Samuel Slennett In Africa

Blog change

2010-06-22T05:34:00.000+01:00

Im giving blogging another go, and this time im not alone ... check it out

http://theslennetts.blogspot.com/

light at the end of the tunnel

2010-02-21T14:37:00.002+01:00

So, i have a new job on the ship this year. I still have to do my old job, but along side it i have a new one. Which at the moment is completely taking up about 99% of my working time!

So i still have to make sure all the salads and stuff are going well but not end up pealing many carrots right now.

So i have been put in charge of the stores on the ship. My official title for this is food services storeman.

So the stores were a complete mess when i took over and if this wasn't enough we had about 5 containers worth of stuff come in the last week we were in Tenerife. Then of course we had rough sailing and thing moved everywhere, milk was the main mover, and what a mess that made!

So since we docked in Togo, i have been trying to get things in order and this week has been the first time ive seen some progress, the phrase "sometimes things have to get worse to get better" comes to mind! So little by little ive be able to get little areas nice and clean, stuff out of the way of fire escape routes, clean up mess from the sail and start to work out where on earth the new stuff that we are due any day now is going to go.

So there is light at the end of the tunnel for sure, and i can start to see it, but there is lots of hard work to do before everything is sorted and with the prospect of there being containers in this week it might take a little longer than i would like, but as long as i get there in the end it will be ok :)

Today

2010-02-10T11:13:00.002+01:00

Today Togo ... Tomorrow well ... still Togo actually!

Yes its true, in under an hour we should be docked in Togo!

Which of course is very exciting because it means land, and i might be able to get off the ship soon! im sure that we wont get clear through immigration in a hurry so not getting my hopes up just yet, but still am excited about the new adventure ahead and really want to hit the ground running and make this an even better year than the last :)

Sailing once more

2010-01-31T23:46:00.002+01:00

So im back on the ship, and it seems so quick once more than we are on the open waters and headed back to Africa.

So being home was a great thing, and being back on the ship is nice also, and i really feel like the next 4 months i really need to get myself into top gear quickly!

I certainly have done that at work, within about 2 mins of stepping back inside the galley last Monday my apron was off and i was setting about the huge task of sorting out the stores!

So im now still in charge of the salads etc, but also have to deal with the stores, which in the past 2 weeks has been a full time job, the place was a mess, and pretty much still is. I think we hit 5 containers of stuff in the past 2 weeks, which is just madness, stocking up big time. I mean a rough count we have maybe 20,000 cartoons of milk! (thats alot!)

So other things i really wanna get going on is keeping in contact with people all over the world.

So this is part one, ive even started a new letter type thing :) should hopefully get this done in a day or two and will get a copy on here.

So for now i need rest, and hopefully not much rocking :)

Lots going on

2009-12-02T23:18:00.002+01:00

So lots really is going on here on the Africa Mercy, So this week i have had to say goodbye to some very good friends, we have made some guys from Benin working with us in the galley for the past 10 months, and Friday was there last day. Even though some of there English wasn't the best i consider them good and true friends. There are so many good times i can think of that just make me smile now. Thankfully i will get to see them all once more this Saturday before we sail on Tuesday.

What what what, yes another point there (its gonna be a bit jumpy this post, sorry) so Tuesday, instead of going for my weekly volleyball match we will in fact be setting sail to head to tenerife, where the ship will be until the end of January, when it will then set sail back to west Africa (Togo most likely 99%) for another field service.

So for those of you in England i can confirm that i will be returning home on the 21st of December, and will be there for Christmas, new years and a good time after :)

well until Jan 17th, when i will be returning to the ship :)

and how long will i be back on the ship you may ask, no idea i may well answer!

The main reason for that is my recent rather exciting (when i say rather, i mean very very) that im getting married! Yup this summer (Provisionally July 1oth) I will be marrying Miss Amy Handy in Chicago :)

So i will remain on the ship till late may/early June time, then come home for a short time before hitting up America for a good friends wedding, and then my own!

What after that, i can honestly say i don't know, its something Amy and me are trying to sort out! Please do join us in praying that we do whatever the Lord wants for us, whatever that may be, and however scary it may be for one or both of us!

Football match in pictures

2009-11-17T13:02:00.004+01:00

So last weekend was the "big" football match of the year ... The crew of the ship verses the day volunteers.

So i shall try and tell the story of the game with pictures, with a few words thrown in for good measure.

So since it was "the big one" i had to finally tell them of my goal keeping talents, which meant i sure needed a little warming up due to being a little rusty ...

No Football match would be complete without a good crowd ...

A tense tight game it turned out to be ...

Every kick seemed to be important ...

But no goal was found ... Crew 0 Day Volunteers 0

Onto Penalties it went ...

Save i did ...

And not just the once ...

Turns out the saving Pens can make you a hero ...

Final Score Crew 0 Day Volunteers 0 (Crew win 4-1 on Penalties) ...

Ah ha

2009-11-16T00:19:00.000+01:00

So the blogger website is still working then .. yup that is my strange way of saying sorry for the lack of African news from my end! I could give you various excuses, however im sure i really have had enough time to blog along the way, so i really am sorry and do feel bad about my lack of blogging, and i really do hope i can be more motivated!

So where to start is the real question ...

So for those of you English readers you may or may not know but i recently returned home to England for 12 days. This was only 2 weeks ago, but even now seems so far ago. I had to return under sad circumstances, my Grandad had suddenly passed away so my sister, her two boys and myselftravelled back via goodness knows where to return home for a short time.

And when i say goodness knows where that really was the case, the plane was actually going in the wrong direction for about an hour! It was some sort of airbus and we had to travel to where we think was Cameroon to pick up some more passengers before heading north to England.

Funerals are always a sad time, they are a time to look back, take stock even. Families are strange things, everyone has one in some form or another. But they are all different, and well without trying to sound too boastful i feel so happy and incredibly blessed to have mine.

So yeah ... now im back on the ship and life is busy as ever, and well im gonna try and share some more about it with you this week

sounds like a good deal to me :)

Back to ship life ...

2009-09-28T22:58:00.002+01:00

So my 2 weeks are up, and im back on the ship, which means no more 6:30am starts, and thankfully no more fears of the fan cutting out and having to sleep in pure African heat.

So its been a good 2 weeks off the ship, ive been able to spend some good time with my visiting sister and see a little more of Benin.

But its nice to be back at the same time, to join in on my new weekly bible study and to watch west ham, even though they lost was still nice to see the boys in claret and blue!

So its less than 3 months until i will be back in England for Christmas, and that sounds a long time, but it easily go by rather quickly here i can tell you!

So it is my real big hope that i can make this time count, to press in, for what is life is more important? to make our time on earth count? So my hope is that i can press in for what God has for me and for what God wants me to do, to grow closer to him and to know him more ...

Samuel ... or is it Craig???

2009-09-15T21:45:00.004+01:00

So ... it just so happened that i was walking along the dock this very Sunday evening and an African gentleman heading in the opposite direction said someting to Amy and myself, which isnt unusual at all, but what he said i can promise you was ...

So the man says "Are you from England?"

So i say "Yes, i am!"

now you may be thinking i was wearing an England shirt or somthing of those sorts ... but no, a totally unmarked shirt,

So here is the totally unbelievable, but totally true next line ...

So the man says "I knew that cause you look like craig david"

i was speakless ... and for those of you that done understand why ...

This is Craig David ...

This is rather strange, my spell check is in spanish! so sorry for any errors!

Africa is Hot!!!

2009-09-12T19:17:00.002+01:00

So this may sound like a wierd statement ... that africa is hot, because of course it is, and we all know that, but living on a ship with air con, sometimes, just sometimes you can forget.

So now im not living on an ship with air con, but infact a house with fans! Yes thats right for the next 2 weeks i will infact be living off the ship in a house about 20mins drive from the ship.

So this has all come about because one of the famlies lives in this house, they are in charge of some off ship stuff and incharge of "mercy teams", which are people that come on a short trip to do some sort of project or something! (will try to find out more and tell you all later!) So for the next 2 weeks Mark, the father of the family, is away so they need someone to drive them to the ship and need a guy to stay at the house, which is where i fit in!

Now i will still be working on the ship and will be there most of the time, just some parts of the evenings and nights i will be at the house!

So this is just another African adventure which i am very much looking forward to! I really hope that this can be a time to get back into some routines which i seem to have fallen out of! So lots of blogging is one big hope, and not just for the 2 weeks, but hopefully forever and ever :)

So yes, its hot here, and there is a very girl'y film on the tv, but im happy and im sure my mum will be as well since i now have some time to email her :)

love to you all

life

2009-09-05T01:13:00.002+01:00

... life is good ...

