What Are We Doing Here in The RSA (Part 5 of 5)

Sawubona! (Hello)

This is the hardest part: Here I am a missionary serving in Africa, but I’m not making a difference to the people who live here, or am I? By getting these repairs done we boost the life of the M/V Africa Mercy for years to come, so for the first time in her existence we can be a hospital ship running all 6 of our operating rooms at full capacity. Beds have been taken from other departments and added to the hospitals allotment for the extra work that will be able to be done. (Each department is allotted so many beds for the staffing needs of that department.) While this work is being done, we are still a community, a divided one, but a community with the same goal, hopes and dreams for our ship and willing to do what that takes. Many of our technical crew have families, if there are families; we need a school - hence my part! In which case we then need the obvious: galley, HR, IT, housekeeping, dining room, bank, post office etc. Get the picture! Not only that, but we now need two locations for some of these services. Okay, I feel a bit better…In addition to the crews needs to complete the projects going on at this time, we have a Programs Department  that is up and running…

We have the Mental Health program lead by Dr. Lyn Westman and Clemetine.   

 

 

 

They have guest speakers, such as, June Fontes below.    

 

 

 

 

They are working with church leaders and are offering training in Mental Health, Whole Person Ministry and Counselling Training in 4 different locations with over 96 participants. ( June Fontes back left, Clemetine Tengue in front of her, Lyn Westman in the middle and Keith Brinkman third from the right in the back.)

We then have the Dental team who are in partnership with the Department of Health. They are going to rural clinics and public hospitals. It has been arranged with the Department of Health that the patients who go to the hospital for dental care will not be charged. They will be doing dental procedures and hygiene services for approx. 1000 patients.

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They will be training local dentists in specific surgical skills and will be going into the public schools, teaching basic oral health and handing out toothbrushes to approx. 5,000 students.

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And we have the Eye Team (no pictures available) working in another province – the Eastern Cape. They will be going to 3 locations training both surgeons, surgical nurses and the eye care workers.

Keith, who is the Programs Administrator and supplied the information above still has to collate all the information of what we did in Togo, support the above teams that are working in the field and work as the liaison with the Advance team who will be deployed to Sierra Leone mid-October to start getting things in order there for our upcoming arrival. Thank you Keith for making this information available and for all you do! Okay, I’m starting to feel a bit more involved…let me continue!

Last week, many of the crew living at the Bosch got together with the local Lutheran church across the dirt road and painted and did minor repairs on one of their facilities. The Academy has       set-up a program for the students called “Life Skills” where they (and crew) can get involved in community projects. There are many painting and repairing projects being organized by our Chaplaincy department  and one of our high school teachers, Kim (washing the floor below).

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In addition, some of our crew are being invited to go out and speak in the local churches.

This information does not include just being “salt and light” (the couple below just celebrated their 44th  wedding anniversary with joy, love, thankfulness, humour & romance)through nothing more than living out the two-hands of the gospel to those who manage and work at Appelsbosch, the surrounding community and our technical crew working side-by-side with the shipyard workers! God will use our presence here for the good of the people in SA – I’m convinced, how about you? I definitely feel better now! We have only been here 5 weeks and much has already been accomplished! Work is being done while ‘we are being worked on’, and our call to help the poor, needy, unwell people of Africa is being done with a future that will allow our mission work to reach even more than before and more efficiently!! Praise and Glory to the Lord!

Okay, that’s your update! I hope you enjoyed it – I enjoyed doing it for you and look forward to hearing from you.

May the peace of God be with you...the love of Jesus enfold you...and the Spirit of Christ fill you.

Love as always,

Carol xox

P.S. Throughout these 5 parts I have not only used my own photos, but also a few from various crew; such as, Dag, PR (Deb & John), Chuck, Murray and perhaps somebody's from our shared photo drive (known as the transfer drive where any crew member can share their photos) – I’m not sure! Thank you, each and every one of you for sharing your photos!