Goodbye Togo

I am constantly in awe of missionaries who are vague or elusive about their itinerary for security reasons. We have friends in Afghanistan and Pakistan whose lives, or their ministry, must be at threat daily. But such is the way of the world that Mercy Ships too must now be vague about our itinerary for the same reasons; lets just say that over the weekend the Africa Mercy departed from Togo. It was a sad departure as usual, and we have left behind many good friends and colleagues, and places where we have had both fun and incredible experiences. Yet it was a joyous departure too - as usual we have changed thousands of people's lives, and in recent weeks people would thank me in the streets for restoring their sister's eyesight, or for giving them glasses, or for pulling their rotten tooth. It is always encouraging to receive those messages and even shouts of "thank you" from workers in the port as we maneuvered away from our berth. I think this field service was harder because it was only 6 months long instead of 10, so I for one wasn't ready to leave the country yet. And so to sea...we have begun our 14 day sail to Durban in South Africa where we will go into a shipyard to have our generators replaced amongst other things. The weather forecast for the first week or so is good, but is likely to become less so as we enter South Africa's waters and round the southern cape. There probably won't be too much to blog about during the sail, but if there is you'll be the first to know. Bye for now. Olly