Into the Unknown

The last three weeks have the been the longest and most disorienting of my life! I'd like to share some of the story of the last three weeks, but I can't fully explain it all, just as I'm sure you couldn't fully explain what the last three weeks have been like for you, wherever you are in the world. You have to live it to understand. But at the same time, we've all gone through craziness in the last few weeks and we all have snapshots in our minds...defining moments, and I'm sure there are more to come. Here are some snapshots from a teacher currently quarantined on a ship:

Sitting among 400+ other crew members piled in the international lounge to hear what we knew would be important, but not knowing what that might be. We knew something was about to change, but I didn’t know what. There were people standing in the back and in the isles and sitting on the floor in the front (where I was…obviously). Tears started streaming down my cheeks as we were told that this field service would rapidly be brought to a close. So many questions…what's going to happen? What about the patients currently onboard? What about the all patients who were supposed to have surgery between now and June, when the field service was supposed to end? Will we not be allowed to leave the ship? Are we going to pull out? Where would we go? When will this end?

Praying as a crew for the pre-op patients currently at the Hope Center who would be told later that day that surgery would not be happening anymore. I totally lost it when they started reading off the names one by one as we prayed for each. They weren’t just names, but people…patients…our patients. After the prayer a small group of us made cards for each of those patients, but what could a card really do to communicate how we felt?  At least it felt like doing something. We found out as we made those cards that the ship had gone into full lock down and no one was allowed to come or leave anymore.

Looking down on the dock from deck 7 at 11pm. It’s usually quiet and still at that hour, but that night is was a hustle and bustle with all the managers and the essential day crew moving into the now empty tents on the dock so they could stay in the quarantined bubble with us. Their willingness to sleep in tents and down in the wards to help us pack up and finish was so kind.

Standing in the hallway as kids and teachers and crew members  streamed in and out of the little cabin that one of our teachers has lived in for the past decade. They carried out trash and items for the boutique as she packed to leave the ship for her own safety because of her health and age. We all pitched in to help because at least it felt like we’re doing something, but we were in shock.

So many rushed goodbyes as crewmembers decided to leave as flights became available! And on the flip side, preparing our hearts for others who would leave, whose flights then got cancelled. SO MANY  GOODBYES. We thought we still had months together, which then turned into days or hours. Watching my littles hug each other. Hearing the ship whistle blow in honor of those departing. Waving as tears streamed down our faces until we couldn’t see the cars any longer.

Having daily meetings with updates about countries locking down, airports locking down, who would leave and who would stay. Wishing for the days when we had overhead announcements about the vacuum system being down and hot work needing to cease instead of never knowing what the next overheard announcement would bring and how it would change our lives. It felt like our lived were a jenga tower, still standing, but constantly having integral parts taken away!

Working in the galley, cutting tomatoes, because we didn’t have enough crew left to cover the shifts. Disinfecting door handles the day they cancelled school and divied out the teachers to different departments to help with the pack up effort so we could sail out.

Watching our dock space grow smaller and smaller as we finally sailed out of the port of Dakar. It felt much too soon and simultaneously so long in coming! It felt like intense sadness, and utter relief that we made it to sail day without anyone getting sick. It was two weeks to the day that we were told the field service was wrapping up that we sailed out, having packed up the four tents on the dock, discharged patients (each with individual care plans), released all our daycrew and over half our onboard crew, secured for sail, stowaway searched, sail briefed, and drilled for an at sea muster.

Worshipping on the bow! We were told that the waves were too choppy for worship on the bow, but come Sunday, God calmed those waves for us because He knew we needed it! We stayed on the bow from 3pm when it opened to 9pm when they made us leave…sitting, talking, squealing in delight at the sight of dolphins and sea turtles, huddling under blankets, eating dinner in our camp chairs propped on the deck of the bow, running in to get mugs of tea and hot chocolate for each other…processing and just being together with others who had gone through those last three weeks as well and understood.

