Original subtitles

On this episode of The Mercy Ships.

Anything that doesn't really fit into plumbing, engineering,

or electrical work also falls on carpentry.

We'll take all the youth out to the beach

for a beach day, and it's just for them to spend time with each other.

This is not a weather permitting event.

We are going to the beach on Saturday.

♪ Yea yea yea ♪

A lot of things are going on at the same time.

Everybody has the biggest smile

on their face because you sound so beautiful.

♪ Look at me now... ♪

Ah, the academy is so great.

So we have an academy on board both ships because we have families

that serve on board. And that's a very unique thing about Mercy Ships.

My name is Beth, and I’m a kindergarten

teacher here on board the Africa Mercy.

Most of the time there aren't kids running around a ship,

but because we have families, we have the academy.

And because we have the academy, we're able to have families.

We're able to have families

coming and serving together, and we support the kids and the families

so that their parents can then support the mission of Mercy Ships.

I have been with Mercy Ships

for a little over seven... seven years.

No. Okay.

The beginning is easy.

I served on board the AFM for my first three years with Mercy Ships.

I worked, kids on boarding at ISC in Texas.

And then I came back on the AFM for six months,

and then I transferred to the GLM for six months.

And then I went to the AFM for six months,

and then I went to the GLM for six months,

and then I sailed on the GLM, and then I went back to the AFM.

And then this...

Throughout my seven years that I've been on board,

the hardest thing for me is being away from my family,

and I just miss them so much when I'm serving here.

And so my first year on board, I started praying that my family would come

and join me here.

So in 2021, my little sister had graduated.

My mom and dad were like, okay, we've got her launched and we're coming to Africa.

And so they decided to come and serve with me, too.

So they've been on board

for about three years now, and we get to live and work together.

My dad is also a teacher.

He teaches geography and history in the academy.

When people move from one place to another...

My mom serves in hospitality on board.

And my husband is the mechanic on board.

With my husband and my mom and dad,

We've served in Senegal, in Spain, in Tenerife,

in Madagascar, and in Sierra Leone.

So in all of those places, we do a lot of weekend trips to

you know, the national parks.

No, she's the one family member that has never been able to come.

Hey Kate! Come to the ship!

We need you here.

My name is Lukas.

I'm a car mechanic on the Africa Mercy.

People often ask me like, isn't that difficult ?

like to live with, your

your parents-in-law. But for me, that's just totally normal.

I like it because they're quite adventurous.

And, when we do stuff together, we often go in a group,

and it makes it just more fun.

So, there's nothing nothing bad about it.

Well, the secret is that...

Beth’s sister Kate, her twin sister,

is coming to the ship.

They are both so excited about things.

So she's going to be exploding.

She's-- that's going to be great.

- Yeah. - It's today!

Oh my gosh, I can't wait.

I'm going to go to the airport.

I'm so excited.

Ok, bye Cameron.

See you later.

So before coming to the ship, I was actually working in an office

40 hours a week, just sitting on a computer. And working on the ship

has been really enjoyable because I've been working with my hands

a lot, and I enjoy that. Oh. Hey, boss.

- What's up? Yeah. - We have a new stage?

I want you to put lumber on the stage.

- The new stage. - Yeah.

To kind of strengthening it for the guys for training

- this afternoon. - Okay.

- Sure. - So when will you be able to do it?

I think after lunch I can come. it’s 11... 11:30 now.

- Is after lunch okay? - After lunch is okay.

- All righty. - All right, thanks man. Cheers.

It's really a wide range of work that I do.

I love working with wood.

That was what got me into carpentry.

Unfortunately, on the ship, it's mostly metal.

So I work with wood maybe one day a week.

But I've learned a lot.

And I've definitely come to appreciate working with metal.

Hey, Abdul!

Hello!

How's it going?

- Your legs looking good. - Yes.

- You're doing your exercises? - Yes.

So just because Abdul's a little bit restricted

with his range of movement in his knee

by using a ball or something on wheels,

he's doing it without even thinking, so it's quite nice.

I suppose the common goal that everyone on the ship has

is to help change the lives of people.

We want to help the people of that respective country

lead a better quality of life, be able to feel welcome

and accepted in their towns, their villages, their families.

So for us to be able to change that,

for them to feel welcome and loved is a huge thing.

For them and for us.

We didn't end up thinking that we would be here for ourselves,

so we thought we would be here to serve others.

And we have served others,

probably in more ways than than we will ever really realize.

But at the same time, we've been impacted a lot more than we were expecting.

