Two weeks later...

Making great progress. Managed a whole shop at big supermarket without crying or getting flustered! And have made contact with the local West African community too - we enjoyed chatting about plantains and cassava for a few moments (and of course they LOVE Libby!)...Today a big article on Mercy Ships appeared in the Sunday Times - you can read it online of you are willing to part with £1, go to www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/mercyships. We are mentioned by name, and there is even a photo of Noah (and Anna's right foot) jumping into the ship's pool with other ship kids! Made us proud once again to have been part of such an amazing org for so long, and sad of course that we are no longer on the front line. Still praying about what God has in store for us next - we are willing to GO! but need some UK-time, so need to hear from him about what we can get involved with in our local community...Olly

How the UK has changed

Here's what I've noticed about changes in the UK over the last 5 years:

G4S: the new name for Group 4 Security.

No more Woolworths.

No more Abbey National.

Milk in bags.

Food products "proudly British"

Chocolate products "fair trade"

Beer £3.50 a pint!

Bread £1.30 a loaf!

Trees have grown

Houses have shrunk

More coffee shops

Less slim people

Roads are longer

Traffic jams more common

etc

etc

This is an ill-founded work in progress. Olly

Living the "normal" life

After just over a week back in the UK, we only today ventured into a BIG supermarket for the first time, and were immediately overwhelmed. Quick retreat back to our lodgings. Back to square one. The kids are unable to adjust to the long British summer days - it's lights from 4am to 10pm - and are missing their friends on the ship terribly. And the weather stinks - cold, wet and rainy - typical British summer weather! Slow progress. This is harder than I thought it would be. Olly

Farewell Mercy Ships

From the day one joins Mercy Ships, one thing hangs heavy over you: the day you will have to leave. And that day came on Thursday 30th June, when after nearly 8 years with Mercy Ships we became civilians once again and walked down the gangway for the last time. Thanks Murray for the great photo of us all with Tim (left) and Murray (right) in uniform as we are about the get on the ferry to get to the airport.

We had an incredibly good journey home, making all the connections and arriving at Heathrow on time. Praise God that nothing went wrong. And now back to life; back to reality...Olly

Handover - 2.5 days to go!

Today was a huge day for me: I handed over my keys, my pager and my phone to Transport's new manager, Jeremy (from Deck. You know him?). We only found out on Friday that his transfer had been approved, so it's been a crazy time for him as he tries to learn the whole job in 2 days, but he's done very well. I reckon I must weigh about 90 tons lighter now, with the weight of the workshop and all 28 vehicles and 110 drivers removed from my shoulders. Good luck Jeremy.

Meanwhile, packing and sorting is going well. Sally is delighted that it looks like we probably won't need all of our ten-bag-allowance on the flights home. Most of our clothes are packed, and all the kids toys, but even so our cabin looks like the scene from a war movie, with every surface covered in fallen piles of stuff needing sorting before passing to neighbours and friends.

Meanwhile meanwhile, we welcome back to the ship our very good friends the Zupke family, who have lead Summer Program for the ship kids in 2004 in Europe, 2005 in South Africa, 2007 in Liberia, 2009 in Benin and now 2011 in Sierra Leone. It's great to see them again, and it's only too bad that we won't get to spend much time together before we leave on Thursday. God's timing as usual is perfect: the Zupkes and their team of helpers are keeping our kids amused whilst Sally and I pack and throw out all the precious things they've collected over the last 7 years...

Huh. Bye for now, Olly

My last, and 100th, dive

This afternoon I completed my 100th, and last (I hope) dive under the Africa Mercy. Visibility was amazingly good - the best I have seen yet in Freetown - but floating garbage was the worst I have ever seen - we had to enter and exit the water through a 2 foot thick floating island of trash that contained a dead rat and a dead cat amongst other things:

I leave the Dive Team in Dan's capable and energetic hands. Olly

The saddest time of year again

Yes, it's that time again. School finished last week for the summer, and since then we've waved goodbye to many good friends, as they leave the ship forever, or travel on vacation. Today all our kids teachers left after their 2 year commitment: goodbye Miss Danae, goodbye Miss Orman, and goodbye Miss Estelle.

And this time in two weeks, we will have left too. 2 hours after takeoff from Freetown we'll probably be coming into Banjul en route for Brussels...Olly

Rebuilding Land Rovers...again...for the last time!

With a little over 2 weeks to go before we leave the Africa Mercy, I have begun my last big renovation project - that of replacing the bulkhead and door supports on #482 (a year 2000 model). Here is the original bulkhead which was rusted through in many places and had such big holes in the front footwells that you could see the front wheels going round:

Lamin, my new mechanic, found a good bulkhead on a scrapped police Land Rover, which is already installed in the photos below. To do so the wings had to be removed, the doors, windscreen, steering wheel, dashboard, seats, wiring, roof lining, rear windows...a huge amount of work, done by a gang of young ex-combatants in a local workshop which is little more than a patch of mud surrounded by wrecked cars...all for about $600.

I am confident that before I leave, #482 will be back on the road again as an ambulance ready to face the next 5 years of hard labour in West Africa. Olly

Badly burnt boy...

...died 2 weeks ago in hospital. Olly

Insane photo

This is one of the most insane photos I have ever seen. How many bullets did it take to pulverize this van?

Click on photo to enlarge. Taken in Vai Town, Mon, Lib: 2003. Olly

Life goes on...

The water company's engineers worked tirelessly to fix the broken main, and water is flowing once again into Freetown. Hallelujah. Water is running in the streets again - literally - and the local population can cook and wash again at no cost. on the Africa Mercy the laundry is open again and hot water is back on.

