Antwerp to Rotterdam to Tenerife to Switzerland to the USA to Senegal...and everything in between!

 

This guy right here...he's pretty wonderful...and he's also the reason for all the upcoming change!

Just when I think I have a grasp on “the plan” it changes. I don’t know why that would surprise me anymore, but it still does. Big changes are once again coming at me fast. I thought I was stepping into the unknown when we had to leave Senegal over two years ago now…I thought I was stepping into the unknown when I went back to the USA for my “forced sabbatical year” which ended up lasting fifteen months…I thought I was stepping into the unknown when I returned to the ship with a whole new crew and teaching team in the fall…I thought I was stepping into the unknown when I transferred to our brand new ship, the Global Mercy, in January. And I was! Those were all big unknowns. And here I am again, stepping into a whole new world of unknown, but this time it’s all because of a handsome, Swiss mechanic! I’ll get there, I promise! Read on!

We arrived in Belgium to board our new ship, the Global Mercy, in January and we didn’t even make it onboard before my parents were both put into isolation in a hotel with covid. I quarantined for 48 hours in the hotel too before being released to board my ship! 

But 48 hours later I was back in isolation for 10+ days in my cabin. I “attended” back to school night and started teaching remotely from my cabin. I spent my birthday in my cabin and was showered with cards and flowers and visitors who stood in the hallway at a safe distance and waved!

 Belgium was full of weekend trips to Luxembourg, Brussels, Waterloo, Bruges and biking to the Netherlands border. We also got to host the queen of Belgium onboard! In Belgium I lived on Belgian waffles, fries, and chocolate!

In February I got to sail for the first time on the GloMer. We had a little overnight sail up to Rotterdam in the Netherlands and arrived for our two week PR tours to the sight of wall to wall people lining the Erasmus bridge and the dock side waving and cheering. Tug boats shot off water canons as we entered and we did a 360 twirl so everyone watching could get a view od every angle of the ship.

 Mom and I worked our normal jobs during the day and led tours by night! I’d finish teaching kindergarten at 3:20 and then run down to my room to change into my uniform and then down to the dock to start our tours. It was an exhausting two weeks, but so much fun! My acapella group got to sing in the VIP tent for the Mercy Ships board meeting. We hosted an Andrea Bocelli concert onboard and I got to be his escort down to the international lounge! We also hosted princess Anne onboard! In The Netherlands I lived on Dutch stroopwaffels, fries, and cheese!

In March we sailed home, I mean, back to Tenerife. I always think I’ve left this place and yet I always come back, and it really does feel like home now. The sail through the Bay of Biscay was a rough one and it looked a bit like my classroom exploded in the rocking and rolling. Kindergarten relocated to the café for most of the week so we wouldn’t get squished between flying furniture in the kindergarten classroom. In Tenerife I live on papas arugadas con mojo rojo and churros y chocolate!

Towards the end of March I had the sweetest visitor! We sailed into Tenerife on the 21st and my guy flew in on the 22nd (he wasn’t “my guy” at that point, but by the 23rd he was!). His name is Lukas, he’s from Switzerland and he was serving as the transportation manager onboard the AFM in the fall when I got back onboard last September. He loves Jesus with all his heart, he’s kind, sweet, funny, a great conversationalist, curious, wonderful, and he LOVES helicopters. In fact, he left Mercy Ships in November to go serve as a helicopter mechanic for three months in South Africa. We continued talking and getting to know one another from December-March when we decided to officially be a couple. I knew that that’s what I wanted pretty much from the first time we met and I was pretty sure God was nudging me in his direction, but God and I just needed to give Lukas the time he needed to get onboard with the plan as well, which he did when he came to visit me in Tenerife!

So, that brings me back to the fact that I am yet again stepping into yet another big unknown. Here’s what I do know (at least, I think I do, but I also realize that in my life everything is subject to change!):

-          This week we will sail the GLM to Dakar Senegal and we will have both ships side by side for the first time ever! We will celebrate and party because God is good and this is a moment we have been waiting for for YEARS!

-           In twelve days I will finish school here on the GLM and I will fly to Switzerland to spend ten days with Lukas and his family.