... life is busy ...

... life involves working alot ...

... life also involves playing sports alot ...

... life should involve more blogging ...

need to address that last one i feel!

Deck 1!

2009-08-22T21:15:00.003+01:00

So the ship that i live on has 8 decks, now on a normal day i would visit between 3 and 5 decks, maybe upto 6 or even 7 if alot was going on, but never 8, in fact until about 2 weeks ago i had never in fact ever been on all of the 8 decks ...

That all changed 2 weeks ago!

But first lets have a little "low down" on the decks so anyone that reads this gets a little more of an idea of where im living!

So ...

Deck 1 - Will come in the story!

Deck 2 - Now there is an old school type gym down on deck 2, but i have to admit i would be more on deck 2 for work purposes, this is where we have 4 huge freezers, 1 hugs fridge and 2 dry storage rooms.

Deck 3 - Would be hospital land! So if i ever have to go down there, for numbers of reasons! also a few friends rooms are on deck 3

Deck 4- Would be where i live! just alot of cabins really!

Deck 5 - Would be the dinning room, the cafe, offices and some more cabins

Deck 6 - Would be where i work, also midships (the place to hang out) and also my sister and her family's cabin

Deck 7 - Is a place for the kids to play outside so end up there with my nephews sometimes, also a few rooms to watch dvd's in

Deck 8 - Is outside! so also a place to take kids to, but also a nice play to get away and get some reading done!

So anyways ... Deck 1 ... so not really sure what exactly is there, but its engine room, and stuff like that, and well your not allowed to go there ...

So being on the emergency medical team skips this rule :) So we got the call that on the fire drill 2 weeks ago there were 2 victims, and we had to go and get one of them, and was showed down some stairs, carrying our stretcher ... and it then hit me, as i saw the sign ... "DECK 1" ... WHOOOO i had finally done it! Deck 1! So it was a nightmare carrying a man on a stretcher from deck 1 to deck 3 up some pretty tight staircases, but very worth it!

This is a little pic of another one of my fire drills from last week ...

Porto Novo

2009-08-18T20:34:00.002+01:00

So this weekend not only brought the start of the football season but a trip to the captain of Benin, Porto Novo!

So 4 teachers, 2 nurses, 1 pharmacist, 1 photographer and myself set off on the hour journey with the biggest stretch of roundabouts in Benin! (that is not a true fact, it just felt like there were alot of roundabouts!)

(L to R - Back Teacher, Nurse, Me, Teacher, Teacher)
(L to R - Front Nurse, Teacher, Pharmacist)

Our main aim was to feed the monkeys ... now i think we soon all discovered that we didn't really even know what this actually meant, or even what kind of monkeys they were, but the people that had been before us had enjoyed it enough to convince us to go, so gone we had!

Now what else that day had in store was left up to impulse!

Firstly we decided that it would be best to go to the market to get some bananas for the monkeys, which i have to admit was a very clever plan, and after negotiating though the small walkways we made it out the other side and was very much on our way to the monkeys.

Now there was one slight problem ... we didn't actually at any point while in the market stop to get any bananas ... so the 2 i had brought with me was just going to have to do ...

So the monkeys seemed rather interested in us as did we with them so it all seemed nice enough, well until one of them told a little pee on PJ :) But we still gave them our only 2 bananas and that was about that

Well there was a little time for us to do some monkey impressions ourselves ... here be cabin 4336 and myself up a tree :)

So we just took in a little more of Porto Novo after our monkey time, a few of the group went in a local museum (which by the sounds of it was pretty shocking!) and then it was time to come back to the ship in time for me to catch the 5pm showing of Wolves V West Ham :)

Bonfire on the beach ...

2009-08-09T15:59:00.003+01:00

Yup that's right ... about 8 mercy ships car loads of people (that's about 70 people) took to the local beach ... strangely named "Obama beach" and well after a little beach volleyball action we had a rather lovely bonfire on the beach ... using only the best wood ... ok it was part of a boat they had pulled out of the ocean but when your in Africa you just have to work with what you have :)

Knee pain ...

2009-08-08T14:30:00.000+01:00

So we are very lucky to have the access of the local police academy to use for sporting things throught the week ... its a sand football pitch, however there is sand that is hard and compact within cm's of sand that is beach like! So running on it is quiet a challenge ... and kicking a football is something else completely!

So i somehow managed while running through a beach like patch of sand to go over on my ankle and scrape all the skin off my other knee when landing on some rock hard sand!

This i thought was bad enough, however returning to the same venue to play frisbee on friday with a plaster like thing on ... well within 30 seconds i was high in the air and suddenly brought straight to the earth! and yes of course i landed straight on my knee ... and oh did i scream!!!

So with the other 33 players all gathering round i think there was a fair bit of concern ... the plaster strangely looked like it was my skin hanging off! Thankfully it was alot of instant pain and the pain was alot less soon enough! So playing with a whole host of medical people is always handy and after getting a proper bandage i was able to return ...

And this isnt even the most significant thing that happened this friday frisbee ... We were being filmed by a proper TV film crew!!!

They are on the ship currently filming something for norwiegen tv featuring a child that is on the ship, and well came to frisbee!

Work Mates :)

2009-07-25T23:15:00.003+01:00

So finally ... this is a pic of some of the people i work with in the kitchen :)

Will edit it with some info about them when less tired :)

Fun on the sound desk ...

2009-07-18T11:17:00.003+01:00

When you live on a ship sometimes you have to try your very hardest to find things to do so you don't find yourself in a rut or just doing the same thing over and over ...

So on the ship there is kinda a running slide show thing where it shows notices on a loop, and well it seems like they were short on running the sound desk and looking for help ... so offered i did :)

So what this means is i am now on a schedule for the various meetings in a week and have to do various jobs on the sound desk ...

Tuesday morning ... Each Tuesday morning on the ship at the very horrible hour of 7:45 we have a meeting in the large "international lounge" This is a place where we welcome all the new people, they announce all the people that are departing, they give any notices for the week and there is a short devotion.

Thursday evening ... Each Thursday evening we have a community meeting, kinda like a church service ... the is somebody is who "MC'ing" the event, there is some worship and somebody who gives a message :) (then there is fellowship in mid ships and ICE CREAM!!!)

Sunday evening ... Sunday evening's be a church service.

Special events ... Explains itself

(international lounge is a big room that holds about 300 and is used for big meetings on the ship)
(mid ships is the middle of the ship, it is where there is a cafe, ship shop, Internet cafe type place, tv's and lots of places to sit)

So that's what each one is and well there are 3 roles on the sound desk ...

Sound man - controls all the sound!
Computer man - sorts out all the lyrics, PowerPoint's and such
Camera man - so all of the meeting go out over the tv system, this allows people in their cabins to watch the meeting as well as people working in the hospital to watch so they have a camera :)

So far as yet ive had a little go at both the computer and the camera ... the sound one is the real tricky one and i shall be happy avoiding that for a while :)

Blackout day

2009-07-12T21:07:00.001+01:00

So once in a while it seems (this is the first since ive been here) we have something called a blackout day, this is where they have to do something to the ship that means all the power (well most of it, generators still work) has to be turned off.

Well im not exactly sure what they had to do, but whatever it is, we had a day on the ship with pretty much no power and darkness! This meant such fun things like at dinner time there was no cooked food, cause of no power so they sandwiches that were out were nice, but you could hardly see what the options to have on them were cause it was so dim in the dinning room!

This of course also inspired silly games and such! Water fighting was a big part of this :) For my birthday i was sent a couple of water guns, and Tommy has one also which i was able to borrow, so me and a couple of Aussies had a little amusement with them :) We found a perfect spot on one of the top decks that you could squirt people that were coming back to the ship from!

Not really sure how it was connected to darkness but just before the lights came back on we found ourselves lying on the floor playing some game where our arms were entwined!

It was impressive how inventive people, there were groups of people all around the ship huddled around security lights playing cards and such!

So we were enjoying ourselves so much in the dark (and the prospect of it being really really dark later) we actually booed when the lights and power came back on!

AFM F.C

2009-07-04T15:37:00.003+01:00

So my new work schedule has meant that ive been finishing at 5pm every day, and well every Monday and Wednesday the AFM (Africa Mercy) Football team train. So ive been going the past couple of weeks, and well it seems like i started going at the right time because last Saturday the team had a match against a local team, and well i was asked to play!

So here are some photos of the day ...

This be the AFM Football team ... ok yes for those of you that look closely, we for some unknown reason play in a Chelsea replica kit :(

A little Pre game huddle ...