Speaking of “just being together,” what a blessing is that?!? We must be one of the largest groups in the world who get to quarantine together right now and God knew to put me in that kind of community. I am blessed to be quarantining with 238 others, having movie nights, pub trivia nights, music concerts, dance parties, games nights…living all the hard and all the beautiful together. I am blessed to be teaching in a school that feels like it's one of the only ones in the world still in full operation. I get to spend large chunks of the day with six year olds who pray for the "sickness" to go away and then don't talk about COVID again! It's therapeutic in this time and space to hang out with six year olds and talk about loose teeth and legos! God knew right where I needed to be during this!

Irish Pub Sing-a-long for Saint Patrick's Day

Key of Sea giving a rather impromptu mini concert before some members flew away

Yoga on the bow...that's our captain on the right!

Bienvenido Sail-In Party

AFM Quarantine Olympics - Gumby Suit Relay

In January, I decided that my theme song for this year would be “Into the Unknown” because of some big life changes coming up for me this year (which I haven’t had a chance to write about or tell many people about yet, because I had no idea when I said that, what kind of unknown was actually on it’s way! I truly feel like I’m heading into, and already in so much unknown…

-I don't know when I'll be allowed off this ship

-I don't know when airports will open

-I don't know when I’ll be able to get home

-I don't know how long this virus will last

-I don't know if my family will get sick

 -I don't know if I will get sick

-I don't know where I'll be able to go when I do get back to the USA

-I don't know if we'll be able to finish the school year on the ship

-I DON'T KNOW!

But there is one thing I do know. I know whom I follow and that He is with me. I know that He knows. And that’s all that matters. All that unknown wrapped up and completely engulfed in the only known that really matters.

Creatures of Our Uniform

Dr. Gary told me, “A man becomes the creature of his uniform.” Actually Napoleon Bonaparte said that, but Dr. Gary quoted him in his medical in-service that we had onboard the other day. Napoleon meant that if you put a peasant in a military uniform, he will rise to the occasion and become a soldier. I have noticed this in my kindergarten classrooms as well. On my birthday I will often let my students dress as princesses/princes (or knights, since prince costumes are a bit hard to come by)…and let me tell you, when my little guys are dressed as knights, they are tripping over themselves to open doors and carry out brave duties for their teacher! I think that should be the new school uniform!

Dr. Gary however was not speaking of soldiers or knights. He was referring to our maxillofacial patients. When you have a physical deformity that makes others cringe or run or prompts others to tell you that you’re cursed, it’s often only a matter of time until you believe it yourself. These patients are suffering from benign tumors in their jaws and faces and while we hear the word “benign” and breathe a sigh of relief, it’s not a relief to those living without access to safe, affordable, and timely healthcare. A benign tumor is just as much a death sentence as a malignant one because you will still die, but it’ll be slow due to either suffocation or starvation.

I don’t usually attend the weekly medical in-services because as a non-medical member of the crew, I don’t need medical in-service hours for my occupation and I often can’t take the graphic photos and information that doesn’t seem to bother all of the medical staff, but is rough on me. But a couple times a year I do go to the medical in-service because Dr. Gary is speaking. He works daily, and has for the past 30+ years, to help provide safe, affordable (free!), and timely help for those suffering from maxillofacial tumors and it’s done with such tender love…like Jesus! As I stare intently down at the carpet in the international lounge so as to avoid seeing the graphic photos from the surgeries, I listen to Dr. Gary’s steady voice explaining how to make facial incisions where there are already wrinkles or lines in the face. I never would have thought of that. My thought is to just get the tumor out, but he thinks through every detail of how to make each patient look as “normal” as possible after surgery in order to restore them to their family, their community, and to give them a place at the table of the human race.

I heard words in that medical in-service that are completely foreign to me…words like maxillectomy, brisk bleed, bone putty, bone harvest. I’m much more comfortable with words like vowel segmentation, educational differentiation, one to one correspondence, phonemic awareness, but that’s what I love about teaching onboard the Africa Mercy. That same day I went to a phonics meeting, an Academy leadership meeting, a child safety meeting, and then I topped it off with the medical in-service. I love that I can be constantly learning and having my mind blown by what I get to do onboard as well as by what others are doing onboard.