I wanted to say hi, and also I’m going to see how Kate’s doing with the other shoe.

Wonderful, yeah.

Outside of typical carpentry work,

anything that doesn't really fit into plumbing

or engineering also falls on carpentry.

Just recently, one of our physical therapists made an urgent request

for a custom leg boot for a young patient, Ibrahim.

So I'm thinking the main thing is going to be that leg length discrepancy.

I won't be able to send him back to Hope Center without anything on that leg.

I'm going to need to either have the splint on

or have to put him in a cast. which I don't want to do,

because that kid's had a long time in cast.

I'm sure we can figure something out.

If you let me know how much of lift.

Yeah, we’ll, we'll do some combination of glue and screws or something like that.

Thank you for doing this.

It is a very odd AFO to have to make.

It's not one I've ever had to do before. So I really appreciate your help.

All right. I'll put it at the top of the list.

Cool.

So we're making up a frame for Josh.

One of our patients, she's having a wedding next week.

And we can make up a frame.

And then you can give that to her as, like, a gift.

Yo, I love it.

And, we're trying to--

Trying to cut down this Malagasy wood.

Yeah, we're gonna hopefully build a pretty sweet frame out of it.

We're planning this beach trip with the youth to go

and play some ultimate frisbee.

I won't be here.

So I got my buddy Sebastian, he’s a fine craftsman,

fine carpenter who's helping me get it done.

This is a really nice thing.

Making her a nice frame for her wedding picture.

I hope she likes it.

And has many, many years of joy out of it.

I'm really happy

how it looks.

This is not a thing that

we do every day on board.

As a carpenter, we normally fix furniture

or do little repairs,

and being able to provide a present for this patient

is really nice.

I'm really looking forward to bringing it to Josh, so he can give it to the bride

and the groom.

Coming up on The Mercy Ships.

So we just taught the children the song,

and then we recorded it bit by bit.

♪ Look at me now, yeah...♪

The last vocal the kid do, he killed me.

You sound so beautiful.

I love that this is a body of people

working for the common good and for the same mission.

People from every tribe, nation, and tongue.

It's just amazing.

I've never experienced anything like it.

My name is Deb Duff.

I'm the crew banker on the Global Mercy.

And when I'm not serving with Mercy Ships, I call Australia home.

My job as a crew banker,

I do everything that's to do with crew on board.

I'm loading the cash into the accounts, opening them when they arrive,

and I'm saying goodbye to them as they leave.

So I've got a real privilege

of being able to see every crew member that comes onboard.

I'm one of the original crew members of the GLM.

It was an amazing time, and so I've got to see this ship

just going from zero to its purpose.

I've had many jobs on board.

I started as the head receptionist.

I was on the Africa Mercy before pandemic, and we sailed out of Senegal.

And then I came here on the GLM as the start up crew.

Every week we have lots of people who,

want to get money out to go explore this beautiful nation.

Today we've got about 60 people who want to cash out, but sometimes we'll

have up to 115 people on one day, and we distribute local cash twice a week.

So it could be 300 people.

And that's just people who are coming in,

pre-planning, not about the new crew that come in or are leaving as well.

So we handle a lot of cash every week.

- Here is the cash for today for the crew. - Thanks Deb.

You're welcome.

There's a lot of volunteers coming and going every year, and it's a true joy

to see people coming for two weeks or coming for three years.

I'll let you do the count.

No, you do the count.

The best thing

and the best lesson I've learned is to go into the unknown.

Because God is there in the unknown.

And some of the best memories

that I've made in my entire lifetime have been in this community.

And it has been just such

a wonderful time of growth for me personally.

Mercy Ships has been a place where I've seen

the best of people.

And most people coming in here are overwhelmed because they've got--

they've changed countries, they're changing jobs, they're on a ship.

There's all these terms that we use here that they have no idea.

They're often speaking in a different language to their mother tongue.

And I get to just encourage crew to be--

to go, we've all been there.

People are lovely here.

You'll get there next week.

It'll be so much better than what it is today.

And you will never have another day like today.

And I just love that. I love that opportunity

just to speak into people's lives.

And it's a wonderful community that we have here.

Oh. Hey, Connor. There you are.

- What are you working on? - Brake drums.

- Oh, nice. - You ever work on some brake drums before?

Yeah, once. I really regretted it.

Yeah. So good luck with that.

LeAnne is, yeah,

One of my good, good friends on this ship.

I love LeAnne absolutely to death.

