Merry Christmas from Spain!
Yes...I'm still here in Spain.
Work goes on here in windy Tenerife to get the hospital ready for our return to Senegal, and the day we plan to sail grows nearer and nearer. Only about a month away now! Excitement is building, and the hospital is slowly but surely getting back to working order. Day crew have been hired by the team in Senegal, and many alumni will be rejoining us. COVID training & new protocols for safe hospital operation are being prepared and put into place. Supplies are being stocked up, and a few snazzy equipment upgrades installed. The past few months have been challenging at times, but I'm grateful for a lot of things.
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| Our Emergency Medical Team after a weekly drill - featuring a snazzy new defibrillator. |
We have a lot of measures in place to prevent COVID on the ship, including A LOT of regular screening for all crew. The whole world is certainly getting fatigue from restrictions and precautions, but what it means for us is that when a potential exposure or illness is reported, we have a well-oiled plan of action. There's a group of us who can pull together and test all the at risk individuals, set people up in quarantine cabins, people to deliver meals, and a courier to run PCR tests to the hospital if needed; all at a moment's notice. Fortunately, although there have been some scares, we've managed to keep the crew healthy & safe. I'm very grateful for that.
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| Ward Manager Tam and I doing some spur-of-the-moment antigen tests. |
Speaking of everyone's favourite disease...some of you may know I was planning to make a trip home over Christmas, buuuuut Omicron had other plans. I'll be taking a break still, just a few days to myself here on Tenerife. It was not an easy decision to make, and I was stewing on it for a good many weeks as I watched cases climb and restrictions returning. Ultimately, I think my dad's wisdom and insight helped me swallow the rather difficult pill. "You're there because you have a heart to serve in Senegal. You can't do that if you get stuck here." He was right, and I knew that in my heart, but I needed to hear it from someone else. There wouldn't have been enough buffer time before the sail if I happened to test positive and my return was delayed. I could have spent the whole trip being ultra-cautious, hardly seeing anyone, and probably could have pulled it off, but then it would have felt rather pointless.
The day after that conversation, just before I started going ahead and cancelling my flights, I read this nugget of wisdom from Oswald Chambers:
"The great thing about faith in God is that it keeps a man undisturbed in the midst of disturbance."
I can't say that I was 'undisturbed,' but did I feel a certain peace about it. I'm not sure now when I'll be able to have time to get home again; it could be quite a while. But this, apparently, was not the right time. When it happens, it will be.
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My online course on tropical nursing is still ongoing, and a bit intense at times, but I am glad to have a friend here who is also enrolled. It's great to have a study buddy! It has also already come in handy as we are working through updating some of our clinical manuals. We've both had 'aha' moments, where something from the course clicked into place with our protocols & procedures in field service. After Christmas break, we will have a couple more weeks of training and then our exams.
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| My study buddy had the whole room decorated on my birthday! |
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| Such an incredible Christmas spread was prepared by our galley & bakery team! Though our food this year has been incredible, this is not a daily occurrence!! |
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| It took a wide-angle lens to fit us all in the picture! |
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I can never say thank you enough to everyone who continues to walk with me through this journey. Mercy Ships is recognizing everyone who volunteers or supports a volunteer (if you're still reading this, you qualify!) through this neat little project called the 'Mercy Manifest.' Click here to add your face to a photo-mosaic of the people who make Mercy Ships' mission happen. This will eventually get printed and displayed on both the Africa Mercy and the new Global Mercy.
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I hope that my next update will be about sailing! Until then, let me leave you with this verse, and a recap of the work Mercy Ships has done this past year. COVID may have stopped us from being able to carry out surgery on board our ships, but it did not stop our mission of strengthening health systems and improving surgical programs across Africa.
This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?”
Romans 8:15 MSG
Our Impact in 2021 from Mercy Ships on Vimeo.
À la prochaine,
-D
