probably most all of you know it was Easter weekend last weekend just past. I really enjoy times like this on the ship because they really make an effort to make it a special time of celebration. We had a 4 day weekend on the ship over Easter to that people could take a break and enjoy the celebration or as alot of the West African crew did as well as some others go home for the weekend.

For those that stay on the ship over the weekend there is a Friday morning service with a showing of The Passion of the Christ in the evening. Then on Sunday there is a sunrise service up on the top deck of the ship followed by a big brunch put on by the Galley and then in the evening there is a service followed by and open house night. They way the open house works is people volunteer to open up their cabins for anyone to come and have a look and they usually have something to eat and drink in there as well and you can go around all the different cabins that are open and meet the people and also see all the different sorts of cabins and how people decorate from family cabins to couples cabins to even single berth cabins.

There were also other small events going on every night of the week leading up to the Easter weekend as well so the Chaplains really do a great job of organising the whole thing.

Abomey

2009-04-14T14:48:00.010Z

This past weekend I went away for one night with a few friends to a town about 3 hours up country called Abomey. Abomey is a town rich in history and stories and interesting places to see. We left on Friday morning been driven by one of my new friends John, he is a day volunteer worker on the ship and is from Benin and he offered to help show us around and translate a bit for us. Once there we went and met John's sister in law at her house which is where John had organised for us to have our meals while we where away. Her name is Clementine and she has 2 sons Mike and Jeff, but her husband is away the Ivory Coast working. It was really easy to see how deeply rooted into society that women are worth less than men still just by the fact that John who is a Christian didn't even know Clementine's name and just referred to her as "Mama Jeff" (Jeff's mother).

After our quick visit we set off to see what we thought would be one of the main attractions of town, the old palace. Well I don't know how many places would class this place as a palace, it is an old mud building with a large courtyard and a big mud wall around it, but none the less it is the palace of the king of Benin. The king these days is more of just a figure head and hasn't really had any power in the country since the French invaded and took over. Even so we felt very honoured to get to met the king and have an audience with him that resulted in about a 45min conversation on the different countries the 4 of us were from as well as several other interesting topics. And was followed by a photo session with the King (which is apparently usually not allowed at all, but he liked us) followed by the exchanging of email addresses (so he can invite us the next time he has a big celebration). We said goodbye to the king and headed on our way and went off to see a big statue in the center of town, the statue is of one of the former kings named Behanzin and he was ruling the country at the time of the French invation. The way the story that we were told goes, the king stood up to the French as they tried to enter Abomey and he held up his hand and because he was so powerful everyone stopped, even the French. But he was eventually captured and the French took over. After that we went to see one of the few world heritage listed sights in West Africa, it is a very old large wall that used to surround the residence of a king and is made from mud and human blood. It wasn't that much to look at but after hearing the story behind it I was in awe and a bit shocked by it.

We then headed back to Clementine's house to find a ready made meal of delicious local style food. We ate and hung out for a bit and after working out which local hotel would give us the best deal we went and called it a night.

The next day we headed out with the aim to take it a bit easy and see an underground village in the area. Now this was a place that John didn't know so we went to see one of his Brothers who has a friend who is an English teacher in a local school and they came with us to help translate and show us around. The underground village was really cool to go and see although there was a definite Voodoo presence there. The way the village was set up is there are a whole lot of underground rooms with several other rooms connected on, but none of the main sections were connected so it was about 4 rooms together all on their own. They say that the underground village was only recently discovered when they were building a road along side where the village is and they think there are about 1600 small rooms but they haven't yet found them all.

So all in all it was a good weekend where I learned alot about Benin's history and a bit about its culture. And also it was great to just get away from the hussle and bussle of Cotonou and see a bit of the beautiful country side.

Back on the Ship

2009-04-01T15:53:00.001Z

Upon arrival in the Cotonou international airport I was met with one of the new biggest challenges for me, the language barrier. I was however able to get through passport control and customs with no problems after finding workers who spoke some English as well as some made up sign language. I made it to the luggage pick up point and stood and watched the conveyor belt go round and round with luggage on it until eventually i was one of only a few people left in the room and they stopped the belt moving, my luggage had obviously not made it. I was then approached by a French man who's luggage had not made it either and he spoke some English and asked me about mine and then we proceeded to go and find someone to tell about our problem. After we found the right person he was busy with something else so we sat and waited for a while until he was ready then he took our detail we put in a luggage claim with the airline and he said it should be here on Sunday. After that because I had decided to come in on a flight arriving at 5.30am which is outside the Mercy Ships recommended travel time I had to sit and wait until 8am for someone to come and pick me up.

When I got to the ship it was great to see some familiar faces, although there are a whole lot of new people on board there seemed to be a never ending amount of people I would run into and have all kinds of different reactions of shock, surprise and happiness to see that I was back on board. I went to my new cabin which is actually next door to the one I used to live in which is great because some of my old cabin mates are still there. I am in a 4 birth cabin (a cabin for 4 people) and I have 2 American roommates and one Ghanaian roommate. The rest of my morning on the ship I spent walking around stopping in on peoples offices and saying hi and getting my legal embarkation papers signed by all the necessary departments. Then it came time for lunch time and well I must say meal times were always one of my favourite times on the ship. I mean sure I like food and all but that isn't the only reason, its because I always had some of the best conversations and catch up times at meals and some of my most memorable moments happened around the table. And at that point sitting back in the dinning room I am sorry to say to my family but I felt It's good to be home (which is a good thing because it is my home for at lest the next 2 years).

London

2009-03-27T10:52:00.001Z

Well London Is the last stop on my round about way to Africa. After having a few problems with phones I met up with my friend Colin who I had just met at Gateway and we headed back to his place where I was staying. He lives in probably one of the nicest parts of London, in Wimbledon with a nice big part near by and almost like a smaller town sort of vibe. On Saturday we headed into town to Hide Park where we met up with some other friends of mine I had met on the ship, Grace, Hannah and Natalie. We had a picnic lunch together and then just hung out and walked through the park and stopped for a cup of tea (so British). We eventually headed our separate ways and Colin proceeded to take me on a quick tour of all the touristy sites. We went past Buckingham Palace, Big Ben (Colin's favorite), Parliament building, Trafalgar square, the London eye and a few others. We then walked down the south side to Waterloo, to this little hole in the wall cafe that Colin knew about where they were having an open mic night and had some really good musicians and singers there. The thing that surprised both Colin and I was the amount of Christians in this place, it seemed like almost everyone we met and talked to in there was a Christian. So we had a great night listening to good music and having some great conversations.