-          In 23 days we will fly together back to the USA where Lukas will attend Mercy Ships’ onboarding program in Texas this summer as he has committed to another two years onboard. I will play around with my babies in Dallas and go see Lukas on the weekends and then we will fly together back to Senegal to board the Africa Mercy.

Here’s what I don’t know:

-          I don’t know what I will be teaching on the AFM in the fall.

-          I don’t know who my roommate will be or what the community will look like exactly in this crazy season. I know it will be quite different from what I’m used to when the ship has been in field service in the past.

-           I don’t know how to be a girlfriend or how to date while living onboard the AFM…

                                                                   …but I’m about to find out!

“My Love is Not Fragile”

 I’ve said it before, but God speaks to me through Disney movies. Don’t laugh…it just true! For the last two years He has been speaking to me through the Frozen II soundtrack. Take a look…

Almost two years ago I decided that “Into the Unknown” was going to be the theme song of the year for me as I decided to go to the Global Mercy instead of back to my home on the AFM. Little did I know how deeply into the unknown I was about to be plunged when COVID hit and I had to suddenly leave our country as well as many friends and go into quarantine for 81 days onboard the Africa Mercy before I flew back to the USA.

That anthem transitioned for me about six months later from “Into the Unknown” to “The Next Right Thing.” I was so deep “into the unknown” as my return date changed from October 2020 to January 2021 to April 2021, that all I could do was the next right thing that was right in front of me. For the majority of my “forced sabbatical” year I only had a plan for about two weeks at a time so it was really a matter of living each day where I was and being ok not knowing what was coming next. I just needed to do the next right thing and walk where God led.

This past May that anthem changed again to “Some Things Never Change.” Since the moment I chose this path, it certainly seems that everything has done nothing but change. Even I get confused trying to remember and relay to others what the current plan is. The thing about everything changing all the time is that it brings into focus the things that don’t. Anna was right, some things never change. God’s love doesn’t change. God’s provision doesn’t change. My desire to serve with Mercy Ships hasn’t changed.

That brings me to the new anthem from Frozen II, which this time actually isn’t a song, but a line that means a lot to me. At one point Anna is trying to apologize to Kristoff for leaving him behind and his response is so lovely. He looks at Anna and says, “It’s ok. My love is not fragile.”

I love what I do, where I live, the people I work with, and after all I’ve been through with Mercy Ships in the past couple years…all the changing plans, changing ships, changing countries, changing what I teach…I’m here to tell you, Mercy Ships, I’m still here and my love is not fragile.

I’m still here because I love Mercy Ships. I love the purpose behind all that we do. I love the international community I get to be a part of. People onboard often refer to their “real life,” meaning life back home in whatever country they’re from, and I know what they mean, but I love that for me, Mercy Ships is my “real life.”

As I dive into a new season with Mercy Ships – a season in which I get to be a part of pioneering what the GLM academy will look like, what community will look like, what life will look like onboard our brand new ship, I realize that there will continue to be quite a lot of unknowns. I will be confused and unsure and all I’ll be able to do is the next right thing. I also know that in the midst of all that, some things will never change because my love for Mercy Ships is not fragile and more importantly, God’s love for me is not fragile.

            I’m ready to start a new adventure with Mercy Ships, and I think I’m ready for a new soundtrack as well. I’ve been living in the Frozen II soundtrack a good long while. But I’ll keep it on the playlist in my brain, because there’s such truth there.

A day in the life of a preschool teacher…I mean a choir teacher…I mean an art teacher…I mean a science teacher…wait, what am I teaching today?

 When asked what I teach in this season, I usually answer, “I teach a little bit of a lot!” I am the preschool teacher onboard the Africa Mercy at the moment, however preschool only goes until lunch time, so after lunch I pick up other classes for the elementary students such as art, choir, and grade 1 science. This is a short season for me onboard, just mid-September through mid-December while I wait to board the GLM, but it also has been an incredibly sweet season as I feel like I get to teach all the fun stuff and I get to know all of the elementary students very well, which brings incredible joy to my heart. Here’s a glimpse into what my days onboard look like:

7am –                    I wake up in my little cabin, get dressed, and head up to breakfast where I usually get to eat with some of the incredible Academy team or with my Daddy, which is such a treat after spending three years onboard without my parents.