I love living in a place where we are all becoming the men and women of our uniform – and I don’t mean our scrubs, deckie coveralls, and officer uniforms. Colossians 3:12 says, “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” As followers of Jesus, that is our uniform. May we continue to become more and more the creatures of our uniform every day and grow to look more and more like Jesus.

Casting: a tale of walking in our patients shoes (or casts as the case may be)

I was never told in any of my elementary education classes in college that the day might come when my sweet and sassy kindergarteners would get to SAW my cast off…but this week, that day arrived! I probably wasn’t prepared for that scenario because in no other school can I ever imagine a situation where that would happen, but if you hadn’t noticed, I do not teach in an ordinary school!

Every year before the orthopedic surgeries start on our patients with bowed and windswept legs, the kindergartners and I traipse down the gangway and down to the dock where we enter the rehab tent. We get to be a part of the training for the orthopedic surgeries, which involves teaching the rehab team and day crew how to put casts on patients. We get to help out with this because kindergartners have small legs, so practicing on them doesn’t take up too much of our plaster supply, and also because a lot of the patients the rehab team will be casting will be about the size of my kindergartners. Every year I ask if I too can get a cast, and every year I am told that I cannot because my legs are too big and they can’t waste the plaster (only thing my legs have EVER been too big for!). Am I the only one who always wanted to have a cast, but never wanted to actually get hurt to do it? Well this time by dream came true!

Before going down to the rehab tent, we talked as a class about why some patients needs to have casts on their legs and what the rehab team does. I showed them pictures of patients with casts on and pictures of my previous students getting casts put on. 

I told them what a special opportunity this is that we get to be the class to go down and help the team learn how to cast. We get very amped up and excited! We enthusiastically walk down to the tent and everything is thrilling…until they bring out the saw, which they use to cut the casts off. It always gets very real in that moment. That’s when the rubber meets the road because that is the moment each student must decide for him or herself if he or she will actually go through with this plan.  Getting the cast put on is exciting, but they know that if a cast is put on, it must come off and there is no way around the saw. I have had students back out at this point, because that instrument makes a rather scary sound and it looks sharp. 

The rehab team is always so sweet and encouraging and they let us touch the blade as they explain that it won’t cut their skin and they explain that it just “tickles the cast off” (meaning it vibrates through the plaster).

This year, after showing the cast saw, they asked for a volunteer and one of my little guys immediately was in. He hopped up on the table while seventeen crew members gathered in a semi-circle around it and the lead orthopedic surgeon got to work explaining and demonstrating on my student. He held very still and was a great example! 

Meanwhile, my two girls found the big rehab balls and had a grand time rolling around the entrance of the tent. I wasn’t sure that my girls were actually going to go through with the casting. 

When the surgeon was done demonstrating on my first little guy, he told the crew members to group up to practice themselves and I asked which of my girls wanted to get on which table. They happily obliged and hopped up to have their own casts done. 

Once they were settled in and I had taken a sufficient number of photos (hundreds!), I got to get on my own table and have the process done to me! I gave my little guy my phone camera and he happily walked around taking pictures of all of us.

I was a bit concerned because as I was getting my cast put on, my girls were having theirs taken off. I am generally right there when they get the casts off in case they get scared and need a hand to hold, but I couldn’t be because I was stuck on my own table and in my own cast. I kept sending my sweet little guy to check on the girls and to ask if they were ok, and they were! What troopers! After they had all had their casts taken off, the rehab team leader asked them if they wanted to come cut off Miss Beth’s cast! Wait! What?!? I could see this going horribly wrong, but if course it didn’t and they were so thrilled to get to cut through the fiberglass and plaster (along with my friend Allan, the rehab team lead). They each got to take home their plaster cast at the end of the fieldtrip!

What a special opportunity this was for everyone involved! The rehab team got some little legs (and one larger one) to practice on, and we got to be one step closer to understanding what it’s like for our patients who wear those heavy casts, not for thirty minutes like we did, but for so much longer! Those kiddos are absolute champs for coming to a strange place, trusting complete strangers to repair their legs and lead them through months of rehab to teach them to walk again. In a setting where the patients can be a bit scary to us kindergartners because they speak a different language and wear hospital gowns and have dressings and tubes and wires, it’s oh so good to have one more experience in common that helps us walk in their shoes and brings us just a little closer together.

