We’ve been in Senegal for almost a month now! The sail to Senegal was relatively calm, but I definitely didn’t feel great on the sail days. No kids or teachers were throwing up from seasickness though, so we’ll call that a success! We had several themed evenings during the sail, which are always great fun! We had a pirate and mocktails party, a sock golf tournament, and a movie night in midships (watching Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is a 4D experience while sailing)!
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| Our captain worshipping on the bow! |
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| We got to visit the Bridge and check out the charts and maps the ship was following. |
We had school the morning of our arrival so we went to school as normal and waited for the captain to announce “all deck hands to your mooring stations” and then we knew it was time to head out to deck 7! We were getting close! We grabbed our crayon colored flags we had made earlier in the week and headed out for our first glimpse of Senegal!
We passed multiple beautiful islands on our way in and as we neared our new dock space we could see the advance team waving from the dock in their matching African fabric for this special occasion. We waved our flags and sang “Jabulani Africa.” Sailing into a new country is always such a sweet and special experience!
We finally got the ship tied up (and by we, I don’t mean to insinuate that my littles and I had anything to do with it) and we went back to class. That evening we had the welcome ceremony, which we got dressed up for and went out to the deck 7 to watch the ceremony taking place below. There were fingers, dancers, a red carpet, and lots of speeches! The First Lady of Senegal was there and welcomed us! It was as very joyful occasion!
Over the course of this past month, I’ve had the chance to go out to Goree Island, which is one of the main locations that slaves were shipped out of West Africa. You can still tour the slave house where they were kept and the door of no return where they boarded the boats, never to return to Africa. It was a very sobering place, but physically so beautiful! It’s a small island so there are no roads for vehicles! You just walk everywhere and all the doors and flowers are so colorful!
We have also had the Academy and Hospital Open Houses! Those are the two places onboard where general crew are not allowed to go, so we have big open houses for the crew at the beginning if the field service so the crew can all come through and see what happens in those spaces on the ship! During the hospital open house I got to learn how to empty a catheter, do cataract surgery (on an apple) and take a ride through the CT machine! And the hospital opens tomorrow!!!
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| Whole crew! |
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| *Tonight felt like a holy moment to be onboard. We all got to go down to the hospital and pray for every room...I even saw people praying over each bed! There were prayers that were quietly whispered, prayers that were shouted, prayers in many languages at the same time, prayers in song, and everything in between! It was a special moment to be a part of this crew, this family, walking the halls of the hospital seeing people laying hands on doors, praying over specific nurses and friends, and even praying over the stools where the patients will first sit when they get onboard TOMORROW! Pray with us! Pray for courage for these brave people who may have never been on a ship before or even in a hospital before. Pray for physical healing for each of our patients. Pray for spiritual healing and that they will meet Jesus through this family of crew members! |
