MaritimeMercy.com

In few hours, here in Texas, will be a new year. This morning I was meditating on what was 2009. Many things good and bad happenned, but what is important is that God was faithful all the way. I'm convinced that God has a special purpose for everything that happenned in our lives. As I look back I realise how blessed I am. This gives me hope that God has even better things for 2010. It will be a busy year again and I'm excited the see what the Lord has in store. May God's blessing be on us as we enter a new decade.

Dental Team Marcos with Jean Claude, Agriculture specialist Building Bethesda Agriculture School Bethesda Agriculture School Jesus Film setup Jesus Film

On the second visit of the Anastasis to Benin in 2001 Lawrence Adjei was a discipler at the construction of a clinic building in Agla. While visiting a house in the community Lawrence noticed that the daughter of the man he was sharing with had a high fever. He asked the father if he could pray for the girl. The father replayed, yes, who don’t need prayer. The next day Lawrence went back and found that the girl had been healed. With permission of the man of he began a weekly Bible study with the family, few weeks lather 20 people were attending and within three months 100 people from the community were gathering together to worship God. With the covering of a church in the region a church was established. Lawrence Adjei, now the Africa Mercy boatswain, was one of the students of the Efficient Deck Hand (EDH) course on board last week. He invited me to preach at the church in Agla on Sunday. The expression of worship through singing, dance and a willful act of celebration is indescriba...

Worship on Deck Seven of the Africa Mercy Splicing wires Ropes and knots Instruction on the Africa Mercy Deck Efficient Deck Hand (EDH) Students and instructors

Training is an investment, said an article in a magazine devoted to training and education. It is an investment because it requires time, dedication, energy and resources. It entails t he crew to stop normal activities to receive instruction. Now, if training is an investment, what is the return? The return is a crew better prepared to do their work, with renewed knowledge and skill, a new attitude toward what they do and a safety culture so needed when working on ships.. This has been an intense week of training for the deck crew of the Africa Mercy. Nine Rating crew attended a one week Efficient Deck Hand course that finished today. I’m convinced that the skills they learned will make them more confident and efficient on the job they do.

I flew into Cotonou, Benin, on August 16, on an Air France flight from Paris. Three other crew members joined me at the airport Charles de Gaulle, a young lady from North Caroline, who will work in the dining room for 9 months, a nurse from Norway, who will work in the Hospital until December and a dentist from Germany, who came for three weeks. By divine design the dentist from Germany, sat beside me in the airplane. A dentist of the German Navy, Marco Ritter, is using his vacation to serve with the Africa Mercy dental team. I asked him how he heard about Mercy Ships. He said that when he was 19 years old he visited the Mercy Ships Anastasis docked is Hamburg, Germany. He got a poster from the Anastasis that he hanged in the wall of his bed room, dreaming of one day to work in that ship. He said the poster is still hanging at a closet door at his parent’s house. Meanwhile, he joined the German navy, studied to be a dentist. Now after many years the dream of helping the poor and needy ...

My daughter Queila is in Thailand. Bellow is an account of what she is doing there: “Life has been so busy these last few days. Leaving Cambodia and the life we set up there in the month we worked there was hard. It isn't until you leave something, that you understand the true weight of the relationship. The affection either grows because it was healthy and good, or loses importance as we invest elsewhere. Cambodia =heartstrings. Thailand has been phenomenal, though. Our ministries here have been almost completely different. We are now doing a lot of open-airs in market places, outside of factories during lunch breaks and on the beaches. In one day we did 3 open-airs in all different locations, doing our skits and worships 5+ times. We handed out over 1500 New Testament study bibles in that day, plus thousands of testimony books from famous people in Thailand as well as magazines for children and teens. It's funny to see our team have t...