The next day we had a bit of a lie in and then went to see Colin's parents as it was mother's day in England, we then just hung out for the afternoon before going to church. Then on Monday Colin had to go to a course for his work all day, so I decided to head over to Gerrards Cross to a place called Bulstrode Manor which is where the office for the mission organisation called WEC my parents work for and also where some friends of mine used to live is. It was a bit wet out that way but it was good to be able to see the beautiful old building and the surrounding grounds again, the last time I was there was when I was 5 so I didn't remember too much.

On Tuesday I decided to go and visit my friend Jon up north in Preston and stay the night up there (Yes yet another last minute travel arrangement change). So I caught the bus up there it was a bout a 6 hour trip and then met up with Jon and just hung out for the afternoon/evening it was great to catch up a bit. That night we went to one of his friends houses who is a Film student and had access to some movie that wasn't even out in the Cinemas yet so we watched that. Its called Geneva and is a bit of a strange movie because as far as I could see it didn't really have any story line and no real ending, but you can't complain when its free I guess. The next day Jon roped me into helping him out with handing out some fliers at his university for an upcoming event the Christian university group was putting on. It actually turned out to be good fun once I got the hang of what to say to get people to take the flier, but defiantly a new experience for me. Then in the afternoon we met up with a bunch of Jon's friends and went to the local Chinese buffet and stuffed ourselves. It was pretty good food although I must say only in England with you find a Chinese buffet that does fish and chips.

I then caught my bus back to London and hung out with him for the evening. then this morning we said our goodbyes as he went his course and I stayed to start packing before catching a train to the airport, which is where I am now writing this so the next time you will hear from me I will be in Benin (well hopefully at lest).

Philadelphia

2009-03-27T10:48:00.002Z

Well guess what I had yet another last minute change to my travel schedule and decided to go down to Philadelphia for the day after I realised how close it was to New York. I caught the train down and was picked up at the station by my friend Megan and she then set about giving me the Philly tour. Our first port of call was to a little local restaurant to get a real “Philly” cheese steak, which was actually the first one I have ever had and I must say it was very greasy but quiet nice. We then headed off and picked up a large soft pretzel (I could start to see a trend appearing involving me eating a lot of food) and some drinks before heading on into down town. We found ourselves a park and proceeded to walk around the old part of the city looking at some of the old buildings. We then found ourselves at the Liberty Bell, which for those of you that don't know is a big old bell that was rung when America gained its independence among other things. Once we had finished walking around the old part of the city we jumped back into the car and headed over the University area where we stopped at a small cafe type place and had some bubble tea which is cold flavored tea with these little bubble balls in the bottom. We then headed over to China town for dinner at this great Malaysian restaurant called Penang which I loved having lived in Malaysia before it was great to have some food of that style and I must say it was good food. After dinner we drove back to the train station and said our goodbyes, all in all it was a great day hanging out with a friend. :)

New York

2009-03-27T10:45:00.000Z

New York, New York oh New York, its defiantly a place you hear a lot about see a lot of in movies but would it live up to its name? Well I arrived after my flight from Seattle and after waiting a little while was greeted by my friend Jay from the ship. We went back to his place and I got my first taste of New York food as we ordered a large pizza, and it was good. The next day we went on our tourist sight seeing tour around the City. We first headed out to go and see the Statue of Liberty which Jay had actually never been to before. It was cool to look around and see it up close and find out more about how it was made. After that we continued on the ferry and went to Elis island, which is were they used to process all immigrants before they came into the US. And that was also cool to see and find out about that whole process, even though I am not from the US its was cool to found out some of the history of the country. Also while we were there it was St Patricks day and they had a group of Irish dancers that did a show there so that was cool to see as well. After that we went to see the museum of natural history, which was really cool but unfortunately we only had a short period of time there before it was closing time so we were only about to see a small amount of the large 4 level museum. We headed back to Jay's place and had dinner and then decided to stay in after originally planning to go back out, but we were both really tired after a lot of walking all day. Then on Thursday we planned on getting up and going early but ended up sleeping in late, which for those of you that know me and/or Jay wouldn't find that hard to believe. Then after our late start Jay had to go to School for a few hours so I headed back into town by myself and went back to finish off the Museum. Its a great museum and I highly recommend seeing it to anyone that goes to New York, I did have to pay for entry this time because this time I was there while they were fully open and busy unlike the other time we went when they were close to closing. I managed to complete the whole museum before Jay came to meet up with me at 4pm, so then we headed off to see the Empire State Building. Another well known site that people say you need to see while in New York, although I would say if you are tight on time you can skip this one. The building is very nice and looks great on the inside, but it costs $15 just to take the lift up to the top and I wasn't going to pay that much just for an elevator ride. After that we headed for the ferry to Statin island where we met up with 2 friends of Jay's and we headed to this group that Jay found through his Church which helps Liberians learn to read and write. I thought it was amazing that Jay had found a group like this after all the time we had both spent in Liberia so when he mentioned it I jumped at the chance to go and help out. We were there for about 2 hours and were just helping out 2 people each with going through workbooks they had to learn to read and write. The 2 that I was working were an older man named Morris and he was from Grand Bassa county in Liberia, which I have actually been to and it was funny because he did not believe me that I had been there until I started talking about the area and the surrounding counties. The other person I was working with was a woman from Serra Leon named Alice and even though she wasn't from Liberia I could relate a little bit because I had made friends from Serra Leon while on the ship. It was a great experience and brought back some good memories hearing them speak in Liberian English. After that was finished we caught the train into the famous Times Square were we stood and looked at all the pretty lights for a bit and just hung out in some of the cool shops they have there like ESPN sportszone and the M&M shop.

