Hi Everyone,
We’ve now come to the end of the Guinea field service and we left Conakry in June. We’re in the midst of setting up the next field service (Senegal). More to follow on that…
We first arrived in Guinea in October 2018 and it’s been humbling to be part of this field service and to see so many patients transformed by their time on-board the Africa Mercy. We often focus on the physical healing when telling patient stories (and the before and after photos are amazing), however there is so much more to recovery than just the direct surgical procedures. The patients were loved, affirmed and cared for in such a deep way and this translated into a sense of hope and self worth that you could see so evidently in the patient’s faces during the many goodbyes.
Liz in particular was part of some amazing patient stories and served as the second surgeon during the Women’s health block from April – May. We’ll share more details about that in a separate post.
Also during our time in Guinea, Mercy Ships' completed their 100,000th surgical procedure. This was a huge milestone for the organization, which has now been running since 1978.
Teams all over the ship celebrated in different ways and here is also photo of Barney and his team celebrating.
Both Noah and Judah have grown and changed a lot over the past year and looking back at photos of them from just before we left the UK, they look very different. Noah has learnt to swim, acquired a distinctly American way of saying ‘Waterrrrr’ and developed a real interest in how anything mechanical works. Judah has cultivated a ship-wide fan club amongst the crew and he’s now greeted with requests for high fives and exploding fist-bumps wherever he goes.
Noah practicing his letters....
The Goodall boys showing off their prowess in a push-up competition
Noah the Engineer...
Mercy Ships are currently building another surgical ship which will be called the Global Mercy. The ship is mid construction in China at the moment and so Noah decided to contribute his design skills to the planning of the vessel…
Barney has enjoyed the challenge of finance in Africa and has got stuck in with the local banks, which even resulted in him receiving an invite to a few corporate shindigs….
At the end of our time in Guinea, teams often have matching outfits made from local fabric. One of the boy’s friends (Phil) suggested that Noah and Judah also get matching outfits with him and here are the results!
After leaving Guinea at the beginning of June, we had several weeks back in the UK seeing family and friends and also a short break in Annecy, France. We all loved the greenery and seeing fields of grass was a massive novelty and a lovely change!
Thank-you to everyone who has supported us financially, emotionally and in prayer. This year has been exciting, challenging and nothing like anything we’ve ever done before. We genuinely couldn’t have done it without you and we appreciate you so much.
We hope you all have a great summer and we miss you all very much.
Lots of Love,
Barney, Liz, Noah and Judah
If you would like to support us financially the easiest way is by donating through the Mercy Ships UK website and select the ‘This donation is to support a crew member’ option at the bottom of the page. Please include our surname and designation code ‘Goodall 5013’