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After a long flight, I arrived back in Van, Texas Friday evening. No problems with the airplane this time. The last day onboard the Africa Mercy was hectic, the Deck and Engineers devotion began 7:45 am, worship, a brief message, the Captain’s announcements and the certificates presentation. Certificates were presented to the eight motorman successfully completed the course and certificates were presented to three Deck Ratings and six Engine Ratings who completed their Rating Record books. When the meeting finished I went to my cabin to pack, the night before I had worked until nine in order to have everything ready for the next day. Most of the time the internet on board is very slow. We left the Africa Mercy at 12:15 pm in order to get the 2:30 pm ferry to the airport. The sail to the Island where the Lungi airport is located was good. We had a good look of the Africa Mercy as the ferry sailed by. I arrived home safe but very tired. It seems that the sleep I ge

The course finished yesterday and today I spent a good part of the day trying to print certificates. It is hard to believe how a simple task like printing a certificate could take so long, but find a color printer, get the IT guys to create a profile for that printer and find a key for the room where the printer is (the printer was on the Bridge) was a complex job. Everything was set right, but the printer would not print. The IT guys could not understand way it would not print because all settings were right. At the end an IT guy took me to his desk and printed the certificates from his computer. We finished just before diner. Tomorrow morning we will present the certificates to the students at the Deck and Engineers devotions that happen every Thursday. I leave from the ship to for the airport at noon. This morning I went to the craft market to get few African things and have my last market experience. It is nice to bargain African style. Well, it is late and I am starting to get

Mighty Ships airing today, Sunday, September 4. The U.S. premier of Mighty Ships: Africa Mercy air today Sunday, September 4, on the Smithsonian Channel! It is worth watching - 9pm (EST) or click the link to find out times (also shown on Monday morning) – http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/site/sn/show.do?episode=137194

Last night I went to Waterloo with the Jesus Film team to show the Jesus Film. It took us one a half hour to get there and one hour to return. The traffic in Free Town, as most West African port cities, provides you with a lifetime experience. The road actually was not too bad. It is the amount of vehicles, in quite a bad shape, all the people walking and crossing the road and frequent potholes that keeps me at the edge of my seat as if I am watching an Indiana Jones movie. The rain started to come down at diner time. I looked out of my cabin window (porthole) and though, “who in the world want to go out in a rain like this to show a video?” I have to say, that I was tired and would not mind not going out in that rain. The two Land Rovers were ready to leave the ship; rain was coming down like the flood. The whole time I was wandering how we were going to show the film with all that water coming down. As per Divine design, Jeremy Garcia asked me to me to pray for the trip and

On Wednesday, eight Engine Rating crewmembers began the watchkeeping course. The 20-hour class covers mandatory STCW training for Rating forming part of engineering watch. There are seven crewmembers from West Africa Togo, Ghana, Sierra Leone and one crewmember from Ukraine. The Africa Mercy is a floating Maritime Training Center who provides training to Mercy Ships crewmembers from the Deck, Engineer and Steward departments.