Tragedy and Joy

There is much to write about our first week of work onboard the ship but that will have to wait for now. Suffice to say; we made it through, we are much fitter by the end of it than we were at the beginning and that we are still unpacking what it all feels like and the impact it is having on us. So that will come but for now I'd just like to share the stark contrasts of the things that have hit us this weekend.

So to this weekend - yesterday (Saturday) we went to join the Crew/Day Crew picnic on Lumley Beach. Well the pictures of the beach speak for themselves; the utter tragedy of rubbish beyond comprehension. We had been warned, and we do see it all floating past the ship out to sea, but the shock of seeing it first hand was heart breaking. You do not dare to walk barefoot on the beach for needles and much other dangerous rubbish and you wouldn't want to swim (imagine filling your part full household waste wheelie bin with water and jumping in!).

All sorts wash up on the beach (people live on this one)

And the vultures come for the dead dogs that wash up

So that is the tragedy what about the joy....

Well today, Sunday, we went and joined the family reunion service at the Mercy Ships HOPE centre in town (The HOPE centre is the Hospital Out Patients Extension centre where all the patients come before their surgery and go after once they no longer need constant medical care - it has 200 beds and provides capacity for the ship to handle far more patients by keeping most of it's beds for patients needing medical care immediately after surgery).

Anyway the message given at the service was from Luke 13:10-17 - The crippled woman healed by Jesus on the sabbath day, having been crippled for 18 years. As the speaker was talking about it some of the patients there started to call out about how Mercy Ships had been like Jesus to them. They told stories about how people had been against them going to receive this healing just like Jesus' experience. One man talked of the miracle that he had come blind (by cataracts) but could now read without glasses, and that he had brought his Grandson too who had received the surgery he needed and that Mercy Ships wanted nothing in return.

It was an experience like no other; to hear these people praise what Jesus had done for them through the work of this ship and the transformation of their lives as a result. It was such a joyous occasion and humbling to have so many people coming up saying thank you for us just being here, people showing the eyes that could now see, the growths and hernias that would be gone in the next few days and the limbs that had been straightened.

The HOPE Centre

As the book of James, chapter 2, says: "Faith without Action Is Dead".

Faith is very much alive here.