At the end of July I’m flying out to Durban to begin a year volunteering with MercyShips. Landing on 1st of August I’ll be joining MV Africa Mercy, on a 10 month African adventure. I will be teaching Science to Year 5-13 students from around the world in MercyShips Academy. The academy has 50-60 students from all over the world, the children’s parents all work on board the ship.
The MV Africa Mercy is a floating hospital that contains five operating theatres, an intensive care unit, and ophthalmic unit, two CT scanners, X-ray, laboratories and an 82 bed recovery ward. Most staff are volunteers who live aboard in in the 484 berths and make use of a day care center, a school for all ages up, a library, a launderette, a small supermarket, a restaurant, a gymnasium, shops and a donated Starbucks cafe. A fleet of vehicles travels with the ship.
The ship sails to the poorest nations in the earth to provide life transforming free medical care for people who could not otherwise afford it. An even more important role is training local staff in various healthcare roles, responsible leadership and agriculture. Their core mission is to:
…follow the 2000-year-old model of Jesus, bringing hope and healing to the world’s forgotten poor.
To give you an idea of what we do in a year, in the last 12 months, MercyShips has carried out:
| Dental Care Procedures: | 17,099 | ||
| Cataract Surgeries: | 275 | ||
| Orthopaedic Surgeries: | 55 | ||
| Reconstructive Plastic Surgeries: | 110 | ||
| Maxillofacial Surgeries: | 220 | ||
| Cleft Lip & Palate Repairs: | 81 | ||
| General Surgeries: | 221 | ||
| Women’s Health Surgeries | 83 | ||
| Oral Health Education trained students | 928 | ||
| Community Leadership Education students | 303 | ||
| Renovated health clincs | 3 |
Circumstances meant that in the last 12 months the statistics were lower than normal.
I will be supporting the ship’s staff with children by teaching science to their children. I’m looking forward to teaching younger students again as well as teaching Physics and Chemistry to older students. The school follows an American curriculum, which seems very similar to our system except there are no external examinations.
I’m looking forward to many things. Most of all I’m looking forward to doing something that transforms people’s lives, which arguably I’ve been doing since I started teaching. I love living in community and am especially looking forward to living on a boat with lots of nurses making new friends with people from many cultures around the world. MercyShips is a Christian ministry (although you don’t need to be Christian to volunteer), and I’m looking forward to growing in my faith. I love adventures and exploring Madagascar by bike, and seeing some of it’s incredible wildlife, photos to follow! To swimming with sharks without a cage.
In my next blog post in a couple of weeks I’ll tell you what happened that made me give up an excellent job and
Stop by in a couple of week’s time to find out what happened that made me give up an excellent job to volunteer abroad and what ‘luxury items’ I’ll be taking.
Things to do now
- Read further (see below)
- Comment or share this article. What do you think my blog should be called – the title is a working one…
- Support MercyShips financially (I’m not yet raising any of my own support) – give to the UK branch by 30th June and your gift will be doubled!
- Consider volunteering on board, see their website.
- Pray for a successful year for me and the ministry.
Further Reading:
- MercyShips UK website: http://www.mercyships.org.uk/
- The aims of the 2014-2015 mission to Madagascar: http://www.mercyships.org.au/field-mission-update.html
- More information about MV Africa Mercy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Africa_Mercy
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