Mercy Ships - Fast Food

From A few surprises

As Mercy Ship'rs we get to experience some cultural fast food 'finds' in
developing nations that are inequivalent to any U.S. franchise!


Who can guess what country this is in? And better yet, who is in the picture?

[click on the picture to make it bigger]

Kelly is leaving...

[today at the IOC Kelly's farewell was announced by broadcast email...you can find Kelly's blog at http://kellystrong.blogspot.com if you knew her leave her a word of encouragement or support for her next adventure and/or say goodbye]

Staff Farewell Announcement

We wish to thank Kelly Strong for her dedicated service as TV/ Video Production Director.

Kelly completed her DTS onboard the Anastasis in 1999 and then stayed onboard to serve as a Deck Hand for a month. She then decided to join us again after completing her Bachelors Degree in Video Production. Since January 17, 2005, Kelly has spent time videoing onboard the Anastasis and Africa Mercy along with accompanying the Mercy Teams in their Disaster Response effort after Hurricane Katrina. Kelly most recently was a part of the Africa Mercy Maiden Voyage crew as the Video Producer.

She will be returning home to Florida where she will be seeking God for the next step in her life.

Thank you Kelly, for your faithful and diligent service for Mercy Ships through Video Production and your dear friendship to all of us.

We will miss you!!!!

Meg is in Africa

The musings of a volunteer nurse on a hospital ship in Africa...

Just for a little bit of fun I wanted to post a more humorous post/article by Megan who is also (as she says above) a volunteer nurse for Mercy Ships aboard the Africa Mercy. By clicking the above title you may can visit her website!

top ten things I never thought I'd experience in this lifetime that I experienced this weekend on my trip to Nimba Mountain

10. I never thought I'd ride in a van with no AC and 18 people, that would comfortably hold six Americans, for almost eight hours strait, after working night shift.

9. Watching a Brazilian biomedical technician carry the equivalent of a yard sale (including a guitar and four filled plastic shopping bags) up Liberia's tallest mountain (which is quite ardours climbing at times)

8. Thinking, "Well, if the lighting strikes my friends on the Mountain, at 2 AM, I suppose the UN helicopter might reach them (maybe)."

7. Crossing the border of a country that is not in North America without a passport, only a friendly Liberian border patrol man.

6. Being the centerpiece of a hand woven Liberian bag advertisement.

5. Going through at least thirty UN check points in less than 72 hours.

4. Riding through Africa in a small van with great er half of my body protruding out the window, while videotaping and/or taking photos of the experience.

3. Coming to a place in my life where I only brought UNMIL t-shirts on my vacation.

2. I never thought turning around could be such a beautiful experience.

1. I never thought I would sit in the back of a Liberian taxi at night singing a Kenny Rogers song with a retired eye surgeon, a Canadian plumber, a computer guy, and a fellow PICU nurse (aka "team turn around")

Posted by megan petock

Michele on the Africa Mercy

Michele is currently working as a nurse aboard the Africa Mercy. She is currently working in Palliative Care.

I asked Michele if I could share this blog article with us and she graciously accepted!

If you would like to read more stories like this and be kept up to date with 'happenings' on the ship we invite you to read blogs/sites like Michele's. You can read Michele's blog at mzellerafrica.blogspot.com . Or find other links at MercyShipsLinks.blogspot.com .

The following is an informative article from her blog about what she does:

Palliative Care

The PC program became an official program this outreach. In years past, Mercy Ships has done PC but never had a budget or anything. The PC team is made up of two nurses (Jean and me), one translator, and then we have 4 crew members who go out with us when their schedules permit.

From a nursing perspective, PC is like home health care rather than hospice care back home (at least in the States). We have patients that are referred to us that need some sort of ongoing support because they have a condition that we can't help with on the ship. Most of the time they have a terminal condition but not always. We go to their homes and do wound care, provide pain medications, do lots of teaching. We also provide emotional and spiritual support - this includes praying, reading Scripture, doing Bible studies. We've tried support groups but Liberians don't talk about death or feelings or anything that makes a support group work. After a patient dies, we continue to visit the family to give them support.

Most of our patients have cancer and most of them are children, although we received 3 new patients this week who are all adults. We work M-F from about 7:30 - 5:00. We don't have a car on the weekends so we can't do any weekend visits.

We get our patients, usually through screenings done by the ship (dental, maxillo-facial, eye). People come to the ship for help and when we see it is something that is malignant or something we don't have the expertise for, they get referred to PC. We've gotten a couple of patients just walking in the market. We don't have a big enough budget or enough PC staff to seek out patients in the community.

It's a great job but emotionally and spiritually demanding. I'll be taking over the PC program in Sierra Leone since my partner Jean is leaving in January. We, hopefully, will be getting another nurse to replace Jean but it really needs to be someone who will be staying the majority of the outreach in Sierra Leone (until Nov).

Peace,
Michele

tyronebcookin

For those of you who know me, and those of you who don't...

I married Stephanie (a nurse I met on board the Caribbean Mercy) and we currently are packing to move back on the International Operations Center - base of Mercy Ships.

We head to the Africa Mercy in January. I as the Chief Cook and Stephanie working as a nurse (if she was here right now I would be a bit more specific). We are very excited about coming...which makes the process here long and drawn out. Sigh.

Anyways...my background is in Restaurant and Catering and I have worked on the Caribbean Mercy (most of my time was spent in that galley) a stint on the ANA (also as Chief Cook) and I had the pleasure of cooking with Audry on the Maiden Voyage of the Africa Mercy. (Don't make me post a picture of my certificate and coffee cup!!!)

All that being said, if you have some constructive criticism (be easy), questions, current AFM observations, or pertinent information to pass along to me (about the food, galley, wants, needs)...I will be interested to hear them out. As long as it is a good dialogue. Remember, I have been there, and I do know the Chief Steward/Food Manager so be kind...And know that he is working hard.

That's a good man you got there...he just needs more help. Give him some daily encouragement and/or a hand in the kitchen (of course make sure you follow proper protocal). Maybe sign up for a day in the kitchen/galley as your 'outreach' time...ever thought of that?

Send comments directly to me via my contact us page at tyroneandstephanie.com or thru the blog page. I would give you my email address but being on a post I may get spammed to death! Ha!

Please, no recipes...I got millions of my own. And the internet at my disposal. Did you know that some of those 'home' recipes just don't translate well for 400 to 500+ people. Yeah, go figure?

tyronebcookin