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.