The next day was an early start with me having to leave at 6am to go to the airport, but it was good to sit in the airport and reflect a bit on my time in the US and the fact that I was actually a bit sad to be leaving. It was quiet funny as I sat there and heard on the TV that it was officially the first day of spring and I looked outside and it started snowing, after all the good weather they had while I was there.

Vancouver

2009-03-27T10:37:00.000Z

Well I had a great time in Vancouver staying with my friends Tom and Cindy and also hanging out with some other friends Niki and Chris. It was good to just hang out for a few days with Tom and I went with him to work one day(he is a truck driver) and did deliveries around Vancouver which was a really good way to see the city and it was also good to hang out with Tom. Then on the Friday Tom and I meet up with Chris and we went snow shoeing which was actually a first for all of us. It was a great day out and heaps of fun exploring one of the local ski hills. After snow shoeing Niki came and picked up both me and Chris and then they took me to a Hockey game! It was loads of fun I love sports of all kind and it was my first hockey game I had been to. It was a game in the WHL (Western Hockey League) and it was between Vancouver and Everett. Not that it really affects me either way but Vancouver ended up losing 5-3. Then on Saturday Niki and Chris picked me up again we went out for breakfast with Niki's parents and then went off to play paintball. It wasn't the best day for it because it was raining and the paintball fields were all muddy, but it was still heaps of fun. We were there all afternoon and had a great time and there was surprisingly a lot of people there playing as well. After paintball we headed back to Tom and Cindy's place where we got together and had dinner which was nice to then just sit around and chat. Then on Sunday Niki picked me up and and took me to her church where I got to see her parents again (they are great fun ) and then after that we went out for lunch and went bowling. After that we picked up Chris and went to see a movie, we saw “Watchmen” which I would have to say I am disappointed with.

Anyway well that pretty much sums up my time in Vancouver after that I caught a bus to Seattle and then a flight to New

My Time in Revelstoke

2009-03-12T08:03:00.003Z

My time in Revelstoke was very good and relaxing which is just what I needed as I was coming down with a cold but with some good rest was able to get over it very fast. After Nathan returned we set about seeing some more of the local area. We went to the flats, which believe it or not is a large flat area that is occasionally covered with water due to a dam further along the river. It was beautiful out and we even managed to get really close to a young deer without it running away. Unfortunately we have no photos because it was so cold that Nathan's camera would not work and as usual I had forgotten mine. Due to the cold we couldn't go as far as originally planned so we headed back to the local Damn to have a little look see, but because of the large amount of snow on the side of the road you could not see very much from the lookout.

Anyway I left on Tuesday at 04.30am on yet another greyhound bus(and I thought I was done with them) and I am now back in Vancouver.

Hanging out with Nathans Mum

2009-03-09T02:34:00.003Z

Well I had a small change of plans from what originally had been planing to do here in Canada. You see unfortunately my friend Nathan found out that one of his friends back in his home town had died and he needed to go back for the funeral. So we left the island on Thursday and I was able to get in contact with some friends I have in Vancouver and we stayed the night there. My plan from there was to just stay on in Vancouver and just spend the rest of my time in Canada there, but my friends told me that if I was here I needed to come out to Revelstoke because if nothing else the drive here is just so Beautiful that I had to see it. So I left some of my stuff in Vancouver and we jumped back in Nathans beloved Land Cruiser and headed of on our drive. Now Revelstoke is about 7-8 hours from Vancouver, but we took the scenic route and it took us about 10 hours or so with a few small stops. I have to say that we had the most amazing weather for the drive just a clear day with blue skies the whole way, just driving through some of the most picturesque mountains you can find. Just so I could say I have been there Nathan took me on a little extra detour to the hottest place in British Columbia, I guess kind of the Canadian desert(which sounds kind of weird because I always picture Canada as really cold).

So we got here Friday night and Nathan's mum was here to greet us and had already prepared a meal for us. Then on Saturday we just went into the town for a bit and just walked around and went to a few shops and in the afternoon Nathan left for the funeral which is a further 4 hours away so he was going to spend the night and be ready for it the next day. So since then I have just been here in his house hanging out with Nathan's mum.

A Manly Time on the Island

2009-03-08T21:44:00.006Z

After spending a day and a bit in Seattle Josh and I packed up our stuff and headed out on a road trip. We went north and crossed the boarded into Canada and met up with another friend of ours from the ship Nathan. Then we took a ferry across to Vancouver Island, where we met up with a friend of Nathan's named Chris who we were going to stay with and he was going to act as tour guide for us.

The first evening we were there we just hung out and watched a movie because we had all done alot of driving that day. Then on Sunday which was the next day we went along to Chris' church for both the morning and in the evening and in the afternoon we drove down south a little way on the island to meet up with some more of Nathans friends.

Our Manly adventures really kicked off when we decided to go and do some caving. Now this is a sport normally reserved for more summer type weather so we could be pretty well assured that we were the only crazy people going out to these caves. We drove a few hours to a place called Gold River where we stopped on the side of the road because the road to where we were going had not yet been plowed so we had to walk the rest of the way. We were walking through several feet of snow and it was also pouring with rain so it took a bit longer to get to the caves than it otherwise would have. Once we got to the general area it was hard to find the caves because of all the snow so we spent quiet a while walking around until we finally found a good entrance that was safe enough to go into. We managed to find our way through the cave even though we weren't quiet as fully equiped as we could have been although we did have a 3 headlamps between the 4 of us. We went through some smaller areas and eventually came out at a nice waterfall and then climbed up a little bit higher and found a small cave where we got comfortable as you can see in the picture of Josh below. After that we climbed out and headed off to go see a small little town of 300 people called Tahsis and find some food.

After our time in Tahsis we decided to try and head up the local mountain near where Chris lives in Comox. We got there at about 11pm and then we had to take a snow mobile ride about another 15 mins further up the mountain, but because it was dark and the snow was deep we had too many problems trying to get up so we gave up at about midnight and decided to come back another time. The next day we were pretty tired so we just rested and drove around a little bit and didn't do anything too crazy.