7:45am -              Teacher devotions time

8:00am -              Student devotions time (the teachers take turns leading the student devotions)

9:00am -              My first-year preschooler arrives at school. We pray and do calendar and then go into our Bible story for the day. We then go over our letter for the week and color it or find magnets of that letter or cook something that starts with that letter. Then we have choice time and snack time before heading up to the playground on deck 8.

10:10am               We battle the winds up on deck 8 to play on the playground and our two year old friend (who isn’t technically old enough to be in preschool, but whom I recruited as a friend for my three year old) comes and joins us. We slide and scooter around the stack and work on our climbing skills. They’re very imaginative and we like to play castles and princesses and fairies and cars. I pull them around in a wagon and on occasion they pull me.

11:00am               We blow back into our classroom and take a respite from the relentless Tenerife wind. We play in our box castle we have built (with electricity and everything!), we bounce balls down the long deck 7 hallway (and on occasion our principal comes and bounces with us), we read books, and we go on little fieldtrips around the ship.

12:00pm               Preschool ends, often with a few tears because my boys don’t want to leave. What can I say…we have fun together. Lunch time! Some days I eat lunch in the dining room, but I also spend quite a few lunches on the go as I set up for my afternoon classes.

1:00pm                 On Fridays at 1pm I teach elementary choir. We’re not allowed currently to sing onboard due to covid restrictions so we do our breathing warm-ups in my classroom and chant through some of our songs before traipsing out to deck 7 to actually sing through our songs. We do our best to sing over the whistling wind and the roaring jet engines flying over us from the airport nearby. We’ve been working on Christmas music since October, and it brings joy to all our hearts! You oughta hear these kiddos working on their Christmas songs in Spanish (since we’re in spain)!

1:40pm                 On Mondays and Wednesdays during 6^th period I teach elementary art. We have gone through the color wheel, primary vs. secondary vs. tertiary colors, complementary colors, and warm and cool colors. I’ve never specifically been an art teacher before, but we have a ball!

2:30pm                 On Thursdays I teach the first graders science for the last three periods of the day (12:55-3:20pm). This trimester we have gone through a unit on light and dark as well as a unit on electricity! I love living in a community where the kids and I can go out into the community to learn from people who are more knowledgeable than me on some of these subjects and we can learn together!

3:20                        School is out for the day…but of course a teacher’s day is NOT over! On Mondays we have teacher meetings after school. On days without meetings, I prep for the classes I’ll be teaching the next day. I also learn music to teach the acapella group (Key of Sea) and work on worship music for the next Sunday I’m leading.

5:00                        Dinner time!  

5:30-10pm           Evenings are full of all sorts of activities! I run Key of Sea rehearsal, we have our Christmas quartet rehearsal, we watch The Chosen as a community, we have Community Gatherings, the kindergarten teacher and I watch “All Creatures Great and Small” together, Dad shows historical movies on the big screen in the international lounge, we go for walks on the dock with friends, I work on editing some photos for the comms team, we rehearse for Sunday worship, and we watch the fiery Tenerife sunsets.

10:pm                   Around 10:00pm I throw on my fleece and head out to deck 7 with my Bible and journal. There’s a little table out there that one of our sweet, British carpenters made where I set my books and my little unicorn lantern. I spend quite a bit of time out in that spot reading and writing before I set my pen down and walk down the length of the deck. I walk back and forth and back and forth as I pray and listen for God’s voice and wisdom (in full disclosure I do lot more talking than listening, but I do try to do at least one lap of just listening). I think this is the spot I might miss most when I leave for the GLM. This has become a sacred routine for me.

11:00pm               I walk through a deserted midships and head off to bed in my little cabin to snuggle under my two comforters and quilt and rest before doing it all again tomorrow.              

In two weeks I head back to the USA for Christmas and then on to the Global Mercy in January where a whole new season will begin. I will switch over to teaching kindergarten instead of preschool, I’ll have four students instead of two, I’ll be on a whole new ship and with a whole new community in a whole new country. I don’t know what my classroom or my cabin will look like. I don’t know some of the students who will be in my class. I don’t know how I’ll ever find my way around on that big ship. I don’t know where my unicorn lantern and I will find to read the Bible. But I know it will be good. I know that’s where God wants me. So for now, I’m just trying to soak up every moment I have left in this home before moving to another.