Sailing Into Durban! (Part 1 of 5)

Greetings from the Republic of South Africa!

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Durban…, South Africa…, Wow!!! Exciting, Surreal… Imagine – It’s for real, I’m in South Africa, can you believe it???         I can hardly believe it myself!…Thank you Koonu Kulu (God) for all the challenges, surprises and adventures I am having because of following your call to be a missionary to those on the continent of Africa! Thank you for bringing me here and for all of those who send me to serve you, Mercy Ships and the peoples of Africa in this capacity!

Okay, it is 17 days since we set sail from Togo to Durban and the date is now 1 Sept., 1st day of Spring in the Republic of South Africa (RSA) and we are docked at the port of Durban aka eThekwini (original Zulu name) in the province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). We travelled 3,400 nautical miles (6,290 km) to get here. Our reason for being here is to have major repairs done to our ship, or as a friend of mine said, “our home (the ship) will be going into ‘dry-dock’ as it is taken out of the water for some serious surgery (how the roles have turned!)”

But I jump ahead, more about the shipyard in part 4. :)

As we came into Durban, we first saw the Moses Mabhida Stadium that was used in the 2010 FIFA World Cup! 

The panoramic view of Durban was beautiful and reminded me of home in so many ways (I’m not sure why). 

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Then  a group of Mercy Shippers: the Academy’s very own Director, Brian Blackburn & Academy Principal, Nikki Aldum: the advance team (who prepared the way for us to be here (with God’s infinite help of course)), Brenda and Cathy: the director of the National office,  John Paul: and the project manager and his wife, Ken and Ann, in addition, there was a past South African crew member and a bunch of security and custom officials to welcome us to the port, Durban and South Africa. It was a welcome sight – most of us were ready for land!We were all waving back and forth, like, shall I say it?, a bunch of lunatics! :)

To prepare for this momentous entry into the port of Durban, our Captain  prayed on the overhead for our safe arrival and to be able to clear customs etc. with a minimum of fuss (thank you God for the answer to those prayers), the deck crew also could be seen in a prayer circle praying for our safe arrival, the people of South Africa and our presence here (so far, prayers again were answered).  We also had an evening briefing on that first night of 1 Sept. with the advance team. After the briefing we all broke into groups to pray for every aspect of our being here that we could think of including an unsigned Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the government while the crew is stationed here, and for our next field service in Sierra Leone (one thing about being a missionary is you are always busy and thinking and praying for what God has ahead – what you know and what you don’t!). Thank God again, and for the work of our advance team leader, Brenda, that our MOU is also now signed. In addition, I want to thank all of you for your prayers  for our safety and presence during the sail and into this country. Without them things could have been very different! We know that for sure!!!! That was what we did first to prepare to live in this country for the next 4 to 5 months, and I wanted you to know that!

In addition, our preparation into the RSA included special emergency drills,  painting a big yellow dot on our top deck (deck 8) for the arrival of a helicopter, 

 

and packing up all necessary belongings to move ashore. 

For the first time ever in the history of Mercy Ships, the Harbour Pilot arrived by helicopter.  Security and fire and emergency teams stood by while the crew were prevented from going to close to the aft of the ship where the helicopter would let the Harbour Pilot down. The Harbour Pilot landed safely. (In all countries a “Harbour Pilot” brings the ship into port and docks it).  Once the pilot landed safely we raised the red & white flag on the left which indicates the pilot is on board, the yellow flag in the middle to invite custom officials on board for inspection  and clearance for the ship and crew and lastly, the flag on the far right is the country flag (RSA). We always fly the flag of the nation we are visiting.

I hope you enjoyed part 1 of 5… I will talk to you again soon!

I love you guys! I wish you all a beautiful Autumn/Spring depending on which side of the equator you live on! It’s very weird coming into warm/hot (freezing cold – lol) weather knowing Christmas will be the well into Summer!!! Can you imagine???

Thanks for your interest and support of this blog!

Mag Got saam met jou wees! (Afrikaans for May God be with you!)

Love and hugs,

Carol xox