The day after that after doing a few things around town we decided to head up the mountain while it was still day light. So we packed up our stuff and got some great manly food to our night like steak and more steak. We got up there and although it was still hard riding with 2 people at a time plus backpacks on a one person sled we managed to get all our things up to the cabin where we were going to stay. I was the last one up there so by the time I got there Nathan had already got a fire going and it was nice a warm in the cabin. By the time we had everyone and all the stuff up at the cabin it was dark so we couldn't do anything outside so we played some cards then I cooked us dinner of steak and fried eggs. Then the next morning we had steak with scrambled eggs for breakfast so we were having a good balanced diet. After breakfast we decided to go explore up the top of the mountain which was called Forbidden Plato and is an old abandoned ski resort. So we had good fun snow mobiling around and then we met up with another few guys up the top one of which had a snow mobile as well and was snow boarding and he got Nathan to ride his snow mobile down and then tow him back up and then me and Chris took turns on his machine, which was heaps of fun.

For our rest of the time on the island we didn't do anything too crazy or manly we just kind of drove around and did some sight seeing which was good. We did try to drive to a really cool place called the cable cookhouse which is a building made entirely out of cables from thick logging cables to even thicker sea cables, but it was closed.

Meeting Friends I have never met

2009-03-08T21:19:00.003Z

Well for those of you that don't know I am a little bit of a nerd at times and like to play some computer games. There was one computer game that I used to play a little bit too much, but from playing that game online I made a few friends and it was good because I was able to visit these friends. Two of the guys I know from the game own a pub in Everett in Washington, which is about an hour or so from where my friend Josh lives. So he was kind enough to drive me up to met these guys I was friends with but had never actually met. We had a bit of trouble but finally we found the elusive O'Finnigan's Pub, where it was good to finally put some faces to the names I knew. We had a good time just hanging out and chatting and playing a bit of pool and it was all in all a good evening.

Snowboarding in Seattle

2009-03-08T04:22:00.002Z

Well this happened just over a week ago now, but I have been traveling and just have time to try and catch up on my writing.

Well I arrived on time in Seattle where I was greeted by my friend from Mercy Ships Josh. It was good to see him again, he took me back to his place which is a nice little house right on the water front with a great view that he rents for cheap off someone. I had arrived late so pretty well as soon as we got back and settled in we went to bed.

We awoke the next day with the goal of teaching me how to snowboard. Well I was looking forward to it I had only ever been skiing once and only seen snow about 5 times in my life so I was up for the challenge. Lucky for me Josh had decided he needed a new snowboard so this meant he now had a spare which I could use and he had boots that fit me as well. So we headed out and stopped to pick up Josh's friend Sarah and she had some snow gear for me to borrow which was good and then we all headed up the local mountain. Once we got there Josh gave me a quick lesson on how to strap into the board then we went up the ski lift and at the top he gave me a few more instructions on how to lean on the board and then off we went. I spent pretty much the whole first half of the course we were doing falling my way down the hill, but after a few more words of wisdom from Josh I found myself on my feet actually snow boarding most of the rest of the way down without falling too much. After that Josh took me to try and teach me to turn and be able to go down backwards which u need to do in snowboarding, but that didn't go so well I could turn one way but not the other so for the rest of the day I just went down the different slopes facing the one way but it was heaps of fun.

After all was said and done I thought my first attempt at snow boarding went ok and after now having tried both snowboarding and skiing once each I would have to say that I liked skiing a little bit more because I picked it up a bit easier. Although that been said ski boots are incredibly uncomfortable and snowboard boots are the oposite and are really comfortable.

2009-03-02T06:04:00.003Z

Here is a couple of videos of the recent screening day that was held by the ship in Benin. So if you want to get a taste of what it is like to screen thousands of patients in one day to fill surgery spots for the next 10 months. Enjoy.

Screening Day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prJxp346a6U

February update
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmcKmdHenq0

My time in Iowa

2009-03-02T00:50:00.000Z

Well my time has come to an end here in Iowa. Sorry that I haven't really written anything but I guess I just haven't done anything all that blog worthy. Not that I haven't had a great time here I have enjoyed every day, but for the most I have just been hanging out with my friend Vandi not doing too much special just having fun.

One thing I am really grateful for is the way Vandi's family really just welcomed me in for the few days I was here. They took me along the second day to a Birthday party for her uncle out at a restaurant and I got to meet both her grandparents while here and even hang out and play some soccer with her brothers and sister.

One special thing we did get to do is because Vandi is a student in culinary school at the moment is her Chef was holding a special wine tasting evening and 3 course dinner and he let Vandi and I come along for free. The wine tasting was first and all the wines came from a local Vineyard that was still fairly new. There were a few wines that I liked but I am not a big wine drinker. They let us try 9 different wines before dinner then another 2 desert wines after dinner. The dinner was a seafood and pancakes theme because it was international pancake day. Each course had 3 options to choose from and for the starter I had a seafood pancake, which was a crepe filled with 3 different sorts of fish and shellfish. For the main course I had a nice piece of salmon on a bed of open lasagna with asparagus and green beans. Then for desert there was a choice of 3 different filled crepes and I chose the one with raspberry and lemon and whipped cream. All in all it was a great evening and excellent food and I got to meet some of Vandi's class mates as well as her Chef.

Now I am just sitting here in the Des Moines airport waiting to be able to board my plane. The weather today is not that good its very over cast and has been raining a lot, but is much better than the predicted ice rain and possible snow, which if it had come I possible would not have been able to fly out. I am heading to Seattle next so when I post this I will be there.

Traveling part Two

2009-02-23T20:58:00.003Z

Well I had an amazing time in Colorado with Ben and Rose, but unfortunately all good things must come to an end as they say. I left Montrose, Colorado on Friday at 10.30am and embarked on my second(and hopefully last for a little while) long bus ride in the US. This time though was a fair bit different from the last. To start off with it was only 26 hours long not 30 like the last and the bus was alot more crowded than the first ride. Coming from Texas to Colorado the bus was never more than 50-75% full and I always had 2 seats to myself. Whereas the first bus of my second trip was about 99% full and the second one was over booked by about 6 people, so thank God I was one of the last people to get on. To say the lest it was a far bit harder to get comfortable and get to sleep so I was only able to 1 to 2 hours sleep in total. So apart from the lack of sleep the bus ride went well and I got to Iowa where I got off at a truck stop and was picked up by a small local bus for my last little bit of the trip and I was the only passenger on board(there are some pictures of the bus inside below). It was about a 40min ride to my final destination so I just sat up the front and chatted with the driver. We arrived in Fort Dodge my final destination on time and my Friend Vandi was there to meet me at the bus station which is a good thing because the bus station was closed so I would have been waiting outside in the cold had she not been there.