Some last min instructions from the coach ...

Pre game handshake ...

Ok so this picture might not look that special, but that is me and a young lady named Katie Radchuck ... Ok so that might not mean much to you ... check this out ...

http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/statisticsandrecords/players/player=199952/index.html

What a start 3 mins ... AFM F.C 1 - Hevie 0 ... guess who scored :) Yup ... twas me!!! Here is even a pic that proves it ...

The crowd began to build ...

Half time score AFM F.C 2 - Hevie 1 .... this is a picture of the half time team talk ... and to be honest i didn't catch a word! it was all in languages that i sure didn't understand :)

A few of the locals ...

So the person that was taking the photos switched cameras here :( so i have no more pics of the 2nd half or end yet, but hopefully i will be able to get my hands on them soon!

So for those of you that wanna know ... i managed to play the whole 90 mins in African heat and the final score was .... AFM F.C 4 - Hevie 3 ... was a very enjoyable game and was very nice to get myself on the score sheet :D

Birthday Fun

2009-07-04T15:04:00.007+01:00

So you can see what happened in the evening of my birthday ... (its the last post i made)

So in the day i took a group of about 40 people to a place called Babs Dock. For people that work as hard as most of the people do on the ship i can promise you they deserve some time off ... and well Babs dock is about the perfect place to go!

Its set on a lagoon, which you can only get to via a 5 min boat ride, and its just a place to chill out, relax, play some water volleyball, bowls, hammock relaxation, just chill out or really whatever you want!

So here are some pics ...

The boat ride ...

Our Chief Engineer having a few quiet moments ...

A Little mischief on the dock ...

The place to gain fuel and liquid ...

The Dock complete with canoes and Joshua ...

An action packed water volleyball game ...

Playing in the hammock ...

"Nanny" trying to avoid the water ...

A little bowls action ...

The Farrells and the Slennetts (well the ones that are in Africa) ...

Sock Golf

2009-07-04T14:37:00.004+01:00

So there had been talk of a "Sock Golf" tournament for a while, but nothing seemed to be a happening ... but a little word with the guy who organized it last time and it was set ... to be played on my birthday!

So we had a spot on 50 players for "Sock Golf 2009"

So for those of you wondering, you play sock golf by rolling up a pair of socks and then throwing them all over the ship over a 18 hole golf course ... So i really do mean all over the ship, the course took us on decks, 3,4,5,6 and 7! Now there were no actual holes as such, but bits of paper which you had to hit ... As wonderfully shown by my sister ...

So you had to play your shots from where ever your socks landed ... as you can see it made for some interesting shots ...

So as well as there being an overall individual tournament there was all a team competition for teams of 4 ... Here be my wonderful team (L to R, Back Me, Ryan, Front Lindy, Katie)

With some wonderful team work, and alot of fun we managed to come 3rd out of the 12 teams :)

So the individual competition was a close affair with a four way tie for 2nd place with a score of 70 (the par for the course was 70) but the Sock Golf Champion for 2009, with a 2 under par score of 68 ... was ... well ...

Ah yes ... it was me :D

My new job ... one week on ...

2009-06-28T14:20:00.002+01:00

So as of last Monday (22nd June) i started kinda a new job, and kinda not a new job!

So basically i have been asked to try and sort out the cold side of the galley, which means all the salads, cheese and meat stuff. So before i was on one of the cooking teams and basically did this for my team but now i have to do it for both teams!

So my hours have changed from shift work to a normal mon-fri 8-5 day, which i have found out even after a week has some very nice advantages, but some draw backs as well!

Its been really nice to get to know some of the people from the other team and being in charge has let me have a bit more freedom with what we do, so ive been experimenting with the salads and trying to create some new salads which the crew might enjoy ... so far so good i think from the comments ive had back :)

So its also given me the chance to play more sport that ive been able to before, which is really nice (but very tiring) ... so this is my past week in sports

Monday ... football training
Tuesday ... volleyball
Wednesday ... football training
Thursday ... rest (whew!)
Friday ... Frisbee
Saturday ... Playing for the Africa Mercy Football team in a real match!!! (more details to follow)
Sunday ... water fight!

So yeah, the draw back is that im very use to having days off and nice long lie-in's and my life doesn't seem to have slowed down outside work so am for sure a little tired, but happy that ive had a good week :)

Things i need to blog about ..

2009-06-23T00:29:00.002+01:00

So i know im behind again ...

lets see ... if i wasnt so tired i would blog about ...

my birthday
sock golf
my mum being on the ship
my new job role
football in benin

lets hope im not so tired 2morrow and get a chance to blog!

sorry again for being behind!

Safe and Sound

2009-06-17T21:22:00.000+01:00

So im happy to report ( and sorry i havent earlier) that my mum arrived safe and sound, a little tired and hungry but arrived all the same tue afternoon :)

Its been great to have her here with me and i look forward to the next month very much!

Thanks all :)

URGENT PRAYER REQUEST

2009-06-16T02:19:00.002+01:00

so my mum is stuck in togo airport ...

her flight got grounded there cause of bad weather and hasnt been able to take off ... it is now due in at 2:15pm local time (same time as English time) tomorrow afternoon.

It was due in at about 7:00pm tonight, so i have no idea how she will be, if she would have been able to get any sleep or anything.

So i would love it if you are reading this before or after that time even that you pray for her, her health, energy etc that would be wonderful and that she can recover from her horror journey quickly

thank you all

Mother is coming!!!

2009-06-15T14:49:00.002+01:00

So its funny how things just sneak up on you ... ive known for a while that my mum was thinking about coming out to Benin, and ive known for (a shorter time) but still a while that she actually is coming ...

well today is the day!!! she lands about 7:30 this evening so the Farrell family (http://www.thefarrells.org.uk/) and myself will be taking a land drover, taking a short journey to the airport ... and picking up NANNY!!! ... ok well she is my mum, but around here with Tom and Joshua she will for sure be nanny!

So this is the start of a busy week for me ... Tuesday sees Natalie's birthday (http://natalie7591.blogspot.com/)

Wednesday sees the farewell meal of a good friend of mine Lauren :(

Friday sees my nephews birthday party and the Rolland's (http://5rollands.blogspot.com/) and amy (my lovely girlfriend) leave for the summer for a total of 5 weeks

And just to finish off the week Saturday is my 25th birthday! and im trying to organize a group trip out to celebrate!

So a busy week ... but bring it on!!!

Bowls ... with a twist ...

2009-06-14T23:12:00.001+01:00

So living on a ship in Africa ...

there is no Tesco at the bottom of my road

i don't own a BMW old school car any more that i can just jump in and travel to where ever i wish

i cant go to Belfairs for a round of golf (however i can still remember the course set up :) )

so its all about making your own fun, its amazing how funny moving peoples name tags on their cabin doors can be at midnight ...

However last night that was beaten and beaten by a distance ...

So we have created late night bowls, however we dont have any bowls, nor a jack, nor a mat to stand on, nor a level well cut playing surface ... but we make do with what we have :)

So last night was just a practice to see if it will work... oh and it will work alright!!! But i cant give any more details because its a secret underground, and well we want it to be a cool surprise to the people that get to play :)

So if anyone has any other ideas of how we can amuse ourselves on a ship then please do let me know :)

Close but no cigar ...

2009-06-07T22:42:00.002+01:00

So the film festival has been and gone ... and to be honest it pretty much went just how i expected!

My film was ... well ... well it was something that i of course would make! I think it was lost on a good % of the people that saw it, but the people that got it really enjoyed it, i had some very good feedback from a good amount of people which was nice, some expected and some unexpected people took the time to say how much they enjoyed it which was nice. It was nice that they gave details about it ... they could have easily said something like "your film was good" and leave it at that, but everyone seemed to like certain bits and it reminded them of stuff so that was good :)

So there were some awards at the end ... and thankfully the best film won the best film award which was nice, the other awards went to completely the wrong people, but oh well that's life on a ship i guess!!! (i don't mean i should have won them, I'm not that big headed!!!)

Creature of Habit

2009-06-02T14:24:00.001+01:00

I find this in pretty much all parts of my life ... im a creature of habit and phases, i go through spells of doing things, and then for no reason leave them totally for a while, this seems to have been the case with blogging, i think i just lost the habit for a while there! Got caught up in other things and didn't mean to stop blogging just didn't think about it!

So am trying to think back for things that have happened in the past few weeks and am posting about them as i think about them! So keep checking back for things that might appear!

Will try and post more regularly again now :)

Africa Clothes

2009-05-31T14:18:00.000+01:00

So it seems like the thing to get done!