The President and Vice President of Sierra Leone are here right now, visiting the ship. Sally was on stand-by to make them a coffee in our Starbucks Cafe, but they went on a tour instead.

The International Board of Mercy Ships is also here, having jetted-in from all over the world for a Board Meeting this weekend.

And an assessment panel from the Association of Christian Schools International is here, finalising the accreditation of the ship's Academy after 3 or 4 years of work.

Meanwhile, life goes on. Just up the road, not even half a mile away, I saw a man carrying his dead baby out of a maternity hospital, wrapped up in a prayer mat. Olly

Another water shortage

Imagine a city of 1.2 million people without water. Well, that's Freetown right now. The city water supply has been irregular since the war, but at least there was some water; the population got used to waking early and queuing for hours to fill their buckets and "gallons" from public taps and leaking fresh-water pipes.

Above, children carrying "gallons".

Yesterday the main water supply into Freetown was damaged leaving the whole city dry. 1.2 million people have no water for washing, cooking or drinking. The wealthier ones are able to buy water from trucks for 2000 Leones a gallon, but as the poorer people live on only 4000 Leones a day, they can either afford water or food. Please pray for them. Meanwhile on the Africa Mercy we have limited reserves so are back on rationing: cold showers, laundry closed, disposable crockery and silverware etc. Please pray that the water company gets the pipe repaired and water can flow again! Olly

Temporary buildings

This, below, is a pre-fab building, made in Iowa and shipped to the Africa Mercy in Sierra Leone and assembled on the dock. It is very well insulated so lovely and cool when the a/c is on, and is used by the Eye Team. Also shipped and assembled are two bathroom buildings used at the Hospitality Centre, with state-of-the-art plumbing and a/c. Temporary buildings? I think not. They all took two or three weeks to assemble, and are all scheduled to be disassembled at the end of the Sierra Leone field service, shipped to the next location and reassembled there...

Sadly, my ten year old tent was finished by a monster rainstorm last week. It's original canvas was recently stolen from the dock here in Freetown, and we used local tailors to sew a new one, but it didn't fit well and collapsed under the weight of rainwater. A tent is a non-negotiable item for our dockside workshop - it gives us shade from the brutal sun and keeps the torrential rains off us, so my ever resourceful local staff made this new beauty out of locally bought timbers and spare canvas.

Temporary tent? I think so! It took a day to build, and will only take a few hours to demolish when a new purpose-made tent is shipped over from the US or Holland. Olly

Saturday morning on the Africa Mercy

This morning Sally and I awoke at the crack of dawn to watch the latest Disney movie, Lemonade Mouth. Surely we should have been sleeping-in whilst the kids got up early... something's definitely weird here in our upside down world. Sally and I sat and watched the whole movie on our own whilst the kids went out to play. Great movie though. Olly

New dive gear

We have just been supplied with a crateload of new dive gear: new masks, flippers, and flashlights. These will all make diving in these awful waters so much safer.

Above, Dan and Timo wearing the new full-face masks with built in radios. Olly

She got it!

This afternoon the British High Commission in Freetown issued Libby with a UK settlement visa!

PTL indeed. We are thinking of leaving the Africa Mercy at the end of June so we can head to the UK to work on her UK re-adoption and application for citizenship. Thank you for your prayers. Olly

Farewell Omega Tower

Since we first arrived in Liberia in 2005, I have been fascinated by it's Omega Tower. Built by the USA in 1976 as part of the Omega Navigation System (made up of 7 towers around the world), it was a 417 meters tall radio tower (the same height as the World Trade Centre) and the tallest structure ever built in Africa. The station was turned over to the government of Liberia in 1997 after the introduction of GPS and the closure of the Omega Navigation System, and sat disused for the next 14 years. I climbed the first three levels in 2007; some crazy (and suicidal) ex-pats I know climbed the whole thing without any safety equipment. Anyway, on Tuesday the Tower was demolished by explosives. It will be missed: it was a landmark that could be seen for many miles, and countless thousands of people lived in it's shadow. Below, a man with some of the massive cables used to support the tower:



...and the tower from a distance:


Funny story: I once drove past the tower after a rain storm. The cloud level was lower than the top of the tower, so all I could see was the top and the cables coming from it...it looked all the world to me like an angel. Huh. Olly

Garbage diving

Click on photo to enlarge. Olly

Are you a designer?

Feeling creative? Can you design a new logo for the Africa Mercy's Dive Team? The logo could include images of ships, scuba divers, commercial divers, the blue-and-white "alpha" dive flag (not the red-and-white recreational scuba flag), full-face divers masks, Africa, etc. You are welcome to email a jpeg image to me - peeto@mercyships.org - or let me know where to look for it. There are now ten divers on the team, and between us we are having to dive DAILY! Thanks in advance for your help. Olly

The luckiest girl in the world

Two year old Josephine must surely be the luckiest girl in the world. Two weeks ago she choked a small pebble into her lung whilst playing. Her parents took her to one of Freetown's government run hospitals, where she sat for five days waiting for treatment, whilst the pebble began to cause infection and her lung collapsed. In frustration, her father went to the Ministry of Health to beg for help, where by chance he met Mercy Ships' Ann Gloag, who intervened. Ann arranged for Josephine to be taken to the Africa Mercy, where surgeons supported by top paediatric anaesthesiologists tried to remove the stone through her windpipe by key-hole surgery but were unsuccessful. Josephine's condition continued to deteriorate, and she twice needed resuscitation. Finally, Ann persuaded one of Kenya's top thoracic surgeons to fly to Freetown, and he removed the stone earlier this week. Josephine made a quick recovery, and today went home. Praise God. It lightens all our hearts to hear of such miracles right here on our ship. Olly