From Snow to Sand

2009-02-20T05:43:00.002Z

Well today my friend Ben and I decided we would go for a change of scenery, so we took a road trip to Utah. We got up early at 4.30am and had some breakfast before heading out on a 3 hour drive West to the next state. Lucky for me Ben drove the whole way which meant that I could catch up on some sleep. We arrived in a small kind of touristy town of Moab and then a short drive from there we reached our destination of Arches National Park. We got a week pass(because there is no such thing as a day pass apparently) and proceeded to drive through the whole park just taking in the sites. Then at the far end of the park we parked the car and went on a 7 mile (11.5km) little hike around some of the more spectacular rocks and arches. We took our time and went off on most of the little side trails off the main track to see extra arches and things. After the hike which took us a few hours we sat on the back of Ben's car and had a delicious packed lunch that his awsome wife Rose had made for us, while starring out at the awsomeness of Gods creation and the great day we had to view it on. After lunch we took a nice slow drive back through the park before heading into Moab, where we aimed to grab and ice cream before heading back. This proceeded to be more difficult than we first thought as most small places in town were closed because the tourist season has not yet really started there. So we went from place to place asking where we could find some ice cream and after finally giving up and deciding to have a smoothy we were pointed in the right direction to the local diner where they had a nice selection of ice cream for us to choose from. After our ice cream we headed on home and got back around 6pm so it was about a 13hour day in all so we were quiet tired.

To finish off the evening me and Ben cooked dinner for Rose who had been working all day so couldn't come play with us and then had a nice game of Apples to Apples before bed.

Yurt Pics

2009-02-19T06:18:00.007Z

As promised I have some yurt pics although the quality is not the best as i took them with my webcam on my laptop.

Me and Kitty Poo
The Yurt

The outhouse

Inside the yurt

Canyon Day

2009-02-19T05:35:00.002Z

Today after been picked up from the Yurt by my friend Ben. We went to a place called Box canyon falls which is apparently the place where the world ice climbing festeval gets held every year. I was cool to go and just watch a few people doing some ice climbing which is similar to rock climbing only with ice and u use 2 small pick axes to climb with. We met a guy named Victor from Chili there who was just visiting to do some ice climbing and he explained it a bit more to us. After watching for a bit we went and did a little walk they had there into the little canyon down by the stream which was cool.

After stopping back at the house for lunch we then headed out about an hour away to a place called Black Canyon. Now this is an impressive place and if you ever get the chance I highly recomend going there. We stopped at a few points around it to take in the view before heading to the visitors centre and taking a short trail around one area of the canyon. We were lucky cause even though there was several feet of snow it was fairly compact so we could walk on it ok without the recomended snow shoes that we did not have. There was just one spot of about 10 meters where there wasn't really any trail so we had to wade about knee to waist deep through the snow so that was lots of fun. After walking the trail we watched a little video about the history of the canyon and the guy that got it listed as a national park, so that was cool. The canyon is not as deep as the Grand Canyon but is much steeper and narrower so is just as cool to look at.

My night in the Yurt

2009-02-19T00:26:00.000Z

Well tonight I am staying at my friends Yurt. I wanted to try sleeping here for a night because its one of those things that how many times are you going to get to spend the night in a Yurt. So my friend dropped my off here and is going to pick me up again in the morning. So its just me here in this large family size tent, well my and a 20 pound black cat named kitty poo (no joke). So the first thing I had to work on was trying to get some heat going so I currently have a propane heater going as well as a wood fire while snuggling with kitty poo. This is something I was really looking forward to doing as I had been interested in Yurts (also known as Gers) because I have a friend living in Mongolia. Although this yurt is slightly different to the Mongolian ones, the outside is made of nylon where as the Mongolian ones are made of felt and this one is a permanent structure and the Mongolian ones are made to be packed up and moved from place to place. Other things are similar though I think, a wood fire to keep warm, no running water or electricity. Well I have survived so far I will wait and see how I go during the night because I can't leave the heater running all night, but I should be ok I will write more in the morning.

Well morning has coming and I am still here. I didn't get too cold last night, although it did take me over an hour to get out of the warmth of my sleeping bag this morning. The sky last night was just amazing I don't know if I have ever seen quiet that many stars in the sky at once. I slept on the little second level that has been built into the yurt and could see the stars through the sky light in the top of the yurt while lying in bed. When I woke this morning I found kitty poo waiting at the bottom of the ladder meowing for some company or maybe he just wanted me to come and put the heater on. Unfortunately I was silly enough to forget to bring my camera with me for this night in the yurt so I have no photos to show from my experience although I will try and get back here to take some just so I have some proof of my time in the yurt.

To conclude I think I would be able to live in a yurt, but it would take some time for me to get used to the cold. But during summer I think it would be great.

Traveling stage one

2009-02-19T00:25:00.000Z

Well I had a great start to my visiting of friends in the US. My first stop was in Dallas just 2 hours up the road from where I have been spending the last month. Where I met up with a lovely nurse named Lisa who I had met on the Africa Mercy last year. She opened up her house and we had a good time chatting and hanging out for the afternoon and even went and got some nice Thai food. Unfortunately my stay there was only short lived as I just spent the night before catching a bus early in the morning onwards to my next destination in Montrose, Colorado.

Apart from been long the bus ride went well, although it did seem a little bit indirect but I hear thats how greyhound works. I went from Dallas up to Oklahoma City, to Ambrose Texas, to Albuquerque New Mexico, and then finally up to Montrose Colorado, 30 hours in total. Fortunately I was able to got some sleep on the bus so I wasn't totally wrecked when I got to Montrose although I did get a nice little surprise when I got there I found out that my checked bag had not made it all the way with me. So I will be going back and checking if it is there tomorrow as the guy said it would probably take 2 days to sort out the problem. So please pray it will turn up.

