Good Morning Africa!!!

It is 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning and I'm sitting on the top deck of the Africa Mercy watching life go by.  The port is starting to wake up but the ship is still sleepy.  During the week the pace onboard can be quite hectic, with 450 crew and a couple hundred day workers all together in a 500 foot space, not to mention the patients and their caregivers. 

However, Saturday morning seems to be the time when everyone can just take a deep breath, savor a cup of coffee and recharge.  That is certainly what I'm doing.

Living in an active shipping port is a new experience.  It's been a blast watching the ships come and go, checking the web to see where they came from and where they are off to next.  Here are a couple pictures to show you one of the larger ships that docked right next to us.  For perspective, the smallest boat in the picture shuttles lines to the dock and is about 20 feet long.

Some of the things that are normal in West Africa really require a change to our Western mindset.  Here are a couple pictures of a fishing boat in quite good African condition! 

                                    


Much of the fishing fleet and the vehicle fleet here would never be allowed on the waters or roads of the US.  Recently we've had a couple very large car-carriers dock near us.  They unload equipment and cars that have been sold from the West because they are no longer considered servicable in our countries.  They begin a new life in Africa and often keep going for years!!

Well, the tugs are headed out so I will freshen my coffee and watch another ship come in!  All our love . . .

Matt and Denise

How We're Doing . . .

We've been writing about the things that are happening personally in our lives.  For this update, we thought we would share some of the things that Mercy Ships does during a field service.  First, we will write a quick overview of services, then will give you some statistics about what has happened in Guinea to date. 

Obviously we have the Africa Mercy, our floating hospital platform.   This ship has six operating rooms, ward space for 78 patients, and the other associated hospital services.  In the hospital we have a focus on mentoring and training local health care professionals.

In addition to the ship, we have a space called "The Hope Center" which provides safe, secure housing for patients and a caregiver prior to surgery when other health issues or nutritional issues need to be addressed or after surgery when a patient will require followup but doesn't need a hospital bed.  This facility provides 60 beds (plus caregivers).

We run both eye and dental clinics.  These are facilities that provide basic care.  Patients are selected through screening processes.  We are done screening for eye care but still are doing some targeted populations, for example, on Monday we will be travelling about 30 minutes from the ship to a secure compound where handicapped individuals have a place to live.  We will be screening to provide reading glasses.  Dental continues on full-scale operations, seeing almost 100 patients per day.

Earlier in the time in Guinea, we had individuals up-country working with several people teaching agricultural techniques. 

Here is what has been done between August 22 and April 6th:

Eye surgeries    1,529
Maxillofacial surgeries  416
Cleft Palate/Lip repair - 137
Reconstructive Plastic Surgeries - 82
General Surgeries - 218
Orthopedic Surgeries - 116
Corrective Gynecological Surgeries - 63
Dental Patients Servied - 9,897
Dental Procedures (fillings, extractions, infections, etc) - 37,466

African Surgeons mentored - 11
African Nurses mentored - 10

It's been an amazing 7 1/2 months for the staff of the Africa Mercy!!!!

Blessings,

Matt and Denise

Adjusting to Life

Well, here we are again!!!  We've started settling into the routine that is life aboard the Africa Mercy.  Denise has gotten her work schedule in the dining room.  She works 5 days one week and then 2 the next; however, those days start at 5:30 am and end about 7:30 pm.  There are a couple breaks between meals but days still are long!!!  She has had fun interacting with our day workers.  Mercy Ships hires over 200 local citizens who work for the ship through the time we are here.  This is one of the ways that we work to infuse money into the local economy. 

Matt has been active in his job.  Twice a week he travels to the dental clinic to oversee security of the screening lines.  This morning there were approximately 700 people in line for less than 200 slots for dental care.  As this is the last clinic that is still actively screening, people with all sorts of issues come hoping for a  referral to a medical or eye provider; however, we have to turn them away as all the slots are full through the rest of our time here.  It's heart breaking to watch as children suffering from issues that are treatable in any first-world country are turned away simply because we lack the resources to help everyone who needs it.  We do a lot, don't get me wrong.  By the time we leave Guinea in June we will have helped thousands of people.  However, with the lack of medical accessibility, we've only scratched the surface.  Hopefully, this is where our capacity-building within the local medical community will provide more long-term impact.  We pray for these people but we also pray for our ability to remain compassionate to them.

We are very pleased with our cabin!!  It seems almost like an efficiency (VERY EFFICIENT!!) apartment . . . here is a picture . . . couples and families have it much better than singles in housing.  They are generally housed at least 4 to a cabin, and often start in 6, 8, or even a 10 berth cabin!!

Hope this finds you well, thanks for your thoughts and prayers as we move forward in this journey!