Day Four or Ahhh.... Weekends....

Today is Sunday, and I am very happy to say, my first day off. What did I do with my free day? While, first I accidently slept in and missed breakfast. (Whoops.) Then I was privilaged enough to attend Ward Church.

Ward Church is the service that they preform in the hospital ward. The room was a mixture of hospital beds and plastic seats, all filled, dispite the fact that we are packing up to leave Benin. Even though some people couldn't even leave their beds, there were still smiles all around. Directly in front of me was a nurse holding the offical last patient of Benin. The patient was a young baby girl, who could not have been a year old. A white bandage crisscrossed her lip where her cleft had been. So young, eyes so brown, she seemed to watch everything with fasination and was calmed by the rapid beats of the drum during worship. I wish I could have know her, but I know, even now, that she is a special girl.

The service was wonderful. The worship was loud and thankful, as a man sang and pounded the drum. Those who could got up and danced for the Lord. How long that lasted, I do not know, but I enjoyed every minute. A lady from the ship gave the messege. She discussed Luke 18 : 9-14, in which is the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee. The Pharisee prayed loudly in the temple, saying ''Thank you God that I am so great! And that I am not like those bad people!'' But the tax collector prayed alone, weeping and saying ''God, I am sorry. I am a sinner.''
God doesn't want us to praise ourselves, to look to ourselves. He made us and He wants us to look to him, to ask him to help us at all times.

The messege was so wonderful to hear. When the last of the words had died away, the music began again. A woman came up and said that she had a song she wished to sing. A song that expressed how she felt. She sang and danced and the rest joined in. So touched by God's amazingness, she began to weep, but continued to sing.

Day Three or The Unfortunate Rules of Dishwashing

So since working here, I have discovered that there are some interestingly unfortunate rules when it comes to dishwashing. Theses rules, while never stated, seem to be inforced time after time.

Rule One: There will always be a huge load of dishes, or a patheticly tiny. There is no such thing as a perfectly sized load. And, if you end up with the huge load of dishes, that will lead to rule number two.

Rule Two: When ever you recive a patheticaly tiny load of dishes, you will wait for quite some time for some more dishes to come. After waiting a good five minutes, you will decide to run the dishes anyways. 30 seconds after closing the door, more dishes will arrive.

Rule Three: It doesn't matter how hard you look, as soon as you say, or even think, ''Well, that's everything!'' Dishes will appear.

So those are some of the things I have discovered. I will keep you posted as I spend time in the Mercy Ships dinning room!

In other news, Catherine, Lynne and Lisa have arrived!!! They made it here saftely last night! I'm happy to report that all of their bags made it as well!

It's great to have them here!!!!!

Day Two or Ma'am, Please Don't Inhale the Crystal Lite

So today I discovered that working in the dining room poses the ocupational hazard of accidentaly inhaling the powered drinks. The drink that I was unfortant enough to introduce to my lungs was a Crystal Lite Fruit Punch mix. From then on I wisely waited for the powder to settle before begining to mix. So just a word to the wise, never breath in your drinks.

This morning was my first morning of working breakfast. Which meant I had to get up at 5:30. Which actually wasn't as bad as I was expecting! It took a lot of work to actually get out of my bed, but once I was out, I was actually good to go!

This morning I ended up working a lot on drinks. (See above fiasco) We have those big drink things, you know, like the ones you see at the movie theaters and stuff that have the slushies in them and there is that big tube going down the middle and mixing all the time? Well, we have eight of them, four are filled with water and the other four with juice. I also discovered that when you put on the lid, it's a good idea to make sure that the lid is lined up, otherwise it will fall into the middle of the tank and you will have to fish it out. And of course, it will fall in the darkest juice on the counter.

Day One or I MADE IT!!!

Well, I made it to Africa!! Didn't get lost in the airport or lose any luggage or have anything else bad happen!

So I'm sharing a room with nine other girls! That should be interesting! So I have the top bunk in the back of the room. I like it, it's nice and comfortible! I do find it a little interesting though were the sprinkeler head is. While it is not directly over my bed, it's still close enough that you can still see it when you close the curtain. Which means, you'll all be happy to know that if there is a fire in the middle of the night, I will be the first to drown!

We started work today. I'm in the dining room, so today, starting right after lunch. Normally I'll be doing morning as well, but it is our first full day here, so they're starting us slow. I was put in charge of washing silverware and cups. First you spread the silverware across the tray and the cups, all facing down in the the next. Then you put the silverware tray on top of the cup tray. After you have finished wiping all the nasty slimy junk off your hands, you slide the trays into this strange thing that looks like it escaped from a science fiction movie, and pull down the top part. It slams into place and the machine starts. Once that is done, you pull everything out.

Rememeber how the only way to kill germs well is with HOT water? And that the metal, strangly enough, becomes HOT? That means that as you are trying to sort the things, you do a whole bunch of 'OW! OW! OW!' Hiss of pain 'OW!' till the silverware has finished cooling. Either that or you're done.

Countdown's On!

So I'm only going to be in America for another six days! I can't believe how fast the time has gone by, it seems like only yesterday that I was reasuring people that I wasn't leaving for a few months!
Thank you to everyone who has been praying for traveling companions, our prayers have been answered! Four of the people who were in Gateway with me are going to meet me in Paris.
This week has/is one of the busiest weeks of my life! I'm trying to see everyone one last time before I leave. It's so hard to say goodbye to everyone, but I'm still so excited to see all of my Gateway friends again!
Please pray for me as I prepare to leave! Packing, saying goodbyes, last minute preperations, all needs to be done before Tuesday, I'm defently starting to feel the last minute rush!