I was met at the “bus station”(small one room building with one guy inside) by my friend Ben and his wife Rose who I had not met before, I had also met Ben during my time on the ship. They then took me back to where they are house sitting at the moment in a town called Ridgway. The house is this amazing large house on a little bit of a hill with one of the most amazing views I have ever seen just looking out at the rocky mountains. They are house sitting there for the next few weeks or so, but they normally live in a Yurt (Mongolian nomad tent) which I hope to spend the night in at some stage while I am here.

Gateway is over

2009-02-19T00:16:00.001Z

Well this month here in Texas has just flown by I can't believe its over already and yet at the same time its like I have been here for ages and made some really good friends.

Over the last month I have been doing the Mercy Ships course called Gateway. Now to be totally honest I didn't really want to have to come all the way to the US and do this course, I figured it was just a waste of time stopping me from getting back to the ship earlier. To say that my point of view on this has now changed would be an understatement, I now am not only happy that I came and did the course I will highly recommend it to anyone thinking about working with Mercy Ships.

The course was split up into 3 main parts the 3^rd been optional which I did not do. The first part was 3 weeks long and I guess you could call it the classroom phase. In these 3 weeks we had a variety of speakers from all over with heaps of different experiences, both people that work with Mercy Ships and others. We had classes on such things as Worldviews, Listening to God, Working with the poor, living in community and different personality types, and many more. My eyes were defiantly opened over this time and I got something out of everyone of the classes, although I was quiet exhausted by the end of it (yes sitting down for 8-9 hours a day can be exhausting). In this 3 weeks there was also time made for us doing the gateway to meet all the leaders of the organisation and sit down and ask any questions we wanted. This was very good as now I have a better understanding of the people leading the organisation and I can better trust any decisions they make.

The second phase would be the BST or Basic Safety Training. This went for 1 week and talk about a packed week. We started off with learning basic firefighting and fire safety with an emphasis on shipboard fires. The first day was all theory and then the next day we went and put what we had learnt into practice. We went down to one of the open fields on the property and they had a large shipping container set up for us to practice with. We all donned full firefighting gear including a SCBA (Self Contained Breathing Apparatus) pack and proceeded to learn how to put out all different sorts of fires including wood, diesel, gas, electrical as well as learning how to rescue a victim from inside the container. After the practical we then had to go back to the classroom and complete an exam on everything we had learnt. The next phase of the BST was CPR and first aid, which was a very full day as we did it all in 1 day and its normally a 2 day course. I found it quiet easy as I was already qualified in CPR and first aid from different organisations one of which was the course we were doing, so even though I may have dosed off once or twice I still managed to pass the test with 100%. The next day we looked at living on a ship and safety and responsibility of living on board. The day after we did a whole day of theory on what to do in emergency situations on a ship and all about the emergence equipment available and how to use it. Then for our last day we went to the local Junior College and used the pool there to put into practice what we had learnt about. We learnt how to use Survival/Immersion suits as well as life jackets and getting in and out of a life raft while in the water and how to flip a life raft back over if its overturned. All in all a very full week where I learnt a lot of neet skills and got to practice them.

The 3^rd phase of gateway is the field service in the Dominican Republic. This part is optional and I am not doing it as I am visiting some friends and then going to the Ship.

I am currently sitting in a bus stop somewhere in Texas after already traveling all day I have an overnight section still to go and then I will hopefully make it to my friends place in Montrose Colorado.

A little Taste of Texas

2009-02-04T05:34:00.003Z

Well Time has been flying by, in fact most days I don't even know what day of the week it is (should I be worried?). I have however managed during our full schedule here at Gateway to get out and try and experience a little bit of this State/Country I am in. Last week a group of us decided to get a feel for small town Texas by going up the road to the nearest small town named Van and stopping in at their little road side Diner call the "Dinner Bell". It is a nice little place that apparently totally transforms over holiday periods into some sort of themed wonderland. We went there for breakfast before class so we had to go at 6.30am so we would be back in time, but it was worth it. I had a great breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausage(that's the American style where they serve it in a patty) and toast.

Then on Saturday I went along to what is apparently the largest flee market in the US called "First Monday". From what I heard about it I don't think i really scratched the surface with my few hours spent there. I made it to the car show section as well as the animal and pets section and not too much more.

On Sunday night we then proceeded to have a Superbowl party and even though I am not a big American Football fan, I am a sports fan so I could not resist. I got pretty into the game in the first half and enjoyed some of the adds that were on in between, but in the second half I was slightly more engrossed by the thrill of tossing pigs (a small travel game consisting of 2 little plastic pigs and a score sheet).

This week although most of us a quite tired and busy we did manage to go out for breakfast and experience another great little American restaurant. On Tuesday we went to the Cracker Barrel for breakfast. A nice little place just off the highway where one half is a store and the other half is a nice country restaurant with all sorts of old guns and stuff hanging on the walls. The food was very good especially their amazing apple butter they had, it tasted so good it couldn't be good for you.

God likes Country Music??

2009-01-25T06:13:00.003Z

Today as a group we went on a silent retreat to Tyler State Park. Where we were given the instructions to just go and find a place or walk around or do whatever but we had to do it without speaking at all and just try and listen and see what God can tell us when we take the time to stop and listen. Now this is something that I am still very much a beginner at so I wasn't sure what I was doing, but I was willing to give it a shot. So I just was walking for a bit around a beautiful lake that they have there and just stopping every now and there somewhere where I was alone and I would just pray a bit and read the bible and well to be honest I wasn't really hearing much from God. The day before in Class when we had been talking about hearing from God a girl shared of an experience she once had where someone had suggested she try asking God an icebreaker question and it had worked for her so I thought why not lets give it a go. So I stood there and then just said out loud "so God what sort of music do you like?" and immediately all I could think of in my head was country music, so I am not saying that is all God likes or even it that is write I am just saying that is pretty cool that God could talk to me about such an insignificant subject like that imagine what else he will talk to me about.

