More than I truly realize or even fully comprehend, an adventure of a lifetime is happening – one that I am very excited for and cannot believe. It is one, which I have wanted to experience and share in, that now finally has arrived! In four weeks, I shall embark on a mission trip to Monrovia, Liberia – that is Africa. There, I will be serving with Mercy Ships on the Africa Mercy for three months. While I am on this ship, I will help perform surgery Monday through Friday and on weekends go on missions throughout Monrovia by giving aid in refugee camps, orphanages, and other places.
To give you a better understanding, I have put together information on both the Mercy Ships organization and Liberia; I hope this helps! After you read this, I am sure you will realize why I so badly want to go and be apart of this team.
What is Mercy Ships? So, Mercy Ships is the largest, non-profit, non-military organization in the world, whose sole purpose is to bring hope and healing to the poor using Jesus as its example: the blind see, the lame walk, the mute speak and spreading the gospel to everyone around. What is amazing and so exciting is that Mercy Ships accomplishes this and so much more! It is meeting people’s needs physically while giving them God’s hope of Salvation. On the ship itself, I will assist in performing surgeries in restoring sight, removing tumors and various masses, correcting physical disabilities (club feet, cleft lip/cleft pallets ect..), re-grafting new skin on burned patients and various other surgeries for women. Other remarkable aspects of Mercy Ships is the ability to re-build the 3rd-world-countries – not by using programs that basically gives hand-outs, but taking the countries resources and working with pre-existing local organizations (usually local churches). Through this, Mercy Ship gives people the tools they need to survive and re-build their country to last and not fall apart after we leave. Below, I have listed several programs that Mercy Ships is hugely apart of: ***Women’s empowerment:*** Teaching women how to build businesses, and manage them. This can include raising bees for honey, manufacturing clothes, and raising animals to sell. ***Agriculture***: Teaching men and even prisoners farming techniques and skills to produce food not only for themselves but for the community. ***Community Health Education:*** Building a clinic to serve 50,000 people, and teaching people health hygiene, AIDS education, water sanitation, and basic nursing skills.¨ Mental Health: After the traumatic effects of the war, the Liberian government has been in the process of creating programs to deal with mass mental health issue ***Church empowerment:*** Bringing churches together for encouragement, empowerment, sharing a common purpose to those in need. ***Schools:*** When Mercy Ships arrived, there was already a foundation laid for a school in Congo Town. There, the Mercy Team helped finish the project and provide them with the literature material needed to teach the children. ***Dental Clinic:*** Operates daily out of Redemption Hospital to provide free dental care to civilians and prisoners. ¨ ***Mercy Ministries:*** Giving aide to the Sisters of Charity (organization created by Mother Teresa). This ministry sends volunteer crew to orphanages, refugee camps, men and women’s prisons and the pediatric hospital. Mercy Ships is not only located in Liberia, but also has land-based operations in Sierra Leone and Honduras. When the ship arrives at a country, agricultural, engineers, teachers and missionaries go out into the country – building schools, hospitals, sanitation projects including digging water wells, construction, agriculture, micro-enterprise projects, and most importantly: sharing the gospel. Then, whoever is in the country and needs medical care will enter the ship to receive healing for free. The African Mercy: History: In the year of1999, the Dronning Ingrid (152 meters in length) underwent extreme transformation from a Danish rail ferry into the world’s largest non-governmental hospital ship. The Hospital: Each year, approximately 7,000 surgical interventions are performed onboard. These surgeries include: cataract removal/lenses implant, tumor removal, cleft lip and palate reconstruction, orthopedics and OB-GYN (woman’s health) procedures. On board the ship are also a CT Scan, X-Ray, and laboratory services. All of the diagnosis are transmitted through a built-in satellite communication system. This Africa Mercy is built with six operating rooms and contains a 78-bed ward – larger than any other medical ship known. There is an average voluntary crew of 450 people with 474 berths (including 26 family cabins, 25 couples/2berth cabins and the balance consisting of 1, 2, 3, and 4 berth cabins). Volunteer crew consists of accountants, chefs and kitchen staff, housekeepers, engineers, electricians, plumbers, deckhands, security and that is just a few of them! From the information given so far, you can see that Mercy Ships is more than just a ship, but Global Missions at heart. It is “Going out into all the world”, giving hope and a future to those who have none. So, if you would like to seek more information, you can check out their website at: http://www.mercyships.org/. LIBERIA: ¨Location: Western Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, between Cote d'Ivoire and Sierra Leone ¨Capitol: Monrovia ¨Population: 3.57 million ¨Religions: Christian 40%, Muslim 20%, indigenous beliefs 40% ¨Languages: English 20% (official), some 20 ethnic group languages, of which a few can be written and are used in correspondence ¨Ethnic Groups: indigenous African 95% (including Kpelle, Bassa, Gio, Kru, Grebo, Mano, Krahn, Gola, Gbandi, Loma, Kissi, Vai, Dei, Bella, Mandingo, and Mende), Americo-Liberians 2.5% (descendants of immigrants from the US who had been slaves), Congo People 2.5% (descendants of immigrants from the Caribbean who had been slaves) ¨Government Type: Republic ¨Independence: 26 July 1847 ¨Climate: tropical; hot, humid; dry winters with hot days and cool to cold nights; wet, cloudy summers with frequent heavy showers ¨Elevation Extremes: Atlantic Ocean 0 m; highest point: Mount Tutee 1,380 m ¨Environment Issues: tropical rain forest deforestation; soil erosion; loss of biodiversity; pollution of coastal waters from oil residue and raw sewage ¨Major Infectious Diseases: degree of risk: very high food or waterborne diseases: bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever vectorborne diseases: malaria and yellow fever are high risks in some locations water contact disease: schistosomiasis aerosolized dust or soil contact disease: Lassa fever (2007) blood contact disease: hepatitis B, hepatitis C, AIDS, yellow fever History: In the year of 1820, a settlement of 86 freed slaves from the US began in Liberia (known as “Land of the Free”). These people were known as Americo-Liberians whom established a republic form of government. Thousands more freed slaves fled to Liberia leading to the formation of more settlements and declaring independence of the Republic of Liberia on July 26, 1847. Years passed with many political up rises and downfalls. Then in the year of 1980, Samuel K. Doe dominated the political and military life in Liberia. This raised ethnic tension and caused frequent hostilities between the politically and militarily dominant Krahns and other ethnic groups in the country. Than in the year of 1989 to 2003 one of Africa's bloodiest civil wars ensued, claiming the lives of more than 200,000 Liberians and displacing a million others into refugee camps in neighboring countries. What once was known for its academic institutions, iron-mining, coffee, cocoa, rise, palm oil, bananas, rubber and many other natural resources was completely destroyed. Now, 85% of the population is unemployed and live far below the poverty line. Many refugees fled to Cot d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ghana. This fragile country that is about the size of Ohio is completely war-torn and will take many years to rebuild. Since 2005, relative peace has been maintained through the aid of armed forces: Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL): Army, Navy and the Air Force.
