At the Wheel

A perk of going to school on a hospital ship is the fantastic, once in a lifetime type fieldtrips we get to take! This past week is a perfect example! The teachers were batting around fieldtrip ideas a few weeks ago and one of the teachers happened to say how cool it would be to get to go out on the big covered lifeboat! Why not?!? The worst that can happen is the Captain telling us no, so I went ahead and asked. To my surprise, he was all for it!

Last Thursday the entire elementary met out on deck 7 and get suited up in lifejackets and then we traipsed through midships and down the gangway following our captain down to the dock. The hardest, but most heartwarming part of the whole trip was climbing down the ladder that is bolted to the pier to get in and out of the lifeboat. The kids were so brave and focused as they descended the ladder into the arms of the officers already down in the boat. The men from the deck department were so helpful and encouraging as each student and teacher made the steep descent and it was so lovely to hear everyone yelling encouragement to each other!

When we were finally all onboard, Officer Coltan drove us out in to the open water and proceeded to let each and every student havea turn at the wheel! The kids got to decide which direction to make the boat go and how fast to make it go when it was their turn at the wheel and the looks of excitement and wonder were fantastic! Even the teachers go a chance at the wheel! We waved at the patients up on deck 7 as we drove by the ship and they happily waved back to the little orange clad sailors!

When we had all had out turn, we headed back for the dock where the encouragement ensued once more as each student carefully ascended the ladder with Mr. Philip (our electrician) right behind each, ensuring their safety. When we were all safely on form ground again, Captain Milo thanked us for coming and all the students gave him a huge group hug! It was us who should have been thanking him though! Every single person in the deck department worked hard to help this fieldtrip happen, from those setting out our lifejackets, to those who lowered the life boat, to those who actually took us out, to those who cleaned it afterward, and we are so grateful! What an incredible experience! I cannot express enough how grateful I am that our community onboard values our littlest crew members so highly! Kids are one of the greatest blessings onboard. They do so much to make this big metal box feel like a home!

Christmas Onboard the AFM

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a pretty excitable person. I’ve been compared to a chipmunk by many, many people, on many, many occasions throughout my life. I have the heart rate of a baby mouse, I walk with the speed of someone twice my height, and I can go from zero to 60 on the emotion rollercoaster in under 3 seconds. There’s just a lot in life to be excited about, and along with that unfortunately comes a lot in life to be scared about or stressed about. Keeping that in mind, welcome to my Christmas Season on the Africa Mercy…a season where there’s something to be involved in every night of the week, and for an extrovert like me who gets excited about any chance to celebrate, or dress up, or perform, this is fantastic! I love it! I could write an accurate parody of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” about my Christmas Season onboard entitled, “The Very Overcommitted Miss Beth:”

- On Monday, she watched a Christmas Hallmark movie with the Hallmark channel lovelies.

- On Tuesday, she took photos of the kids welcoming Sinterklaas to the ship and sat on the floor of the cafe to watch “The Star” on the big screen with all the kids of the ship.

- On Wednesday, she helped direct the dress rehearsal for the Academy’s Global Community gathering (which involved wrangling the entire elementary into nativity costumes), narrated the story of Santa Lucia as the Scandinavians processed through a dark midships with candles on their heads, and then booked it over to hand chime rehearsal.

- On Thursday, she directed Key of Sea’s acapella rehearsal, getting ready for the Christmas concert on the weekend (which she was also directing) and grabbed her ukulele before heading out to the dock for Carol’s by Candlelight to play along with the 3^rd-5^th graders, after which she stayed up until 1am baking gingerbread pieces with her sweet roomie for the upcoming gingerbread house competition.

Our cabin door is ready for the door decorating competition!

As is my classroom door!

- On Friday…ok fine, you got me…no Christmas activities on Friday because Friday means sitting in the café with the other teachers drinking Frappuccino’s (and making snowflakes for the upcoming Christmas Concert) and then watching Poldark in the evening!

