So, for several months when we arrived on the ship in 2016 a National Geographic team was on board the ship filming these epic stories about the the patients, families, and crew living and working on board & the transformation of lives through free surgeries. Although Briana and I were not directly involved in any […]
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To our onboarding family, Thanks for being our family here on board, you made our time here so much better. We really will never forget the good times and adventures we had together abroad. You guys are the best!
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Out my window, the port water of Conakry, Guinea laps up against cargo ships and colorful fisher-boats, their rusty frames creaking in time to the calls of the seabirds, laundry draped lines, swinging in the sea breeze, “bonne chance” scrawled across their aft sides like a plea, “good luck” which is an apt phrase for […]
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Before we have our first surgery aboard the Africa Mercy, we need to select patients. In a country with 1 doctor per 10000 people and access to surgery being limited to only the most wealthy, the need is great indeed. On Monday of this week, over 6000 people lined up to be seen by our […]
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We’ve arrived in our new home! The Africa Mercy pulled into the port in Conakry, Guinea about a week and a half ago. Since then, we’ve been busy exploring our new home, meeting the people of Guinea and finding those in need of a surgery aboard our ship. The people of Guinea are exceptionally friendly. As […]
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I realized two things over the last few weeks when checking on this blog… Firstly, I saw that 90% of the photos on this blog were of Briana, with very few of me, and secondly that we were pretty sparse on sharing photos anyways. So now without further ado, I present to you… a mostly […]
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Before Mercy Ships will visit a country, we must get an invitation from the country’s President and minister of Health so that we can work with them to provide what they want and need, based on what we can provide, as a partnership. One of the ways that the country will support Mercy Ships is […]
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Blood for transfusions is in short supply in Africa. If someone wants a surgery in a local hospital, the family is often required to get the blood and other supplies (needles, bandages, etc.) themselves. There may be two or three blood banks in a whole country and those often with limited supplies. So, on the […]
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[The below is my paraphrased version of the story of our blackout on board, originally taken from a Blog Post from one of our Engineering team] During this story I was up in our server room with my shutdown procedure in hand, and laptop-at-the-ready, sweating bullets (despite our server room AC continuing to work just […]
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For the most part, Mercy Ships is a surgery ship. Everything on board is designed around the ability to get highly skilled surgeons and hospital workers into impoverished countries to be able to complete difficult surgeries in an efficient way. However, in recent years a lot of thought has gone into how we can leave […]
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