He is enough

So a very long time ago ... ok not that long ago really, but it sure feels like it when you live on a ship ... i was sailing to Benin from tenerife and we had a whole set of talks by various people on various topics.

Well last week or so i was reminded of something one of the people said, they were giving a list of the religions in Benin, 30% Catholics, 25% Muslim etc and then added 100% voodoo at the end. Well i thought nothing of it at the time, but i was talking with a lady a week or so back and she said about it and was saying how in Liberia last year even the Christians who would be at church and worshipping God would still go to the witchdoctors for potions or do voodoo rituals or whatever throughout the week, for whatever reason weather it be cause they didn't think God was doing things fast enough, or cause they were just "covering all bases" or whatever.

Well this got me thinking, and well it just hit me that there un belief is so out there and obvious to see but its something we all struggle with. Some of us hide our insecurities best we can, but they are there just as real and holding us back just as much as someone that is going to visit a witch doctor.

Some of us try to find acceptance in people, some of us distance ourselves from people for the fear of being hurt, some turn to drink, some to relationships, some to work, some to money and some even to sports! Whatever it may be we try to find happiness, love and a sense of belonging in things that will ultimately not be able to satisfy us.

God is enough, and if you believe that God really is enough, wouldn't, and maybe shouldn't that change your whole life. Knowing that he is enough in every situation, every struggle, every concern, anything that you could possibly come at him with. The power of Jesus's blood was enough for us all, everything we have done wrong and has given a way to be reunited with the one who made it all, to be in relationship with him.

In the book of Matthew it says ... Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Isnt that what we all crave deep down inside? ... He is the only one that will ever be able to set us free from our struggles, the only one that will truly be able to make us happy and loved. Yes its a risk, and he doenst promise its gonna be easy and everything is suddenly "gonna be ok" but it's a risk that we cant afford not to take ... to step out, to totally surrender ourselves to him, to let go of everything that we value above him, to submit to his will in all things, not just the things that were ok with letting go, but giving everything to him.

I just wanna leave you with this ... God is enough ... even typing it now it sounds so simple, so easy ... but i challenge you to really think about and to think what it means.

Almost there ...

So the good news is im well on the road to being better! :)

I went out today for the first time since last wed which was good! It was Amy's birthday and she really wanted fan ice, so fan ice she got!!!

Ok so fan ice (see pic at top) is this kinda frozen yogurt thing, which i cant say i like at all really, but Amy is very keen on the chocolate one, and at a cost of 150 of the local currency (about 30p maybe) and since it was her Birthday and all i thought i best treat her to one!

So when i got back i had to lie down, but its progress none the less! I officially have this weekend off from work, so im pretty confident by Monday i will be fighting fit and will be ready to get back to work and the real reason im here!

I was chatting with a guy the other nite, who has also been ill and we were saying how different it is missing work here. Like when you was at school it was cool missing school if you was ill, but being ill here isnt the same! I actually wanna be at work! Strange as that may sound, but i love working here and serving the crew by making them nice food! So lets hope i will be back doing that soon!

love to you all :)

Samuel

Little bout of the Labby

So unfortantly ive gone the wrong way since i last wrote, ive been bed/chair bound since thu now.

It seems that i have another bout of Labyrinthitis :(

Labyrinthitis

Ive had this a fair few times in my life, and well although i feel pretty rough right now im happy in the knowledge that this isnt anywhere near as bad as ive had it in the past. Ive been able to stay on my feet and move around for a good few mins in the past few days, which i wouldn't be able to do at all if i had it bad, so that at least is good news!

So i hope to be back fully 100% hopefully within the next few days, i have mon and tue off work anyways so hopefully by wed i will be fighting fit and ready to go back to the kitchen and helping making the crew all their lovely meals once more!

I really would appreciate all your thoughts and prayers still at this time, as this is very frustrating feeling so useless and out of action and not being able to do what im here to do!

Much love to you all and hopefully i will be back soon with a more positive update!

Ill, Busy, Ill

So im hoping to break my current cycle soon!

Tuesday i spent at work, but feeling pretty rough all day long

Wednesday i felt alot better so went to the pool in the afternoon, but maybe over did it, walking there and back in the heat (its about a 30min walk) was trying some new things off the diving board as well!

Then there was a football match! and well having gone from playing 4 times a week to 0 time in 6 weeks, well i had to play!

So maybe the highlight of it was the picking of the teams! I think i was totally judged on my footwear! The guy picking the teams looked at us "white boys" then looked at our feet to see what shoes we were wearing and then picked us accordingly! Classic!

So more time in the heat, and well ive felt it 2day! been in my room pretty much all day, and alot of it in bed :( So i hope its nothing serious and i just over did it on my day off!

So its bed time now me thinks since i have to work fri,sat,sun

So your thoughts and prayers about my health right now would be wonderful!

Thanks all!

Ganvie - The Village on Stilts

So this Saturday (being a day off and all) i decided to organize a little trip to a place called Ganvie. So i got myself 19 very decent people indeed, 1 boat and well 1 more person that knew where he was going and how to drive the boat and off we went!

So our destination was about an hour and 15 Min's away, the boat ride itself was pretty cool, we got to see just how the people of Benin fish. To sum it up, they all seems to do something different! Some with poles, some with nets, some with things that looked like cat baskets, and all sorts of other weird and wonderful ways to catch fish!

