Community meeting

Last week we had a really great evening during our 'community meeting'. It's almost a mini church service with time of worship, a talk and afterwards a time where a lot of people gather in the cafe area and just chat. each week we have an opprortunity to take an offering from the crew to contribute towards an area of Mercy Ships ministries. This could be one of the orphanages, for a programme on board the ship. This week it was the wards turn to explain our needs. On the ward (with no windows!) the patients have long stretches where they are unable to be up and about or go outside, so we try and organise activities like crafts for them to do and they absolutely love it! We have made pom poms, friendship bracelets, paintings, cards, ceiling mobiles, puppets...the list goes on! Obviously being in the middle of Liberia, we can not always get the resources we need so we have them shipped out.
We asked a few of our patients to join us in our crew community meeting to show us the things they had made so people could see what their money could contribute to. It was such an awesoem night, I was so touched. We had to get them from deck 3 to deck 6 to start with, which was pretty difficult as there is only 1 elevator essentially for kitchen use. so we got Alice, Blessing and Gaye ready (they had all gone to a big effort to be dressed in their finest clothes, even sent people home to get them in anticipation!), then began the expedition upstairs. Blessing (I have talked about her before...) still has difficulty walking a long way with her crutches so we decided to put her on a 'wheelchair' (aka: office chair, we don't exactly have wheelchairs to hand sadly!). So, we trundled over all the water tight door seals, heaved over the carpetted areas, went up in the lift, popping out in the middle of the massive kitchen. They were all prety overwhelmed by that let alone anything else!
During the service Laura our assistant ward manager asked all three to stand at the fron t with us and show their crafts. It was such a great time. They were so eager and Blessings mum who also came, was so enthusiatic in our worship time. It was just great to have them in our meeting and show them what we do when we aren't on the ward!
So the crafts will continue...(which is very exciting as you know how I like to make a mess with our kids back home - it continues here!!)