She is such a straight shooter, and she, she'll never mince words.

Especially with me, who can be pretty, pretty out there.

And will say some ridiculous stuff. We’ve been good friends.

Since she came on board, I would say we work out together every morning.

But it’s more... she works out every morning,

and I sometimes work out with her in the mornings.

Her discipline level is way up there.

Mine is... growing.

My name is LeAnne Ferrell.

I'm currently the transportation

and maintenance manager,

and I've been on the Africa Mercy

for about eight months.

I just want to talk about Saturday.

I know we have quite a few kids coming.

Are we good for transportation?

Did we confirm, like 27 people?

- Like with kids and leaders? - Yeah.

Then we should be good. We have two cruisers and one of the vans.

Okay. We're going to be packed, but it's going to be pretty awesome.

Right on. Thanks.

See you later.

I’ve always wanted to be just a little bit more involved in youth or young adults,

because I remember how much mentors and other people had invested in my life

when I was younger, especially in my college years.

So I think for me, it was just a way to impact other people in the same way.

Serving in a youth group is, it's an absolute joy.

Every Tuesday night I look forward to what's going to happen.

I think just having other people besides the people that they see

every day in the classroom, or even just their own family,

just having another outlet for them, I think is, is just helpful.

When we started, we had,

I think, about 8 to 10 youth on board, and then for this semester

we like ballooned into I think we have 20.

Alright, do you guys know what we're doing Saturday?

Beach day!

Okay, so 10 to 4.

Remember that. So we're meeting on the dock at ten.

We'll take all the youth out to the beach for a beach day.

And it's just for them to spend time with each other, relax,

like let their hair down.

Want to let y'all know this is not a weather permitting event.

This is, we are going to the beach on Saturday regardless

of the weather.

♪ That Madagascar beach ♪

It's beach day, rain or shine.

We're just wanting to get the kids out here just to relax,

and get out of the ship

environment and get away from school.

They just finished midterms, so it's just high stress this week.

So I think they were pretty stoked about that.

We just want to get out here, play some games, spend time with each other.

The big reason why we're coming was

'cause we want to play ultimate frisbee.

We're always stuck on the dock playing ultimate frisbee,

and it's never as fun as it could be on a field or on the beach.

Okay, here we go, you guys...

♪ You feel that salty spray ♪

♪ Forget the real world, it’s far away ♪

♪ With every splash, with every smile ♪

♪ We're living in the moment ♪

♪ If just for a while ♪

Good game.

And we just finished up doing some ultimate frisbee.

Don't tell Connor this, but I'm pretty sure we won.

They might have cheated a little bit, so I'm going to take the win on that one.

Oh, that's so interesting

that LeAnne lied to you on camera because my team won 10 to 8.

♪ Let's dive into the ocean ♪

♪ Feel that salty spray ♪

♪ Forget the real world ♪

♪ It's far away ♪

Many of the youth are

going through complex emotions. When mentoring,

I try to meet them where they are.

We're just going to do a quick thing.

I just want to talk a little bit about confidence.

You know, I worry about, okay, what am I look like?

You know, what are people going to think of me?

It's interesting how you don't care about it any other time.

But then when you, like, go in front of people, you know, there's

this inherent like fear that you get that you don't really understand.

You're like, well I was more confident before, why am I not so confident now?

And I think about who is my ultimate audience, right?

And my ultimate audience is God.

And that's what I always think to, or go back to

is like, hey, at the end of the day, I'm here to please God.

Okay, let's pray.

Coming up on The Mercy Ships.

How's it going?

I'm going to be leaving here in about an hour.

Takes a few hours to get to the airport, but then I'll be flying to you soon.

Yeah, I'll see you soon.

I can't wait to see you.

♪ Together we sail ♪

So, as we are working on this song,

actually, Raximo went out and I went to visit the blind school.

And I remember when Raximo came back, he was like

Dieke, I have this idea.

There's this blind school, and the children in the blind school

are a choir, and they sing beautifully.

We must have them on our track about hope and healing.

Hi!

How are you today?

We are fine!

Yeah. Thank you very much.

There were so many kids.

All of them just came to us and started introducing themselves.

I started tearing up and it was beautiful.

So we brought you here

in this room together because we just want to make some music together.

So we need them to do “Nobody else.”

- Yes. - We need them to do

♪ Only God, oh, only God, oh ♪

Then we need them to do, “Yeah, yeah.”

- Like a response. - Yes.

Thank you so much for joining us all on this project.