- On Saturday she participated in the gingerbread house competition and directed the AFM Christmas Concert, in which she directed the elementary choir, played handchimes, sang in Key of Sea, sang in a Christmas Quartet, and read a Christmas story.

- On Sunday, she rested…and played handbells during the advent service.

- THE END

I love doing each and every one of those things and I wouldn’t trade them for anything! I get energy from being around people, which means that while all those events may sound exhausting, for me it’s so energizing! Perhaps a little too energizing on occasion. So much energy and excitement and stress coursing through one little body can, on occasion, cause an explosion, which usually looks like me sitting in my classroom at midnight crying while facetiming with Kate. For example, take the Christmas concert last night. I loved every second of that concert and I think the audience did as well! It was magical! There were however moments beforehand that were not so magical. Moments that no one else saw.

-          Moments like me lugging bags of paper shreddings for “snow” up to my classroom for a week from what seemed like every shredder on the ship.

-          Moments of hearing other crew members lament that there was yet another “Christmas Concert” (apparently not understanding that the other events weren’t in fact “Christmas Concerts” but a classical concert three weeks ago and a Global Community Gathering two weeks ago, and yes, that’s a lot of events, but they didn’t have to come if they didn’t want to and it made me feel rather unwanted).

-          Moments when, after not having enough people sign up to perform, a name was added to the list only for me to later find out that his friends had signed him up as a joke (cue me in my classroom crying at midnight on the phone with Kate…they were just trying to be funny I suppose, and didn’t think how it would make the little director looking for more performers feel).

-          Moments where I cut out beautiful snowflakes in Elsa themed colors to hang in our practice room to set the mood for Key of Sea’s last rehearsal for “Let It Go” only to find out just before rehearsal that some members wouldn’t be making it (it’s quite hard to have a final rehearsal without all the members of a small singing group).

-          Moments like meeting for a final quartet rehearsal 30 minutes before the concert and a quarter of your quartet not showing up (if you are reading this, quartet-member-who-shall-remain-nameless, don’t worry! It all turned out well in the end! Thank you for knowing your part!).

All of that led up to me sitting in my cabin by myself (not something I do often) yesterday evening before the concert and listening to Casting Crowns sing “His Eye Is On The Sparrow” in an effort to calm myself down. No, not everything will always go right, and sometimes, despite my best efforts, people don’t show up, or I mess up, or I forget something, but how lovely it is to know that God cares. Last night, He showed me so clearly that he cared about my little singing group and about bags of fake snow and about mics and lights that work and about singing the right notes and the right lyrics…all insignificant in the grand scheme of things. But He cares because He knows how much I care. And He cares for me. He cares for me so well. The concert last night was my last Christmas event/performance this season and despite the details that had me amped up and worried, it was delightful…delightful to see the incredible crowd that turned out to support us…delightful to be a part of such an incredible group of performers…delightful to see the details come together…delightful to watch the faces of adults and kids alike when it started to snow…delightful to see the amount of people who appeared with brooms to help me clean up all the paper shreddings and glitter when it was all said and done…delightful to feel the delight that I believe God took in stepping into the details for me.

And now, a public apology is in order: Housekeeping, I really tried to sweep up the snow, but I fear we may be finding paper shreddings in nooks and crannies for years to come! Sorry about that!

Little Friends!

I think I may have found my new favorite place in the world! Every Saturday a group from Mercy Ships goes to an orphanage. We actually switch off between two different orphanages so we go to each every other Saturday. The list to sign up to go on these outings fills up so fast, and I just can’t say enough how wonderful it is to work and live among a group of people who just want to continue serving on their days off! Where else would the sign up list fill up as fast as getting tickets to a Bieber concert?!? Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration, but not much! That list fills up within an hour…and then people just keep writing names at the bottom of the page to create a waiting list! This week my name was on the waiting list (because I clearly didn’t get there within the first hour of when the list went up) until last night when I got a coveted slot through the Mercy Ships black market…don’t ask, I’d have to kill you! Just kidding! ;0)

This morning we all piled into the two Mercy Ships vehicles and bumped along the back roads trying to avoid the Conakry traffic for about an hour before reaching our destination. When we arrived we could hear the kids singing before they even opened the gates. As we stepped into the compound, little arms were flung around our waists and little legs crawled up us so as to snuggle into our arms. We all got introduced as “Tante” or “Tonton” plus our name (which means Auntie or Uncle plus our name) and for those of us who have been before, the kids are incredible at remembering our names! Usually the team from Mercy Ships shares a Bible story with the kids, we sing and dance together, and we make a craft and play games.