*I know I’ve said this before, but I’d just like to end with a BIG shout out to the fantastic crew members, like our rehab team, who make time for our littlest crew members and let them know they are just as valuable and just as much part of this crew as anyone! What a blessing!

Peace. Be still.

I woke up the other night to the voice of the Captain being pumped into all the cabins through the PA system at 12:30am. He was requesting for all deck crew to report to their stations in order to keep the ship safe and secure. It was only after that that I noticed how much the ship was moving. It felt like we were sailing again, except we weren’t. We were moored to the dock like normal, but there was still a lot of movement. And this movement didn’t feel like the rocking and swaying we feel during the sail, it felt like the ship was shuddering. Long, deep shudders ran down the ship every few seconds and I became aware of the flashes of lightening and rolls of thunder out my little window. Rain poured down the pane in never ending torrents…and I was scared. It’s the first and only time I ever sat up and prayed that my ship wouldn’t sink. I’ve never had cause to pray that on the Disney Magic or on the Africa Mercy until that night. Granted, this is me talking…a non-mariner who scares quite easily, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but it is how I felt, especially after hearing the quake in the Captain’s voice. I laid there in bed thinking about the patients down below and how scared they must be, and also about how scared the disciples must have felt when they were caught out in a storm on the sea of Galilee.

 I did eventually go to sleep and woke up to sunny skies, but a dock that looked quite chaotic. Benches were strewn around, the handwashing station tent was missing, the rehab tent has collapsed, and even part of our container wall had been knocked over. It looked pretty rough. In line for breakfast, the Captain told me that a ship docked near us had come untethered and was coming towards us during the night. Twice it came very close to hitting us and it did eventually run into another ship farther down the dock, but not us. We heard that in town trees had been ripped out of the ground and cars had been flung by the wind and storm. During kindergarten that morning, my littles and I went our to deck 7 and stretched our little hands out over the dock and all the people who were already starting the long clean up process, and prayed. We prayed by name for each person we saw down there cleaning. We prayed for the patients who had been so scared and had thought we were sailing away in the night. We prayed for the people in town who didn’t have a home to be in during the storm last night or whose home had been swept away. My littles even prayed for all the animals who were out in the storm. I wish everyone could have had the view I did, of five little five-year-olds stretching out their little hands through the bars on deck 7 to pray over everything they saw.

 The beginning of this field service has felt pretty scary and stormy for me. My heart and mind have felt weighed down with lots of things like attempting to help the new teachers stay afloat, trying to figure out where I fit in this constantly changing community as friends come and go and change, praying for big decisions about next year, missing my family, and lots more. Yesterday a new friend came up to me as we scooped food onto our plates in the dining room and asked how long I have been onboard. I told him and he said that I really seem to thrive here and that he always sees a smile on my face. That kind of threw me for a loop because I don’t feel like I’ve had nearly as many smiles over this first quarter, but I’m glad that apparently joy is still coming across. After that comment I looked up the word “thrive.” Siri said, “to grow or develop well or vigorously.” Yes. That certainly is happening here. I may not feel happy all the time and I may have lots on my mind, but I can with certainty see God growing me here. And that’s good.

 So, while there have been storms in this first part of the Senegal field service, both literally and figuratively, I want to do like my littles and stretch out my hand over all the questions and concerns and craziness and pray for all that I see. I’d appreciate it if you’d like to pray with me.
-Pray for some critical positions that need to be filled both in the Academy and ship wide (and if you know any computer, PE, or French teachers, please send them my way!)
-Pray for the community and friendships onboard as people come and go. Pray that the community onboard would come together and that no one would feel alone. I think this is one of Satan’s biggest weapons here.
-Pray for the surgeries going on every day and also for those we cannot help.
-Pray for unity and love and wisdom for each of us and for this whole organization, especially as we soon expand to two ships.

When Jesus spoke to the storm he said, “Peace! Be still!” That’s what I want in my heart and mind, in my classroom, in the hospital, and in every department onboard. Peace. Be still.