So im getting myself some african clothes! ... the talior didnt really speak much English and i dont speak any french so i have some idea ... i think ... of what im getting, but could be very wrong also!

So keep posted for pics when i get them back :)

Film Action

2009-05-28T14:20:00.002+01:00

So it was late tue nite and i was lying in bed thinking about how much of a shame it was that Luke had gone home ... reason being there is a film festival coming up (sat 6th june) and people are making films for it, and i thought that Luke and myself prob woulda made a film ...

well i thought losing Luke shouldn't stop me ... so i made a film on my own! It took me the best part of both of my days off to think up the idea, film, act and edit it ... all by myself! Its funny what things suddenly become perfect places to place a video camera while trying to get a shot from a certain angle!

So i cant tell you too much about the film because im trying to keep it all under wraps before the big night and i have no idea who is reading my blog on the ship!

But i will give full details after the event and maybe even see if there is some way of posting the video on here!

Post Cheating

2009-05-11T23:31:00.003+01:00

So i may have been slightly cheating with some posts here ...

So basically i got really busy and didn't post for a little while, so in the past few days (and i will add a couple more in the next day or so) ive been blogging about things that have happened, but to get it in time order ive changed the blogging options to show them as the day they happened!

So please do read back like 5 or 6 posts cause they are all new even if the date is a week or two ago!

Thanks all!

Frisbee Fun

2009-05-08T22:01:00.002+01:00

So its sometimes just nice to get off the ship for a change of location ...

and well when its for something so exciting as Frisbee then it really is good :)

Now last week Luke somehow managed to still play, get home at 7:15, then leave for his plane home at 8 ... now that is impressive!

Now when i want to say is how it went this week ... So we play at the local police station! ... yes i did say police station! They have a sand football length football field that they let us play at!

So there was some big thing happening (we think the pres was in town) and there were loads of cars parked on one end of the field, so we get a fair number (20-30) so normally play the full length but this week played across the pitch.

So there were some police vans in one corner, but we had to play pretty close to them or the pitch really wouldn't have been long enough ...

So take a minute to think what is coming next ...

Yup ... you guess it ...

I ran right into one :) The Frisbee was just a little far from me so really had to run fast and stretch for it, so i caught it, but was just moving a little too fast and smack into the side!

Thankfully it was more funny than painful :)

Jesus Film

2009-05-05T22:09:00.002+01:00

So one of the things the ship does is send two car loads of people out into the local and further reaching communities, taking with them the Jesus Film (http://www.jesusfilm.org/)

This Tue along with my brother in law Tommy (thefarrells.org.uk) we got to go along.

To be honest i think we were both lost as to what was going on for most of the time. This be because it wasn't in English, nor even french, but the local language of fong! But it was a really good time, at the start of the set up there were about 20 kids around maybe, but within 10min of the film starting there were prob 200 people all around sitting on chairs, standing and a whole load of people on motorbikes!

There seemed to be some sort of altar call at the end which alot of people came forward for! Which was very good to see and i hope that the message of Jesus has stuck with them since, for there is nothing more important than knowing Jesus!

My Trip to ICU

2009-05-02T20:27:00.000+01:00

Ok, so its not as serious as it sounds really, so here on the ship the only private rooms in the hospital are ICU, so if anything happens to any of the crew they get taken there ...

Well i kinda gave it a good go at chopping my finger instead of a pepper!

And well had to call the duty nurse cause it was kinda bleeding some :(

So then got taken to ICU, just to clean it up and check if it needed stitches ... which it didn't :)

So all is getting better, its looking like its starting to heal nicely, so no worries there!

The Bilson

2009-05-01T21:39:00.001+01:00

So one of the main things that you have to deal with here is people coming and going. Now living on a ship with everyone, of course you not going to know everyone, but the people that are close to you, the people you work with, cabin mates etc, well you get to know them pretty well!

Well 2day Friday 1st May i lost one :( I have good news to report that he didn't fall off the ship (and im writing this after the actual day so i know he got home safely!)

He name was Luke Bilson, and he deserves a post of his own i feel! It seems strange that he was only here for 2 months cause i feel like ive known him for alot longer than that! Now one of the reasons he deserves so much credit is that he managed to survive living with me! Yup he was my bunk mate, and for any of you that know how clean i am ... ok for those of you that don't ... im a very messy person! I will get a pic of our room, and our section of our room on here, but lets just say its pretty small for 2 people!

Another grand job he did was sharing the same schedule as me, im on the cooking team, and he was on the dining room team and thankfully on the same shift as me, which meant we got all the same days off, which is really nice here. Most people do mon-fri (apart from the nurses) whereas i do shifts so when you have wed/thu off there isnt much going on so its been great having someone around to do this that and whatever!

Luke was truly a blessing to have here and im looking forward to the Christmas reunion already :)

On the plus side ... its lovely being able to use his cupboard to chuck my dirty laundry in :) and im using his two shelves :) ... Its kinda funny really, we have room checks here, and well were normally rubbish, and our bit of the cabin is always messy, and well all because of me and me being messy! ... Well how things have changed now!!! Im actually tidy!!! its all cheating really :) i just have more places to stuff my stuff :) ... i find it really funny though cause next time they come to do a room check and see how tidy my place is ... i can just imagine them thinking "oh that Bilson boy musta been a messy one, look how tidy it is now" ... and if they did ask ... since he has left and all ... it would be rude not to blame it on him ... ok i wouldn't really ... im messy and don't care who knows it :)

African Church!

2009-04-26T15:57:00.001+01:00

So this was the first time ive managed for various reasons to get to go off ship and visit a local church! So it was a church called Agla Pentecostal Church, and it was planted back in 2001 when one of the old MercyShips was here back in the day!

So the service was in French and Fong (local language) but it was translated into English most of the time which was handy!

So im not sure ive ever done so much clapping or standing, then sitting, then standing, then sitting, i would continue with that but you can work it out!

The over riding thing i left that place with was the thought of how the fact they were in a almost shed like place, with water from the night before all around, on hard bits of wood for seats and im sure other things ... none of it seemed to matter ... they were there to worship God with all of their hearts. It just makes me wonder what would happen if every christian did that ... Gave their all to God ... I reckon it could change the world!!!

Thanks to my sis for the pics :)

Pendjari National Park

2009-04-16T14:08:00.005+01:00

So having 4 days off over Easter some friends and I decided that it was a good chance to go exploring and see a little more of Benin!!!

... So Miriam, Esther, My lovely girlfriend Amy and myself (with 6 other MercyShipers) travelled 8 hours on a bus that had people sitting on oil cans in the middle isle to a place called Pendjari which is right in the north of Benin, so north in fact we saw another country on our travels!

So Pendjari is a national park which has lots of cool animals and such! It even has its own very nice entrance ...

So this be our mode of transport for our time ... now 11 people in this car was a little bit of a squash to say the least ... so we got a little creative with the seating arrangements ...

We got a fair bit of animal action while we were there, off the top of my head we saw ... elephants, deer, hippos, buffalo, water buffalo, baboons, antelope, crocodiles and a little wart hog action! Here be some deer ...

So We really did ride on the top of the car as shown below ... (and we enjoyed it muchly :) )

So of course some pretty sweet views came along with the ride ...

Ok ... so im not a big tree fan, but i have to be honest, i loved these ones, They were really green at the top, then got brownier as it went down, kinda like going through the seasons. They also had some pretty cool fruit growing on the top, which were not really sure what it was because our driver didn't really speak any English! But we did find out that the elephants pull down the trees to get to the fruit, which we didn't get to see in action, but sounds cool none the less!

More sweet views ...

Now not a normal hotel room ... but i tell ya this i was pretty excited by the room! and that said even after realised all i had in the baking hot heat was a little fan that i couldn't get in the right place!

Ok, so we were on our way to the hotel type place (shown above) and Esther and myself were up top and for some reason being surrounded by totally white clouds started talking about rain, so we then decide to sing a little rain song ... and well this is what happened next ...

So we got the chance, very brief chance at that, but a chance none the less to go to some waterfalls and well ... jump off! Im gonna be honest here, i was pretty scared! But jump i did ... in fact over and over and over, 6 times! now not because i was loving it (although it was fun!) but because it really took that many attempts to get a picture of me in mid air ... so here it is...

Fun Fun Fun was had by all :)

Swimming Pool Fun

2009-04-08T00:09:00.004+01:00

So i think i knew this before i came to Benin, But i cant dive, im not sure why ... there is just something in me that cant do it!

Its not that i dont try, trust me! or you could ask people that have seen me here ... i mean people looked scared for me when i dive sometimes cause i put so much into it and land in the water in some pretty painful looking ways it seems ...