But wait…it gets even better! Before the story starts, they ask my favorite question:

Who would like to go upstairs to the babies?”

My hand shoots up! We walk up the stairs where there are two rooms. Turn left and you’ll find the room with the babies who are 3-12 months. Turn right and you’ll find the babies who are 0-3 months. I turn right and walk into a room of around fifteen tiny wooden beds (quite reminiscent of the dwarves beds all lined up in a row in the cottage in Snow White). In each bed is a tiny Guinean infant, sleeping on his/her tummy with his/her little rear up in the air! There are five sets of twins (all the twins are dressed to match each other)! We’re told that most of these babies had Mothers who died in childbirth and whose Dads couldn’t take care of them yet. They stay at the orphanage until they are around one year old and then they go home with their fathers or extended family.

The aunties who work with the babies are so sweet and kind, but I’m sure they’re so tired as well! They have fifteen infants ages 0-3 months! It’s so impressive to watch them complete the continuous rounds of getting everyone fed, changed, and getting everyone to sleep before repeating it all again! Today I got to hold a set of twin girls in little lacy, white dresses who were two months old. We chatted together about what it’s like to be a twin and about how they need to look out for each other and how much God loves each of them. When they started getting fussy I sang to them. “Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel” is what my Dad sang to me when I was scared at night, so that’s what I sang to these darling girls too. They fell asleep, one on each of my shoulders, facing each other, hands touching. It doesn’t get a whole lot better than that for me! That’s my idea of Heaven…a baby on each shoulder, humming them both to sleep. And there we sat. I placed them back in their crib after a while when I heard a new friend getting fussy and wanting to be picked up.

It’s a continuous dance of picking up whoever is feeling fussy, laying them back down, listening for whoever else needs to be calmed, feeding multiple babies at a time, keeping track of who has eaten and who hasn’t, who has been changed and who hasn’t, and these aunties do it all so calmly and with such patience and joy, giving such attention and love to each little one who passes through her arms or her lap. What sweetness to get to sit there all morning and into the afternoon and just be a part of it.

X-tra Awesome Fieldtrip to Radiology!

One of the coolest perks of teaching onboard a hospital ship is the FIELDTRIPS! We have the most incredible departments and crew onboard who are often willing to open up their spaces to us little ones and teach us what is going on around the ship. It can often be easy, when spending all day in our classrooms, to forget that we actually are living on a hospital ship, so I love taking my kids out of the classroom and around to different departments to open our eyes to what’s going on all around us! week, my littles and I collected a few toys and stuffed animals from our classroom and headed down five decks to the radiology department in the hospital! As we walked in, we were greeted by the radiology department staff who had finished x-raying patients for the day and were willing to teach us about the x-ray machine in a very hands on way! Each of my students got to carry their own x-ray tray over to the machine and situate his/her favorite stuffed animal on top of it. 

Then we went back behind the wall and each of my littles got to help push the button to take an x-ray of his/her stuffy!  They then went to collect their stuffies (and gave each a big hug in case the machine had scared it) and placed the try into the reader! 

We guessed what we might see in the x-ray and talked about how an x-ray is different from a regular photo in that we get to see INSIDE the stuffy! 

After x-raying our stuffies and several other toys, the technician took us into the room with the CT machine and explained to us how it takes a different kind of photo of the inside of patients. We even got to hop up on the bed of the CT machine and take a ride!

The only thing that I love even more than the opportunities we have onboard, is the incredible crew who constantly help our littlest crew members know that they too are important members of this community!