It’s been almost a full two years since we dropped off the grid with our blog, so we wanted to give you the great news firsthand that WE ARE BACK!
Not only with our blog, but we have been back on board for a while now as well! Well … we have been back on board for almost a year now, but we will get to that in a moment.
In my last blog (in which I mentioned that moving forward I would like to convert this space into more of a “logbook entries space”), I spoke a bit about our time in Granadilla with the Africa Mercy and the challenges of quarantine.
Little did we know at that time what would lie ahead of us. As I mentioned, we took off to take some time at home to take a break, visit friends and family and catch our breath, that was I September 2020. It was a lovely time and we thoroughly enjoyed our freedom. In comparison to being constrained to a ship and narrow dock space, it felt like “old days” even though we were of course wearing masks when out and about.
In October 2020, we headed back to the ship and started to settle back in. As the end of the year and the delivery of our newest fleet member, the Global Mercy was drawing closer, we started to apply for visas to travel to China at the beginning of December. We were informed by Mercy Ships mid-December, that we would need to actually go to the Netherlands as soon as possible to apply for our visas there directly, as this promised a higher success rate.
So there we were, December 2020, packing up five years of ship life in just two short weeks. I am telling you, it is astonishing how much stuff two people can accumulate in such a small space onboard a ship over time!
Amongst all the business of packing and preparations for China, we still tried to enjoy the festivities around this special time of the year as much as possible, participating in the Swedish tradition of Santa Lucia and the lovely Christmas activities on board.
Also, because I was signed up to be the Crew Nurse on the long sail from China to Antwerp, I had to learn some extra skills – suturing!
Apparently I am a natural and my Orange healed like an ace 🙂
We headed to the Netherlands on the 3rd of January 2021, fully expecting to be in China within 3-4 weeks and sailing away a few weeks later on the Global Mercy. However…. this was not quite how our journey turned out.
If you want to read more about this part of our life journey, head on over to the blog I wrote on God’s faithfulness in this very difficult and challenging season of our lives!
At the same time we got stuck in the Netherlands, the blog site which I had built and previously used to keep you updated fell apart because the design theme was no longer supported by the provider, so we started rebuilding the page. Since we kind of started from scratch, we also decided to merge both our blogs together, so you can read here from Ruben and from me in the future (yay!).
Here are some impressions from our time in the Netherlands (January 2021-July 2021),
click on the photos to enlarge
Long time in the coming and desperately awaited, Ruben traveled to Sri Lanka in August of 2021 to meet the newest member of our fleet, the Global Mercy, and sail her to Antwerp. You can read and see more about our time in Antwerp and the Netherlands in Ruben’s latest blog (it is written in Dutch, but you can use the google translate option in the top right corner to translate to your preferred language).
I drove from the Netherlands to Antwerp in September and arrived a few days early to do some advance work for the ship before it came in. I was very blessed to be invited by some amazing friends (who had also let us stay in their house when we were in dire need for a place to stay after I received my cancer diagnosis) to sail the GLM in on their sailboat and welcome her in the Netherlands/Belgium. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience and absolutely amazing.
In the meantime, so much has happened, but we are back on board, after years and years of being involved in the planning, and we had finally made it to the Global Mercy!
In Antwerp, the business of the equipping period began and there were lots of activities, then Sinterklaas and Christmas and we also celebrated Ruben’s birthday on board.
In February, Ruben and I participated in the a week-long Basic Safety Training in Rotterdam (about an hour drive to get there). Unfortunately, I brought Covid home with me to the ship, but thank God I didn’t pass it on to my fellow shipmates. Nothing like a 10-day cabin quarantine….
click on the photos to enlarge
Shortly after, we sailed over to Rotterdam, where we hosted 12.000+ people on board and had an amazing, but intense 2-week period, including seeing so many friends and family, hosting many guests, giving Television and Radio interviews, meeting VIP’s and Royalties. Phew.
As mentioned earlier, you can find photos and some videos from that time on Ruben’s post.
After our wonderful time in Rotterdam, we set sail to Granadilla in Tenerife, for further equipping of the ship, specifically the Hospital areas.
We are currently docked alongside our sister ship, the Africa Mercy in Dakar, Senegal and hope to send you some updates with pictures of the activities soon!
I know this is a lot to take in (it has been two years after all), but Ruben and I wanted to also take a moment and say THANK YOU to all our friends and supporters for sticking with us, supporting us in different ways and loving us through all the storms, the lows and all the highs. Thank you for your patience during these times, when we just couldn’t muster the strength to write an update.
This new website is still being worked on, but is finally coming together. Leave us a message below if you like!
Love from Dakar, Silke (and Ruben)