So with diving a no go for me, ive decided to take up the back flip! ... now that may seem like an interesting choice for someone that cant dive, but oh well ... :)

So today was the 3rd time ive been to the pool since i took this bold step of trying to work out how to back fip ... and well just as the 2nd time was an improvement on the 1st time today was the same!

Im now officially doing a back flip, now it looks pretty ugly sometimes and i really pull sideways, but none the less its a back flip!

Here is a little proof ...

and a little more ...

Now this isnt back flipping, just jumping with some friends :)

Market Madness

2009-04-01T21:58:00.002+01:00

Its at times like this morning when i realise just how different it is here to anywhere ive been before!

So Sarah (my sister http://thefarrells.org.uk/) and me took a little trip to a local market.

Basically its a fruit and veg market, its all stacked so cool, in really went organzied piles and stacks, but i tell you thats only the start!!! I mean you wouldnt expect to add in chickens, geese, pigeons and even kittens tied up for sale!

Ok so were on a little mini mission there, trying to get hold of some mango and pineapple action for some smoothie action 2nite, well its harder than you think! i mean Sarah speaks some french and well we were both very lost at one point at to what exactly our lady was saying the price was! So it was possible 1150 of the local currency. So i have a 2000 bill, which i mean you wouldnt think would be hard to give a little change! Oh how wrong you would be! So she takes a look in her little carrier bag, no change in there, so tries a few people around her, no luck there. So gives the money to some1 else, time passes, and they come back with nothing but the 2000 bill again! So then the lady next door gets involved with a few coins, so our lady is then trying to explain to us that she doesnt have enough still we think, so we settle on getting some bananas as well!

So no normally bananas, like midget sized ones! so she has like 20 maybe in this bunch and were like how much? and she puts out 3 fingers, so were asuming 300 maybe, well we decided we wanted half of em, so she then gives us 500 back from the 2000, but then says she wants another 100, which we were fine with, very confused because 1/2 of the bananas were now like 450! Who knows, all very amusing really and a good experience id say!

So walked back via the meat section, i tell you what i pointed out some sort of animals heads on display ... lets just say we didnt stay in the meat section, we left by the nearest exit!

Good times indeed :)

He is enough

2009-03-30T00:09:00.002+01:00

So a very long time ago ... ok not that long ago really, but it sure feels like it when you live on a ship ... i was sailing to Benin from tenerife and we had a whole set of talks by various people on various topics.

Well last week or so i was reminded of something one of the people said, they were giving a list of the religions in Benin, 30% Catholics, 25% Muslim etc and then added 100% voodoo at the end. Well i thought nothing of it at the time, but i was talking with a lady a week or so back and she said about it and was saying how in Liberia last year even the Christians who would be at church and worshipping God would still go to the witchdoctors for potions or do voodoo rituals or whatever throughout the week, for whatever reason weather it be cause they didn't think God was doing things fast enough, or cause they were just "covering all bases" or whatever.

Well this got me thinking, and well it just hit me that there un belief is so out there and obvious to see but its something we all struggle with. Some of us hide our insecurities best we can, but they are there just as real and holding us back just as much as someone that is going to visit a witch doctor.

Some of us try to find acceptance in people, some of us distance ourselves from people for the fear of being hurt, some turn to drink, some to relationships, some to work, some to money and some even to sports! Whatever it may be we try to find happiness, love and a sense of belonging in things that will ultimately not be able to satisfy us.

God is enough, and if you believe that God really is enough, wouldn't, and maybe shouldn't that change your whole life. Knowing that he is enough in every situation, every struggle, every concern, anything that you could possibly come at him with. The power of Jesus's blood was enough for us all, everything we have done wrong and has given a way to be reunited with the one who made it all, to be in relationship with him.

In the book of Matthew it says ... Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Isnt that what we all crave deep down inside? ... He is the only one that will ever be able to set us free from our struggles, the only one that will truly be able to make us happy and loved. Yes its a risk, and he doenst promise its gonna be easy and everything is suddenly "gonna be ok" but it's a risk that we cant afford not to take ... to step out, to totally surrender ourselves to him, to let go of everything that we value above him, to submit to his will in all things, not just the things that were ok with letting go, but giving everything to him.

I just wanna leave you with this ... God is enough ... even typing it now it sounds so simple, so easy ... but i challenge you to really think about and to think what it means.

Almost there ...

2009-03-27T01:05:00.002+01:00

So the good news is im well on the road to being better! :)

I went out today for the first time since last wed which was good! It was Amy's birthday and she really wanted fan ice, so fan ice she got!!!

Ok so fan ice (see pic at top) is this kinda frozen yogurt thing, which i cant say i like at all really, but Amy is very keen on the chocolate one, and at a cost of 150 of the local currency (about 30p maybe) and since it was her Birthday and all i thought i best treat her to one!

So when i got back i had to lie down, but its progress none the less! I officially have this weekend off from work, so im pretty confident by Monday i will be fighting fit and will be ready to get back to work and the real reason im here!

I was chatting with a guy the other nite, who has also been ill and we were saying how different it is missing work here. Like when you was at school it was cool missing school if you was ill, but being ill here isnt the same! I actually wanna be at work! Strange as that may sound, but i love working here and serving the crew by making them nice food! So lets hope i will be back doing that soon!

love to you all :)

Samuel

Little bout of the Labby

2009-03-21T16:14:00.002+01:00

So unfortantly ive gone the wrong way since i last wrote, ive been bed/chair bound since thu now.

It seems that i have another bout of Labyrinthitis :(

Labyrinthitis

Ive had this a fair few times in my life, and well although i feel pretty rough right now im happy in the knowledge that this isnt anywhere near as bad as ive had it in the past. Ive been able to stay on my feet and move around for a good few mins in the past few days, which i wouldn't be able to do at all if i had it bad, so that at least is good news!

So i hope to be back fully 100% hopefully within the next few days, i have mon and tue off work anyways so hopefully by wed i will be fighting fit and ready to go back to the kitchen and helping making the crew all their lovely meals once more!

I really would appreciate all your thoughts and prayers still at this time, as this is very frustrating feeling so useless and out of action and not being able to do what im here to do!

Much love to you all and hopefully i will be back soon with a more positive update!

Ill, Busy, Ill

2009-03-20T00:11:00.002+01:00

So im hoping to break my current cycle soon!

Tuesday i spent at work, but feeling pretty rough all day long

Wednesday i felt alot better so went to the pool in the afternoon, but maybe over did it, walking there and back in the heat (its about a 30min walk) was trying some new things off the diving board as well!

Then there was a football match! and well having gone from playing 4 times a week to 0 time in 6 weeks, well i had to play!

So maybe the highlight of it was the picking of the teams! I think i was totally judged on my footwear! The guy picking the teams looked at us "white boys" then looked at our feet to see what shoes we were wearing and then picked us accordingly! Classic!

So more time in the heat, and well ive felt it 2day! been in my room pretty much all day, and alot of it in bed :( So i hope its nothing serious and i just over did it on my day off!

So its bed time now me thinks since i have to work fri,sat,sun

So your thoughts and prayers about my health right now would be wonderful!

Thanks all!

Ganvie - The Village on Stilts

2009-03-15T21:51:00.002+01:00

So this Saturday (being a day off and all) i decided to organize a little trip to a place called Ganvie. So i got myself 19 very decent people indeed, 1 boat and well 1 more person that knew where he was going and how to drive the boat and off we went!

So our destination was about an hour and 15 Min's away, the boat ride itself was pretty cool, we got to see just how the people of Benin fish. To sum it up, they all seems to do something different! Some with poles, some with nets, some with things that looked like cat baskets, and all sorts of other weird and wonderful ways to catch fish!

So Ganvie its self is a community of about 1000 people that all live in houses that are on the water, all on stilts pretty much, which is where it gets its name the village on stilts from i guess ;)

We got taken to three different locations, all pretty much gift shops. On the way we got to see peoples houses on water and people on canoe's everywhere!!! Its just so strange to imagine the life that they live, i cant even start to get my head around it.

Dreaming Land

2009-03-13T12:19:00.002+01:00

So it seems that Benin is a place to come to if you wanna dream like never before! I mean before i came here i was just an average "dreamer" i would say, odd dream here and there.

Not any more!!! Im having dreams that i can remember at a very rapid rate indeed! I think my most impressive so far was Monday.

So i had to be at work between 8:15 and 8:30 and i have a bit of a dodgy alarm clock where you cant really work out the exact time your setting the alarm for, so i go early and then just hit the snooze if its early! so it was 7:50, so hit snooze, then 7:55, snooze again, 8:00, snooze again, 8:05 and i thought i had one more snooze in me, but it turns out i managed to turn it off all together!

