Conakry, Guinea West Africa

For the next 10 months the Africa Mercy will be docked in Conakry, Guinea. I thought for you who don't know much about Guinea (or maybe you don't even know where it is) about writing a bit about the country I will be working in.

Guinea is in West Africa, surrounded by Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote D'Ivoire in the south, Mali to the east and Senegal and Guinea-Bissau to the north. Guinea is sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from it's neighbour Guinea-Bissau. It has a population of about 10,057,975. Conakry being the capital of Guinea, it is the largest city and the economic centre.

Guinea's 10 million people are divided into 24 ethnic groups. The largest and most prominent are the Fula with 40%, Mandingo 30% and Susu 20 %. It is mostly  a Muslim country with 85% of the population, then 10 % is made up of Christian which are mostly Roman Catholic. The remainder follow traditional animist religions.
French is the main language spoken in Guinea, but there are more than 24 indigenous languages spoken also.

Guinea has abundant natural resources including 25% or more of the world's known bauxite reserves. Guinea also has diamonds, gold, and other metals. But Guinea still is burden with poverty with just under half of the population remains living below the poverty line.


This is only a brief overview of the country in which Mercy Ships is going to be working in.
As we get ready to dock tomorrow in Conakry it would be great if you could pray that our time there will be a blessing to the people of Guinea, that they will get to know of Jesus love for them through us. Please pray for  the health of the crew, as we are coming into the wet/rainy season.
And as we get ready for the big screening day that the right people will come to it that we can help with surgeries, and that it will run smoothly.

Sailing.......

Yet again we are sailing, we left Tenerife where we have been for 2 months a few days ago and we are on our way to Guinea, where our next field service is for the next 10 months.
I know it has been a while since I last wrote on here, I really don't know were the time goes! The ship was in the Canary Islands because of work needed doing on  the ship, for 2 weeks of that it was in dry dock. Fortunately for me I was home in the UK for those 2 weeks, as the ship had no air con, and apparently it got very hot in the cabins!!!

Yes, I was in the UK for 2 weeks, I was very busy going from one city to the next visiting family and friends. It was a great time catching up with them all but I was sorry I could not meet up with everyone. The time there was also a good time to share my time so far with Mercy Ships, I was able to speak at my church and my parents church, I was encouraged by people's response in both churches. It was sad to leave the UK especially as I would have liked more time with my family, but I was needed back on the ship.

During the Christmas time when the hospital was closed I was housekeeping, well guess what I was doing this time the hospital was closed, yes again I was housekeeping during the 2 months in Tenerife. Yet again I was confronted with why am I doing this??? I was meant to be on a ward doing my job as a nurse, instead I am cleaning toilets and mopping floors! And again I was reminded that I was not doing this for Mercy Ships but for Jesus, this is what He had for me to do, I needed to relearn to be humble and serve others.
The good thing about the ship being in Tenerife and what I really enjoyed was my evenings and weekends where I could enjoy talking, eating and shopping in Spanish! I had forgotten a lot of my Spanish but after being there for 2 months I think must of it has come back! It was great to eat traditional food, which I had missed so much. The good news is that I was able to go to the supermarket before we left to buy some food for the next few weeks!

This was my first time in Tenerife and it was good to explore it with some of my fellow mercy shippers! We even got to go to the water park, which was amazing!!!!! For you all who don't know Tenerife is a tourist place, so there was plenty of things to do!
So as we left Tenerife is was tinged with sadness to leave a great place but also there was excitement to going to a new place, to start working in the hospital and serving the people of Guinea!