Life as a Gateway student

2009-01-25T05:35:00.002Z

Well here I am at Gateway and week one has come and gone already. The week started with a few highs and lows as I was overjoyed to meet up with friends I had known from my time on the Ship(8 people in total), but at the same time I had to say goodbye to most of the IMS(Introduction to Mercy Ships) class, who after spending 2 days with I had become quiet fond of and they had really included me in their group even though I wasn't doing their course.

So in my Gateway class there are 30 of us in total with a varying range of ages and backgrounds so it makes for a good mix.

I just have to say that so far this course has really been nothing like I expected although to tell the truth I don't even know what I expected. When people asked me what the course was about back home before I left I just said something along the lines of "It's to tell me more about the organisation and to teach me Marine basic safety and some theology too" or something like that. Well it has been so much more so far and its just been the first week. We spend pretty much 8am to 4pm in a classroom just learning some really amazing stuff. I am not really a note taker but I have just been filling up the pages hoping it will help me remember.

We have been learning stuff like Kingdom principles and Spiritual Warfare as well as How to hear God. Just the kind of subjects that I had never really learnt too much about so had kinda avoided I guess and thought it wasn't really for me and now I am learning how much it is for me. Our speaker for most of the week was Dean Sherman and he did such an amazing job at getting his message across and answering any questions we had no matter how small or stupid sounding.

All I can say is after this first week I hope and pray that the rest of the course will go as well and that I might retain some of this great information.

Just to Top it off

2009-01-16T21:13:00.002Z

Just to Top it off when I got to the US and went through immigration and customs they didn't even mention or ask to see any information on an outgoing flight. Although I am thinking that it may be because they can access that information when they scan my passport. Oh well whats done is done now and I can't take it back. Apart from that my travels went rather well, I got about 4 hours of sleep on the plane so I wasn't too tired when i arrived in LA and the my other two flights went well except for a 45min delay on my last flight to change a part in the plane. I eventually arrived at Mercy Ships IOC (International Operations Center) after travelling 32hours in a 12 hours time slot thanks to the international dateline, I left New Plymouth at 10am and arrived here at 10pm on the same day 32hours later.

A Wonderful day of exciting and costly stuff ups

2009-01-16T21:12:00.001Z

Well today was already going to be an exciting day as I prepared to travel back in time a day and go to the US. I mean I was really excited about the fact that I got to have lunch twice today, but as it turned out the day was already full of excitement even before leaving Auckland.

I arrived in Auckland from New Plymouth after a great 4 days with my uncle, aunt and cousin. My plane was on time and everything was going well, I found my way over to the international terminal and found the left luggage place and then headed off into town. Now my plane was to catch a bus into the city and go and visit the Walls (a family I know from my last time serving with Mercy Ships) at the Mercy Ships NZ office. Now I had found the right bus and got off at the right stop then walked to what I thought was the right street, but then after walking from one end to the other and then back of this rather long street I saw a post office building then it finally dawned on me that I had the wrong address, you see I had mistakenly written down the Mercy Ships NZ postal address from the website thinking it was the street address. Oh well not too much was lost so I went and had lunch and a bit more of a look around the city before hoping on a bus back to the airport.

Once back at the airport I walked from the domestic terminal to a nearby hanger where my cousin works for a company flying smaller planes. I found the place ok and then went in and picked up my second big bag that I had left with my cousin for 4 days and walked over to the international terminal. Once there I picked up my other bag from left luggage and proceeded to check in.

Now this is where the fun really started, after making my way to the front on the que and then to the desk everything seemed to be going well, until as the lady was looking through all my paper work tickets, visa wavers etc she said "oh you don't have a ticket for departing the US". I said that I didn't think that would be a problem because I had the visa waver for 90 days and I was going to book a ticket over there. She then said she wasn't sure and went out back to check with her supervisor. After about 10mins she came back and said that her supervisor wasn't sure either so they were calling the US to find out, so then another 10mins later she came back and said sorry but you will need to purchase a departing ticket or they won't let you in. She then said she thought I could purchase a fully refundable ticket from air NZ for a return flight to Auckland and then just cancel it once I was over there and had a new ticket, but when I went to the air NZ help desk the guy told me that there actually were no fully refundable tickets anymore and they all came with a minimum US$300 cancellation fee. So he suggested that I go to flight centre and book a ticket from New York to London as it would be cheaper, so that is what I did I got a ticket from New York to London and it cost me NZ$1850 and has a cancellation fee of US$250. So after doing that it took all of 5 seconds to check me in and get me a nice isle seat near the front of the plane.

So after checking in I went up and went through customs then found myself and nice comfortable seat and pulled out my laptop, just when I had there was an overhead page "Could passenger Timothy Benson, thats passenger Timothy Benson please report to the customs area. I was slightly confused as to why they needed to see me and then as I was walking back down there it hit me. I checked my pocket in me jacket and realised tat I had dropped my passport along with my boarding pass in my rush to get through customs. So as you can imagine my walk quickened up a fair bit, but to my delight when I got there after answering a few questions they produced and handed me my passport and boarding pass.

And that brings us up to this point as I sit here in the Airport waiting for my plane to board, typing this up to post later.