So next thing i know i wake up in a huge panic, cause i can remember alot of details of a rather long dream and i think ive over slept and its about 11:30! So i look at the clock and its like 8:28, whew, so of course it was still a mad rush but thankfully i was still on time! (yup the ship is that small you can get anywhere in 1 min)

So my conclusion is, even if you only have 23 mins, here in Benin you can still have yourself one long old dream!

So if dreaming is what your after, then come on over ...

Hope and Healing in action

2009-03-10T15:58:00.002+01:00

So after my mad weekend of working in the galley (kitchen) Monday had a different look to it.

When i say mad weekend i really do mean that! We lost one of our day volunteers on Friday morning, he turned up and said im not working today, and in fact he has gone away for 1 month to do some schooling. I think it was a little last min to tell us so im not sure if he will come back cause i think (really hope) they might replace him before i have to work again (wed).

So there was a trip to a national park this weekend (sat-tue) and a guy called Seb really wanted to go, but cause it was 4 days everyone that went had to either swap days or take them off. Seb works in a place called Central supplies and well to cut a long story short i ended up working one of his days (Monday)

Central supplies is based on the hospital deck. Im not 100% sure of everything they do, but from working there 1 day i think i have a pretty good idea. They are in charge of all of the stuff that is used by the hospital, different departments make orders and then its the supplies job to get the orders. They have a big store room, and then 8 big containers that hold all the stuff in. My morning was spent moving some stuff around that was gonna be taken to the warehouse (will expand). I also helped out getting an order ready for the Operating room. This just meant finding things on a list, some were harder than others since some were nicely on a shelf, whereas others were hidden at the bottom of a very hot container! I then got to go to the warehouse and un load a whole van load of stuff.

The afternoon i managed to get more sweaty than i even thought was humanly possible! Not a single bit of me wasnt wet! it looked like i had been in the ocean i feel! So this was the result of having to sort out one of the containers, basically there was stuff everywhere and for about 1 hour i sorted it all out, put all the boxes that were the same together etc and made a walk way down the middle so that people didnt have to continue to climb over everything to get to the stuff at the back.

So even though all this moving and stuff doesn't sound that exciting, i had a great day. I really got to see what MercyShips is all about. I was around the admissions area alot, and i got to see all the people that were coming to be helped by Mercyships. I recognised a few from screening day and it really just hit me about what a life changing thing it was for them.

They were gonna be healed in a physical sense, whether it was via the removal of cataracts and being given sight, the removal of a tumor, correcting walking problems whatever it was gonna be life changing.

There is more to it than just physical healing, they were being given hope for a future. I talked to a translator and one of the things that he said to me was how these people are just rejected over and over. They are given hope for a new life, being accepted by people around them and being able to do things that most of us take for granted without having to face abuse as we do it.

We all need hope and healing in some way or another, some of the people here may have huge facial tumors and its obvious to see. But there are others that are in just as much need, maybe its depression, guilt, un forgiveness, all hidden but can eat away at a person just as much as something physical.

The hope for us all is in our saviour, Jesus. Whatever our hurt, our need, he is more than enough. So as i sit here reflecting on things i have seen in my time so far here in MercyShips it is my prayer that where ever you are and whatever you need healing for that you will turn to the one that can make you compete, the only one that can truly give you happiness. Even if you dont know him and you dont feel like your worthy, none of us are. Its by Gods grace than we can come to him, by Jesus's sacrifice on the cross. Just ask him to reveal himself to you.

Madness at work!

2009-03-05T16:34:00.002+01:00

So ... ok ... my cooking team last week was made up of 4 cooks (including me), 1 salad team lady and 3 day volunteers.

The day volunteers do different things,

one is assigned to wash up and spends just about all his time doing that,

one is the cook for the ward meals, the patients get different food than the crew, they get African stuff, cause the idea is that they like that more than what we get

the last one, does a little of everything really, sometimes we get him to help us, sometimes to he helps the ward cooking.

Ok, so it has been decided that the salad team will be no more and that that role will be made into the cooks roles, and we will just have to do that as well. In theory this means that we would get 1 more cook, to make our team 5.

So last week one of our team left to go home, as did the salad lady!!!

So you do the maths ... yup that 5 to 3!!! Just to add to this our team leader has gone home to Ghana for the week! thankfully we got a cook from the other team, but that still means we have a team of 3 whereas last week we had 5!

So lets just say it was a little busy! breaks in the morning and afternoon were no more and we had to cut down lunch and dinner breaks, but God is good!!! He provided me with all the strength i needed and even two days off to follow!

However i have more madness to look forward to, i now have to work fri, sat and sun with just the 3 cooks again, so im sure more hard work, but hopefully for the crews sake the food will still be upto our high standards :)

2009-02-24T15:10:00.002+01:00

So i just wanna say, that part of the reason ive been putting off this post is i really wanted to be able to add some of the photos from the day, but that isn't possible yet so i will have to add them at a later date. Basically we were not allowed to take our cameras, so the only photos are those of the 3 official photographers. They then take those photos and submit them and they go through a whole process and we have to wait. Which is slightly sad cause i cant add them in yet, but they will be worth the wait i know that! Ive seen one set of photos, by my good friend John, (http://5rollands.blogspot.com/) and well he has an amazing talent for taking photos there is no doubting that they will be worth the wait.

So as you know i had an early start! we left the ship just after 3:30 am, it was only a short drive to the stadium where the screening was happening. I really had no idea what to expect, we had a report from someone that had been there the day before saying there were people there already. They weren't wrong, so we arrived in the pitch black on a plan as you go idea i think! When we rocked up just before 4:00am here were prob 300 people waiting there already.

There were about 15 of us in the early crew and i have to say, i sensed God peace at that time in an amazing way. There were fears that the people would push, and people would try and jump the que and stuff, but from those very first moments God presence was almost tangible to me. As we hurried about trying to set up lines and move everyone from the screening area which had ot be clear it all seemed to go without any problems.

The basic process was that everyone was pre screened in a tent outside, then if what was wrong with them was something that we could help with they would be escorted into the stadium where they would be seen by the relevant doctors and then would be given a date to come to the ship to have their surgery of whatever it was that they required.

This is a view from inside the stadium before it was set up for screening

So the location worked really well, there were 2 entrances into the stadium, so we decided that one was an entry only and the other exit only. So i think Mike (the security officer) decided that it be best to send the 2 biggest guys there to guard the exit gate! ... Yup i be one of those guys! So from about 4:30-8:30am i was posted on the gate shown below: Now we managed to work that barrier you can see on the right as you look which made it alot easier to control. The first few mins were interesting to say the least, and thankfully there weren't that many people around, and with neither me nor Dallas (the other "big guy") speaking any french it was interesting, we learnt what next entrance was, and well used that an awful lot!

Thankfully within not much time we managed to get ourselves a translator who told who what the people were saying!

So from 8:30am-1:30pm i was situated right at the front of the que. Which i have to say cause a whole mix of emotions throughout the day. What this meant is i was the last person before they patients were seen in pre screening. When one of the medical staff was free i then directed the patient in their direction. This was a great place to be from being able to see everything from a very close place. It was great to be able to see patients being refereed inside where it meant that there was a good chance they might be able to get the life changing sugary. On the other side it was so hard to see people being told that we couldn't help them. God really spoke to me that even though we couldn't help them that he was in control of all and this really comforted me in this hard time. Even just being treated well would be something totally new for some of the potential patients.

I was talking to one of the translators and he told me how you wouldn't normally see people with tumors or things that look un "normal" to most of us. This is because of the amount of abuse they would get, so they would be forced to live their lives in shame and in the shadows. So just being able to be Jesus hands and feet to them was a great privilege for me and the others who were serving at the screening day. We were able to set up a prayer zone where we offered prayer to anyone we couldn't help, for we know that for something are not possible for us, but all things are possible for God.

So by the time 1:30pm came, i was exhausted to be honest, 10 hours in outside, most of it in the heat took its toll on my, and i only had about 20mins total break in that time, so i headed back to the ship.

So on thu alone (there were more people on fri on the overflow day) we saw 1987 potential patients, if you include the family members that were there with them its estimated there were over 4000 people that attended screening day on thu alone. The total rose to 2773 after the overflow day.

There is a video that will show you more about the screening day and what happened, you should be able to access it from the following link ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prJxp346a6U

Days Off

2009-02-23T16:27:00.002+01:00

So i think i thought when i first arrived here about a month ago that i would have loads of free time on my days off and wouldnt know what to do with myself ... how wrong i was!

