Comedy toes

Anna had surgery on both in-growing toenails on Tuesday. She now sports the latest in comedy toes. Bless! Olly

New Wine

We have just returned from an AWESOME week at New Wine. And what a week! 15,000 people in the glorious Somerset countryside, in quite good weather too, worshipping and learning all about our great God!

Below, view across the campsite towards the massive Soul Survivor marquee which begins week commencing 11th August.

Below, inside The Arena, with 6,000 other people with worship led by none other than Martin Smith.

Below, in Libby's kids club (Rock Solid) with a genuine Series 3 Land Rover as part of the stage...

...and with a gunge tank! The site is the home to the Royal Bath & West Agricultural Show, so there are usually cows on display in these buildings; the army of New Wine kids leaders did an amazing job of converting them into very cool venues for the kids. 

Yeah, it was an awesome week and now we're suffering from that post-festival low that follows such an event. And yeah, we'll be booking tickets soon for 2015! Olly

"Ebola Out Of Control" says British Press

Although West Africa's Ebola crisis has been around for six months, it has only just hit the British press, probably because two of the Sierra Leone Commonwealth Games Team have just had (negative) tests, and also because a couple of Americans are now infected. 

Today's Mirror has a big article on it's front page - click here to read their online version. Olly

No sex for 45 days?

One of Liberia's many information posters about how Ebola is spread. On the left is Dr Gwenigale, Minster of Health and long time friend of Mercy Ships; a guy who has just about the hardest job in the world right now. Olly

New family photo

We've just come back from a lovely week away in Devon. Here's a cool photo taken on Berry Head, Brixham, of Noah (14), Anna (12) and Libby (9). Olly

R.I.P. Bobby Weah

This is my good mate Bobby Weah. He worked for me back in 2006 when we lived ashore in Monrovia. He always worked REALLY hard, and no job was too much trouble for him. If I remember rightly he lost his family during the war, and was homeless. He had an amazing American rapper accent, which I can only assume he got from watching American music videos.

I learned today that he has died of Ebola. Apparently he was one of the bleach teams at ELWA Hospital, but contracted the disease and died. RIP Bobby. Olly

Surfing Sierra Leone

There's a great article on the BBC's website about a surf resort that has opened on Bureh Town Beach - where we spent many happy hours on our last trip to Freetown - click on http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-25635626  to read full article. Olly

Great t-shirt

I stumbled upon this t-shirt on the world wide web, which made me laugh - it says "drive it like it's UNMIL" in reference to the high speed, aggressive and antisocial driving typical of (some) UNMIL staff...

T-shirt made by the African T-Shirt Co. Get them whilst they're hot. Olly