We want to record a special song, Doctor Turay told us

that you are so talented and your voices were so beautiful.

We just really want to work with you guys

and sing together with you guys.

So as for now, you are the Mercy Ships choir.

Is that all right?

♪ Only God can do it ♪

♪ Only God can do it for me ♪

♪ Only God can do it ♪

♪ Only God can turn it around ♪

♪ Only God can do it ♪

♪ Only God can do it, only God can turn it around ♪

So the part that we have just been singing the,

♪ Only God can do it ♪

♪ Only God can do it for me ♪

We’ll all sing in the same voice.

Five, six, seven, eight...

♪ Only God can do it ♪

♪ Only God can do it for me ♪

♪ Only God can do it ♪

♪ Only God can turn it around, Only God can do it ♪

Beautiful.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

It’s just magical.

Nothing but magical because, like, things I was not expecting right here

and God just bump it up.

Wise was vibing.

Wise was just straight up doing what he does best, which is just like being in

the music in his zone and just listening like, okay, what do we need where?

Which part of the song can use

and will be really lifted up by this choir?

And let's get the choir on the on the track.

A lot of things are going on at the same time,

so we're just really starting to get it,

like, okay, what can we get with the time that we have?

How much can we record?

♪ Look at me now ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Look at me now ♪

♪ Look at me now ♪

That was beautiful!

Good.

We're going to take all these vocals back to the studio listening and position on it

now, how we really want it.

Guys, there is--

So there is a team here in the room, and everybody has the biggest smile

on their face because you sound so beautiful.

Well good morning, Global Mercy.

Good morning.

What does the captain do?

He's responsible for making sure the platform of the ship

works at all times to support the hospital.

And that involves a myriad of things.

A salutary reminder that anything can happen on this ship at any time.

So be prepared.

This is the thing about a ship.

You have to be able to deal with emergency situations on board.

I have to take this guys, one second.

Yeah.

Okay, right. I’m on the way.

Sorry, guys. I got to go.

Let's go.

All general crew, day crew, and visitors

report to your assembly stations on the dock.

FOB, FOB,

there's a fire on deck seven, aft cargo deck.

All emergency teams please muster,

all emergency teams to your muster stations.

Mercy Ships has a spousal rule, which means that no husband

should be away from their wife for more than three months.

Which I think is really cool because it means that they respect

the sanctity of marriage and they care about our-- the health of our marriage.

Hey, babe. How's it going?

I'm going to be leaving here in about an hour,

and then it takes a few hours to get to the airport.

But then I'll be flying to you soon.

Yeah, I'll see you soon.

Okay. I can't wait to see you.

♪ Together we sail ♪

♪ For a greater cause ♪

♪ Healing hearts with every wave ♪

♪ Breaking down the walls ♪

♪ Together we sail ♪

♪ Mending every scar ♪

♪ Mercy flows like rivers wide ♪

♪ Shining like a star ♪

My cynical friends say that, you know,

in 20 years time I'll be like, okay, go and I'll see you in six months.

But right now I feel like we're really missing out on the good stuff.

You know? I have no doubt that

there will be a bit of transition time when we come back together.

But, I can't wait.

♪ Together we sail ♪

♪ For a greater cause ♪

♪ Healing hearts with every wave ♪

♪ Breaking down the walls ♪

♪ With each stone, a brand new start ♪

♪ A mission we believe ♪

♪ Lifting spirits, lifting hearts ♪

♪ To give and to receive, through the pain ♪

♪ And through the tears, we don’t stand alone ♪

♪ Hope and healing is what we bring ♪

♪ Making mercy known ♪

♪ Together we sail ♪

♪ For a greater cause ♪

♪ Healing hearts with every wave ♪

♪ Breaking down the walls ♪

♪ Together we sail ♪

I love you.

I love you too.

♪ Mending every scar ♪

♪ Mercy flows like rivers wide ♪

♪ Shining like a star ♪

Coming up on the next episode of The Mercy Ships:

So, yeah, I'm really hyped because I've never been to a Malagasy wedding before.

These roads are a little bumpy.

But the scenery is really beautiful.

One of the ortho patients,

one of the little boys, they don't want to leave them in a hard cast.

So he has something to, like, protect his leg while he's still healing.

There you go.

Now I'm going to do noisy saw.

Beth’s sister Kate, her twin sister,

is coming to the ship.

I’m so excited!

That’s going to be great, yeah.

FOB, FOB, fire on deck seven, aft cargo deck.

All emergency teams to your muster stations.