Now this morning was my fault i didnt have time to do anythin i guess, i mean i was asleep till 11:30am! Yes a lie in, this to me seemed very strange, i cant remmeber the last one i had! this weekend esp has been mad busy! So i think my bosy really needed some rest! ... i know i havent blogged about screening day, but i will, i just want to do it when i have some time, which now i dont really have :(

I had set this afternoon aside to blog, email etc, but after my sucessful records night i think people have caught on that i can get things like that "a happening" so i somehow have got involved in organzing a British Pancakes night for all the 70 british people on the ship! So for the past 3 hours ive been getting lists together of who acutally is british, then trying to work out where they all live and posting notes on their doors! Madness i say! But hopefully a few good pancakes 2morrow will make up for all the running around 2day :)

So it seems like days off are just as busy as days working! So 2morrow i have one more day off before i have to work, and yes i will try again to set some time aside ... lets see if that time remains free!!!

Screening Day

2009-02-21T11:03:00.000+01:00

So just wanna say that it was one long long day! But it went really well, and there is lots to say and tell, but im just on a break from work right now and i wanna share about it when i have some more time, so i will expand on screening day very soon!

hope your well whereever you are :)

Samuel

Screening Day Update

2009-02-17T23:04:00.002+01:00

So i was having lunch yesterday and talking to Paul (another english guy on the ship) and he was saying about how some people are sent out at like 4am, and Klaus (my German room mate) was saying how he signed up for that slot cause in his dept it had the times, where as i signed up on a general list

So the lists came out 2day ... Klaus is leaving at 7am ... Oh this poor Englishman isnt :( ... yup you guessed it, my car leaves at 3:30am thu morning!!!

Yup then i have to work fri, sat, sun!

So your prayers for energy and just being able to find my strength in God would we wonderful!

Thanks all! Hope your not all as busy as me :)

Just putting it out there

2009-02-16T23:39:00.004+01:00

Ok so imagine the smell ... 4 rubbish (big industrial size bins) worth of rubbish that has been sitting there for days, 2 bins worth not in the bins cause we only have 2 at any one time. There is all sorts of stuff in here, food waste and meat oh meat that was off or something so just there and man did that smell bad, and i got it all down my clothes and had to change that is how bad i smelt.

Ok so you think this is bad right ...

OH MY GOODNESS NO ITS NOT!!!

So there is this meat, i know not of its name (i shall find out), but in the form before its bean treated and taken out of its package its the horrid'ist smell i have ever smelt. Sol, one of my co cooks smelt it and pulled a face, so stupidly i thought it prob didnt smell that bad, so i took a deep breath, and well i was almost sick that is how bad it is ...

Now i went to a hospital open house the other night and got to dress up as a doctor etc, here is a pic

Ok, so back to the meat, so i had this good idea, so i blagged leaving work for 1 min (yup everything really is that close to where i leave!) i ran to my sisters cabin cause i had taken that face mask thing im wearing in that pic away with me and left it there, so i ask her for it. So she breaks it to me that its not smell proof ... i tell you what is though ... that mask with a peg over your nose! Goodness knows what i looked like (there was a pic taken, i will try and find it) but the other cooks found it pretty funny, but i was happy cause i couldn't smell that darn meat no more

Samuel

Benin, First thoughts

2009-02-15T18:07:00.002+01:00

So due to the ship having some problems we arrived a day later than planned here in Benin on Tuesday 10th Feb. Which was kinda unfortant because we didnt get cleared to leave the ship till the next day, and well i was working wed and thu so i decided that it best to wait to leave the ship till the weekend. We have had a lot of briefings about Benin, and well it sounds like it gets a lot more un safe after dark, so that chances of me going exploring after dark in a place ive never gone before werent very high (infact zero!)

For those you you that wanting to know exactly where i am, we are in Cotonou which is in the south of Benin

So thankfully with this whole weekend off ive managed to leave the ship 4 times now!

So my first experience was Friday with my sister and her family (http://thefarrells.org.uk/), so we made it prob 50 yards down the dock and well some guy called Michael comes off a boat, and well he came with us the whole way!!! I had been warned this might happen, so it was Sarah, Tommy, Tom (4 1/2), Joshua (2), Michael the Beninese man and myself! We didnt make it too far, just to the end of the dock and down a couple of roads, pretty much it was very hot and the boys got tired very quickly! It did give Michael time for a few questions, which he seemed rather concerned about. He really thought it strange that Tommy didnt have a daughter and he very much wants Tommy now to have one!!! ... and for me ... well a wife of course! My reply that im still young wasnt good enough for him i feel.

So friday night a group of about 15 or so of us ventured out for some dinner! And oh what a good choice that was ... so the chips ... they were just like good old English chips!!!

My 3rd and 4th ventures have been alot less eventful, just a couple of walks around the main road, i will try and get some pics of these places for you all to see!

So this week ahead is gonna be very hard working i feel, i have to work in the kitchen mon,tue,fri,sat,sun and this thu is screening day.

What that means is there are going to be about 2000-3000 people coming to the football stadium to be looked at my the medical team and will be booked for operations on the ship, or whatever they need. So even though im non medical i will be there, most prob i will just be security of some type making sure that everyone is ok etc! I will give more details of this when i know more!

Ok so this is the map of where we are docked, we are docked pretty much right down the end of the thing you can see sticking out of the land in the picture.

View Larger Map

Keep in there for the pinapple!

2009-02-15T12:05:00.002+01:00

So dont get me wrong here, im not the worlds biggest fan of the cucumber, but i would say i like a little bit of cucumber action here and there.

So when after a couple of weeks of the ship i see something rather strange looking in one of the salad pans i decide its prob best to take a closer look ... and well with further inspection it turns out to cucumber! not in the shape nor form that im use to back in England, but it was 100% cucumber! skin less, but cucumber all the same ...

So it would be rude not to grab yourself some action after so long without right? Well i did, and well it started off not too bad, different taste but then there was a strange taste on one of the bits, and i asked around the table and the other people were experiencing the same thing, some of the cucumber tasted pretty strange and it wasn't very pleasant! So of course being me, next time i saw it i felt like i should give it a 2nd try ... yup same thing, strange yucky taste!

So a couple of days later im working in the galley (thats what they call the kitchen here) (i will try and get some pics of where i work for you all). So we have a separate salad team, they sort out the salad and fruit and veg pretty much, and well i see they have some bananas, and well one of the perks of my job is i get to try stuff, so banana was tried, and well it was nice enough.

But then was the jackpot item ... Pineapple, different looking from England yet again, but it was pineapple, and well i wanted to try some!

And i did ... And no disappointment was found there whatsoever ... That be the best piece of pineapple ive ever had there is no doubt there! and yes indeed i be a big fan of pineapple back home! So this was a pretty good moment to be honest!

So here are my words for 2day ... I dont know where you are, what your doing or how your feeling today, this week, this month or longer. I dont know if you are in a stage of masses of pineapple, or somewhere that all that seems to be thrown at you is cucumber

But i do know this, when you put your faith in God weather you are in that hard place and it feels like there is no light at the end of the tunnel, or if you feel like you are at the top of the mountain and you can see the beauty of everything for miles and miles, God is more than enough for you. He will provide you with the strength.

So if you find yourself on that mountain my prayer for you is that you enjoy the view, but that you keep your eyes fixed on the one who made the view.

Or if you find your self in a tunnel and you feel like the way in blocked and there is no way out, my prayer for you is you will find strength in the one who is more than enough, He will rise you up on eagles wings and will be your strength when you are weak.

And if you are up the mountain or in the tunnel but feel alone and dont really get who this God is, or arent even sure if there is a God. In Matthew 7:7 it says "Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened for you." It is my prayer for you that you will seek him, for if you ask it of him then he will reveal himself to you.

So to all of you, i hope that today might be a day where you find a pineapple in your life.

Africa Mercy Record Night

2009-02-10T14:50:00.003+01:00

So i guess i should give the background and how this all begun ... Well i was talking to Sally Peet (see http://www.peetfamily.org.uk/) and she was telling me about her nice new cabin and how lovely and big it was, and we somehow got talking about how she thought that she could fit every person on board the ship in it ... well that isnt very practical however later that night when i was sharing this with my friend Jo, we started talking about where else you could put people etc, and well we came up with a bathroom ...

Ok so in most of the cabins and in various hallways there are these standard size bathrooms with a toilet and shower in ... So then i made it to the dinning room where there we 6 people hanging out and i told them of my plan to make a record for the most amount of people to fit in one of these bathroom and that there would be other records to follow ... So Davey promptly said "your all words no action" and the rest they say is history ... So the 7 of us marched down the stairs and comfortably all fit in and set the first ever Africa Mercy Record!!!

