Giving Blood

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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.