Random pictures

Thanks everyone for your emails and prayers for the crew. It has been a difficult week here on the ship. So, in light of that, I'm posting just some random, fun photos of friends I've met on the ship.
Megan (r) and Michelle - two of my 5 roommates. Megan is from Bucks County, PA (apparently the best place on the planet:) and Michelle is from the Chicago area. Megan is here for one year and Michelle leaves on Monday. Both are nurses.

This is Dorothy, another roommate and nurse. She is from Canada but originally from England. A cake to celebrate her birthday - notice the fake candles since we can't have any kind of fire on board. I have two other roommates (no photos yet) - Jo (nurse) is from Wales and Sarah (doctor) is from Australia (but originally from England).

Some of the nurses I work with: Helene from Germany, Sandra from New Zealand, Melanie, Crystal and Laura, all from the U.S.

This is Captain Jurryan (r) who is in charge of the ship and crew. He doesn't usually dress this formally except for special events and meeting dignitaries which happens quite frequently. The former president of Liberia was here on the ship two days ago for a tour. I never saw him but I wondered why there were so many UN peacekeepers on the dock with their guns.

Here is Megan with one of our VVF patients, Quata. Quata has been here for over one month as she has some open wounds that have not healed very quickly. Unfortunately, her surgery did not work and she has to return in October for another attempt. She's pretty quiet but had quite the laugh at me last evening while I was attempting to feed the 6 month old baby of one our patients. It didn't go so well.

This photo was taken by our Mercy Ships photographer. The middle girl is Mary who is 17 and spent about 3 weeks on the ward. She had extensive damage that we couldn't repair. She will also return in October and hopefully we can fix her. She lost her baby during childbirth and then ended up with so much damage that she constantly leaks urine and feces. I can't imagine facing that kind of life at only 17.

Here is Dr. Steve and six of the ladies he repaired. They are in the new dresses they received at the Dress Ceremony which symbolizes new life.

Patients waiting in line for eye screenings. We do about 20 or so eye surgeries per day.

Another screening in front of the ship.









That's all for now. I'm going to an orphanage tomorrow to play with the kids so I'll have photos of that this weekend.

Michele