So its amazing how people can take up ideas! So there were notes put on peoples doors and even a slide that was shown on the TVs we have on the ship and out of it the first ever Africa Mercy Record Night Was Born ...

This is the slide that was shown on the TV's

So of course the bathroom one was left till last ... and to be honest im not sure where some of these came from ... but through out the evening there were such record breaking events as ...

Balancing a kiwi on a spoon, while blindfolded, wearing a life jacket, on one foot while on a ship that was sailing!
Holding Two Nalgene Bottles full of water (1 liter each) with your arms stretched out for as long as you can
Doing as many press ups in 1 minute as possible
Stacking 10 chairs on tables then un stacking them in the fastest time
Building the highest tower with cutlery which could stand by its self
Table tennis challenge
Drinking a 1 liter cartoon of Pear juice in the fastest time
Fitting as many people in a bathroom as possible

Meg - The current Kiwi Challenge record holder

Now a note on the pear juice ... there were 7 people that did this event, and well ... You would think it would take a while ... the slowest was 35 seconds! The current record is now held by Marcs (Grey shirt below) who drank the 1 litre in an incredible 11 seconds!

Some of the Pear Juice Competitors

Ok So as i said we had already made 7 in the bathroom before, and well we actually did 14 thu night, so 14 was the current record ... Ok so at the peak of the night there were well over 100 people in attendance so we decided to split people that wanted to be involved and make it a competition well as a record attempt ... i have to say the commitment was amazing ... we managed a very respectable 22 in ours but was just out done by the other team manging to fit in 24 ... I feel this picture shows you just how committed some people were to this event ...

Every inch was taken up!

Weekend and a half!

2009-02-10T14:27:00.002+01:00

So i guess you would maybe imagine that sailing from Tenerife To Benin would be a relaxing thing, some may go as far as saying it would be pretty boring not seeing land or being able to go anywhere for 11 days ... well if you ever have to sail from Tenerife to Benin here is one sure way of not getting bored or having a relaxing time ...

Become an Assistant Cook with an active social life ... that's it ... there will be time for no boredom i can promise you that!

So i have to work alternative weekends, and well this was my first chance to see what working hard really is about on this little ship im living on!

So having already been up at the latest of 7:30am for Monday through Thursday you would really hope that you would get at least one lie in over the weekend ... oh no, Friday and Saturday were both 8am starts meaning if you wanted breakfast you had to be up at the latest of about 7:15am to make it before they put it away ... Now Sunday is the day of rest right ... Not when you have to be at work at 6am it isnt!!! Yup had to make bacon and eggs for all the ship mates!

So its no early finish either, i mean i get time off for lunch and dinner, but am there till gone 7pm most days i work cleaning up all the pots and pans that we have used.

I can honestly and comfortably say that ive done more washing up in the 2 weeks ive been here than in the previous 24 years ive been alive!!!

So then add in to this that in the evenings there is always something to do its just a little busy, now im not complaining at all, im happy to work those long hours i just didn't want any of you thinking i was having an easy time out here!

So Sat night was Africa Mercy Record Night ... Such a good night, in fact it deserves its own post ...

Days Off

2009-02-05T15:58:00.000+01:00

So after the long days of Monday and Tuesdays with meeting in the morning and working all day long i was rather looking forward to having the next two days off since i have to work fri, sat and sun!

Its very strange however how full those days off can become! Ive still had 8am meetings which kinda sucks :( then today i spent most of the rest of the morning with my sister Sarah and my adorable nephew Joshua. Lunch came and went and i had finally got around to putting my washing away (yes i did my washing all by myself last nite!) and well ...

It was apparently time for a fire drill! i mean just when i was cleaning my room! (i say room, think cupboard! i shall try and provide some photos more regularly of what im talking about! will add them soon! So yeah the fire drill takes a while! have to go and put my life jacket on etc and then just stand around for a while! I shall also try and get a shot of my wearing one of those bad boys!

So yeah now im back with Sarah and this time my other nephew Tom, while Joshua is sleeping! So have just grabbed a couple of mins to say how im still doing well! Still busy even on my day off, but alot more relaxing, like yesterday afternoon i managed to play cards with yet new people for about 2 hours which was nice and out side on one of the decks so good times were had by all i hope!

So i hope this post finds you all well where ever you are and whatever your doing! Im in the process of trying to set up a news and prayer letters so if you would like to receive either or both just drop me a mail at sjslennett@aol.com and i shall add you to my list!

Samuel

First Week

2009-01-31T17:11:00.001+01:00

That would be my home ... The Africa Mercy

So where to start .... So i guess i should firstly say how sorry i am its taken me a whole week to make my first post since i left England!!!

Basically its been all go! this is the first time ive been on my comp the whole time ive been here i think! I has been in my sisters cabin so i think that about proves it!

So I landed Sat 24th Jan at about 9pm, which was about 2 hours later than was meant, but some jazz about our plane being stuck somewhere meant a 2 hour delay, which did mean i got to watch the whole of the west ham game in the pub which was cool!

So we pretty much had time just to get our hire car, and take the long way home! basically we drove round and round mountains, no wrong turns at all may i add! it was just a long way! So we finally arrived at our hotel about 12.

So Sunday, Monday and Tuesday i was not officially on the ship, so these were spent visiting the ship, shopping for things i needed and just hanging out with my sister and her family who are on the ship also (see www.thefarrells.org.uk)

We managed to visit a beach with black sand!

So Wednesday, 28th, was the big day, i rolled up and well ive been here to stay ever since! Wednesday didnt really consist of much, a little tour of the ship and such! just gettin use to everything and spending some time with some friends i had made this summer in Texas and also with some new friends ive made since ive been here!

So Thursday was a little more hectic! So had a meeting with my new department head 9:30am, for those of you that dont know im an assistant cook on the ship. So that lasted about an hour, then followed a tour around where i would be working and going all over all sorts of safety stuff. This all just about finished in time for lunch (12) So i thought it best ask my boss (Peter) when i was gonna start, and well he said, its your team cooking today so how about this afternoon?

So i did! There is no chef on board right now so there are 2 cooking teams, and we do half of the days each. Each team does 2 of the first 4 days of the week, then alternate which team does fri,sat,sun. So only half the days you might think? But when we work ... we work it seems! Days cane be about 12 hours, and on my team there are (including me) 5 people, with no chef cooking for at the moment about 350 people.

So 1:30-5:00 was dinner prep, cant save ive ever cooking fries for 350 people before, that is one heck of alot of frying i shall tell you that!

So the most interesting thing was that the ship was being evaluated and i had been working for about 40 mins and the inspector comes to where were working and says "do you all cook here regularly" so they others nod and i just kinda look blankly at him, well he of course picks me out to tell him what to do if there is a fire, so the other people present are my boss and the captain of the ship!!! So looks like i got away with it ... to be continued ...

So after a break for dinner it was back to the kitchen to clean up hard core! all the stuff we had used to cook the stuff on, we got done about 7pm,

So thu nights is the community meeting. So the captain is doing a little talk and he goes on to say how impressed the inspector is, and lists a couple of departments and thanks them, then he says i want to say a big thank you to the galley (name of the place i work) there was a guy in there i hadnt ever seen before and found out he was on his first day and the inspector was impressed with what he said about how to deal with a fire and what to do! Yup was me :)

So after that was Friday, and a day off thankfully and a little more chilled out, Was a hard day cause had to say goodbye to mum, dad and Amy :(

So today is Sat, and after a fire drill ... we set sail ... yup ... we are on the way to Benin, West Africa ...

We also managed a trip to the local playground!

Packing time ...

2009-01-23T13:35:00.000+01:00

So i leave to start my journey with MercyShips in just about 24 hours

So have i started packing .... nope

Have i started thinking about packing ... nope

Right best idea of what to do now ... LUNCH!!!

Now i bet you thought i was gonna say go pack didnt you!!!, ah well best to start off with a full stomach!

:)

Mercy Ships Video

2009-01-19T12:44:00.000+01:00

Here is a video that should give you a better idea of what Mercy Ships do :)

So its looks like its happening!

2009-01-10T22:31:00.000+01:00

So its looks like im acutally gonna be heading out to Africa ...

Yup, like really really going! ...

And in only 2 weeks from 2day, so still a few forms to fill out and such but barring any last min hitches then on the 24th of Jan 2009 I Samuel Slennett will be starting a new chapter of my life

Bring it on!