Discovering my Grandmother's roots

2009-01-13T04:16:00.009Z

Well I am now staying with my Uncle and Aunt in New Plymouth, NZ in their lovely house by the beach. Today we decided to go and see if we could find the farm where my Grandmother (who i never knew) grew up. So we set out from the house with my cousin as our driver and my Aunt as tour guide to see what we could see. We drove through the beautiful country side until we found an old Lighthouse for us to go and look at. It was originally moved from Wellington where it was causing ships to crash and then put up in 1881 in Cape Egmont and has remained in operation since. One reason this lighthouse was particularly interesting to me was because one of my ancestors had at some stage been the lighthouse keeper there. From there we drove on and found the road on which the farm my Grandmother grew up on was, but upon driving down the road we realised that the actual house was no longer there and the whole area had changed unfortunately so my Aunt didn't recognise it as she had not been there for about 25 years. That was a bit of a let down but ok, because I at lest got to see the area in which she grew up. We then traveled a bit further along to the next little town where we visited my mum's cousin Elva who was able to answer a few of our questions about what has happened down the road we were on and what happened to the farm. We stayed for a bit of a chat and a drink before heading off again to the next little coastal town of Openaki. At Openaki we stopped at a nice little cafe for lunch and ended up bumping into Elva again who had come to town for a lunch meeting. From there we headed up to a nice look out over the bay at Openaki where they have a nice little surf beach in the cove. We then started to head back and popped in at the big oil refinery they have out that way and went to the information visitors centre they have set up there and gave ourselves a bit of a tour it is a pretty neat set up with the oil rig about 33km off shore and pipes bringing the oil back straight to the refinery on the land. We then continued home and took a bit of a detour down a beautiful coastal road right along side the water and we came across the local Boat club where someone had built a full size replica of the lighthouse we were at earlier and had put the original light from the other in there on display. From there we headed off and took another detour and this one went past a house owned by one of my mother's other cousins and it is where Tom Cruise had stayed for 6 months while filming "The Last Samurai". We went on further to our real detour destination where we climbed up Maori Pa ( A former Maori fortified village). They built these on little hills formed by the volcanoes in the area and they were fortified by several stone walls and wooden fences as well as t renches around the edge of it. this site is now protected as there are very few of these remaining and it was quiet interesting to see as we climbed up there were a lot of large holes in the ground that were dug out into small caves and these were used for storing supplies and then at the very top there was some remains of where they would have had a small fire place inside their shelters. From there we drove back home after what was all in all a really good day site seeing and learning about my family on my Mothers side.

A day in Auckland with Aunty J

2009-01-11T10:32:00.004Z

After spending the night with my cousin Josh at his place, a good friend of the my family Juliette (known to me as Aunty J) came and picked me up to spend the day with her. She took me up one tree hill (a good lookout in Auckland and a famous spot that now has no trees on it though) and then gave me a visual tour of Auckland with its history to go with it. It was good to look out and see the city from up there its like a mid point between its two harbors and also good to see the stereotype that NZ is covered in sheep is true as there were even some sheep right there in the middle of the city at the bottom of one tree hill. After that we went back to her place for a nice bit of lunch followed by a trip to Hunua Falls, which were flowing quiet nicely as it had just been raining that morning. After that went for a nice winding drive through the country side around the outside of Auckland. Then back to her place for a nice cup of tea, after which she took me back to the airport so I could fly to New Plymouth.

Arrival in Auckland

2009-01-11T10:03:00.002Z

Well I left Brisbane on Time and set off on my adventure. The flight was a good one that went really fast. This is the first time I have flown with Air New Zealand in a long time (if ever) and they have a new entertainment interface for the screen in everyones seats and I was a bit shocked to find that I had the choice of about 85 movies for just a 3 hour flight when i am more used to having a choice of 6 at best for a 8 hour flight with other airlines. Anyway I arrived safe and my cousin Josh picked me up from the airport and then took me to see the planes he flies and took me inside the one that was on standby and he was on call for and i got to sit in the cockpit while he showed me how everything works with it, so that was a really cool experience.

The Final Countdown

2009-01-05T16:07:00.003Z

Well the time has almost come. I am in the last days before my departure of my next great adventure in life, I have a mere 4 days left in Brisbane with my family and friends before I am heading off. My First stop on this journey will be in New Zealand where i will visit some of my relatives, some of which I have not seen for a very long time. I will be spending 5 days total in New Zealand and will visit both Auckland and New Plymouth. This is something I am really looking forward to, but am also very nervous about as I haven't seen them in so long its like going to see strangers yet family at the same time.

After my time in NZ i will hop on another plane and head for the place where everything is bigger and better(or so I have heard), the big T, Texas. Now this will be my first time in the USA and I am really looking forward to it. While in Texas I will be doing a training course with the organisation Mercy Ships called their Gateway course, this course is like a candidates/orientation course for people who want to volunteer long term with the organisation. The course will go for about a month and I hope and pray that i learn alot from it.

After the Gateway course I plan on making the most of my first time around that side of the world and visiting a few friends i have over there in North America.

After that I will be heading back to what will become my home for at lest the next 2 years hopefully and maybe even more if thats God's plan, the M/V Africa Mercy. This is the only ship that Mercy Ships is currently operating and stays along the West coast of Africa offering specialised Surgical and Medical care, It will be in Benin when i join it. I have previously spent and year living on board this ship as a volunteer crew member, but this time will be a bit different. first off there is the fact that I am going for a longer period of time and also the last time i was on the ship I was self funded and this time i will be relying on my faith in God that he will provide for me through other people donating so that i will be able to pay the crew fees and other expenses i will have.

Well that is a little preview of what is to come for me and I will try and keep you all updated as I go along from stage to stage.

support tim

2008-12-09T16:29:00.008Z

If you would like to support me there are a few different ways that you can do so. You can support me by keeping me in your prayers and also you can help support me financially. Another great way to support me is to keep in touch with me I really love to receive emails from people.

There are a few different ways that you can support me financially:

Tax deductible in Australia:
in order for your support to me to become tax deductible it must be processed through Mercy Ships Australia. There are a few ways that you can do that:

write and send them a cheque at:
Mercy Ships Australia
PO Box 1080
Caloundra, Qld 4551

or go and see them at 24 Bulcock Street, Caloundra, Queensland

call them on 617 5437 2992

email them at msaust@mercyships.org.au

or go to the http://www.mercyships.org.au/donate-online.php If you donate online you will also need to send an email to the office saying that you wish for your donation to be given to me as there is no way to choose this on the website.

Tax deductible for the US and other countries outside of Australia:

please go to www.mercyships.org for more information

Without tax deductible receipt:

direct deposit into my bank account

heritage building society
Acc Name. Timothy Richard Benson
Acc No. 8632901
BSB. 638-010

or donate directly into my crew bank account on the ship
http://www.mercyships.org/page/outreach/view/crewmates/Timothy

Thanks so much to everyone supporting me and please keep me in your prayers.