So Ganvie its self is a community of about 1000 people that all live in houses that are on the water, all on stilts pretty much, which is where it gets its name the village on stilts from i guess ;)

We got taken to three different locations, all pretty much gift shops. On the way we got to see peoples houses on water and people on canoe's everywhere!!! Its just so strange to imagine the life that they live, i cant even start to get my head around it.

Dreaming Land

So it seems that Benin is a place to come to if you wanna dream like never before! I mean before i came here i was just an average "dreamer" i would say, odd dream here and there.

Not any more!!! Im having dreams that i can remember at a very rapid rate indeed! I think my most impressive so far was Monday.

So i had to be at work between 8:15 and 8:30 and i have a bit of a dodgy alarm clock where you cant really work out the exact time your setting the alarm for, so i go early and then just hit the snooze if its early! so it was 7:50, so hit snooze, then 7:55, snooze again, 8:00, snooze again, 8:05 and i thought i had one more snooze in me, but it turns out i managed to turn it off all together!

So next thing i know i wake up in a huge panic, cause i can remember alot of details of a rather long dream and i think ive over slept and its about 11:30! So i look at the clock and its like 8:28, whew, so of course it was still a mad rush but thankfully i was still on time! (yup the ship is that small you can get anywhere in 1 min)

So my conclusion is, even if you only have 23 mins, here in Benin you can still have yourself one long old dream!

So if dreaming is what your after, then come on over ...

Hope and Healing in action

So after my mad weekend of working in the galley (kitchen) Monday had a different look to it.

When i say mad weekend i really do mean that! We lost one of our day volunteers on Friday morning, he turned up and said im not working today, and in fact he has gone away for 1 month to do some schooling. I think it was a little last min to tell us so im not sure if he will come back cause i think (really hope) they might replace him before i have to work again (wed).

So there was a trip to a national park this weekend (sat-tue) and a guy called Seb really wanted to go, but cause it was 4 days everyone that went had to either swap days or take them off. Seb works in a place called Central supplies and well to cut a long story short i ended up working one of his days (Monday)

Central supplies is based on the hospital deck. Im not 100% sure of everything they do, but from working there 1 day i think i have a pretty good idea. They are in charge of all of the stuff that is used by the hospital, different departments make orders and then its the supplies job to get the orders. They have a big store room, and then 8 big containers that hold all the stuff in. My morning was spent moving some stuff around that was gonna be taken to the warehouse (will expand). I also helped out getting an order ready for the Operating room. This just meant finding things on a list, some were harder than others since some were nicely on a shelf, whereas others were hidden at the bottom of a very hot container! I then got to go to the warehouse and un load a whole van load of stuff.

The afternoon i managed to get more sweaty than i even thought was humanly possible! Not a single bit of me wasnt wet! it looked like i had been in the ocean i feel! So this was the result of having to sort out one of the containers, basically there was stuff everywhere and for about 1 hour i sorted it all out, put all the boxes that were the same together etc and made a walk way down the middle so that people didnt have to continue to climb over everything to get to the stuff at the back.

So even though all this moving and stuff doesn't sound that exciting, i had a great day. I really got to see what MercyShips is all about. I was around the admissions area alot, and i got to see all the people that were coming to be helped by Mercyships. I recognised a few from screening day and it really just hit me about what a life changing thing it was for them.

They were gonna be healed in a physical sense, whether it was via the removal of cataracts and being given sight, the removal of a tumor, correcting walking problems whatever it was gonna be life changing.

There is more to it than just physical healing, they were being given hope for a future. I talked to a translator and one of the things that he said to me was how these people are just rejected over and over. They are given hope for a new life, being accepted by people around them and being able to do things that most of us take for granted without having to face abuse as we do it.

We all need hope and healing in some way or another, some of the people here may have huge facial tumors and its obvious to see. But there are others that are in just as much need, maybe its depression, guilt, un forgiveness, all hidden but can eat away at a person just as much as something physical.

The hope for us all is in our saviour, Jesus. Whatever our hurt, our need, he is more than enough. So as i sit here reflecting on things i have seen in my time so far here in MercyShips it is my prayer that where ever you are and whatever you need healing for that you will turn to the one that can make you compete, the only one that can truly give you happiness. Even if you dont know him and you dont feel like your worthy, none of us are. Its by Gods grace than we can come to him, by Jesus's sacrifice on the cross. Just ask him to reveal himself to you.

Madness at work!

So ... ok ... my cooking team last week was made up of 4 cooks (including me), 1 salad team lady and 3 day volunteers.

The day volunteers do different things,

one is assigned to wash up and spends just about all his time doing that,

one is the cook for the ward meals, the patients get different food than the crew, they get African stuff, cause the idea is that they like that more than what we get

the last one, does a little of everything really, sometimes we get him to help us, sometimes to he helps the ward cooking.

Ok, so it has been decided that the salad team will be no more and that that role will be made into the cooks roles, and we will just have to do that as well. In theory this means that we would get 1 more cook, to make our team 5.

So last week one of our team left to go home, as did the salad lady!!!

So you do the maths ... yup that 5 to 3!!! Just to add to this our team leader has gone home to Ghana for the week! thankfully we got a cook from the other team, but that still means we have a team of 3 whereas last week we had 5!

So lets just say it was a little busy! breaks in the morning and afternoon were no more and we had to cut down lunch and dinner breaks, but God is good!!! He provided me with all the strength i needed and even two days off to follow!

However i have more madness to look forward to, i now have to work fri, sat and sun with just the 3 cooks again, so im sure more hard work, but hopefully for the crews sake the food will still be upto our high standards :)