Nimba Mountain

After more than a month of trying to upload the pictures I wanted to on to this post, I've given up. They're linked here, on my Flickr site. Maybe I won't have as much trouble with this when I get back to the states.

Last weekend I took a trip to Nimba Mountain with 20 of my mates from the ship. It was a long and exciting venture that had many memorable points. Nimba Mountain (1,752m) is the highest point in Liberia, Guinea, and Cote d Ivoire. The Nimba Mountain region is home to the highest concentration of iron ore in the world and used to account for 1 percent of the total iron production in the world, when the mines were operable before the Liberian Civil War, which spanned nearly two decades.

The Nimba Mountain region is home to many unusual plants and animals due to the collision of the rainforest and savannah climates that mix uniquely in this location. One such animal is a toad that happens to be the only known amphibian to give birth to young that undergo no post-birth metamorphosis. There are also chimpanzees that have been reported to use rocks as tools. While these primates are common on the Nimba range, commonly known as the “Guinea backbone,” none were seen on our trip, as we stayed mainly within the area of the abandoned iron mines and quarry.

We started our trip at the m/v Africa Mercy, the hospital ship that all of the members of the group work on. The Africa Mercy is the largest non-government owned hospital ship in the world and is owned and operated by the Christian non-profit organization, Mercy Ships. The Africa Mercy is docked at the Freeport in Bush Rod Island, Monrovia, Liberia. We took a tro-tro (African van/bus) to Ganta. We stayed the night at Daa Mo’s Guest House ($5 per person, per night. 10 rooms, owned and operated by Amos. He’s got another guest house just down the street, same price.)

NOTE: We rented the tro-tro for 600 USD for Friday-Monday. If you plan ahead, you should be able to get a tro-tro for around 400-500 USD, we had to make emergency plans because our original tro-tro was wrecked the day before. This was expensive, if you do this; it is cheaper and more comfortable to take a taxi, unless you don’t fill all of the seats on the tro-tro. We had a large group and only one of us had been to Ganta before, so we took the tro-tro to stay together.

We left Daa Mo’s the next day in our tro-tro and road to the washed out bridge about half an hour away. We crossed the river via log bridge to argue with some taxi drivers for another half an hour. They eventually gave us a reasonable price and we drove the next hour and a half with four stops; two immigration stops, one UN security checkpoint, one for some fried plantains (25 Liberian Dollars) and provisions for the climb (300 Liberian Dollars).

The last ten minutes of the drive to the mountain was slow because the taxis were in such bad condition and could barely handle the foothills. Once we arrived, we had lunch at the “blue lake.” This lake was formed when the impending civil war caused the mining company to panic and mine as fast as possible. A large wash out on the north side of the quarry was one of the results of their haphazard rush to make as much money as possible.

After we crossed the wash out, we had a nice, flat hike along the old mining paths about a third of the way up the mountain at which point they were disturbed due to natural causes. We stopped here for about half an hour to take in the view and catch our breath. A small group of us decided before the trip that they didn’t want to climb to the summit, so they turned back at this point to take a taxi back to the guest house.

The rest of us began the gruelling climb up the rest of the mountain. About a third of the total climb was scrambling and two thirds was on a path. There was a small vertical section just before the summit that had to be climbed. It was a little hairy, since the base of the cliff was not very flat or wide. Falling would have resulted in a tumble down at least 20 meters.
We made camp on the top of the mountain. I carried a 20 kilo tarpaulin in my pack for shelter. Carlos brought a tent for four people. We had a dinner of ramen noodles cooked over a Pepsi/Guinness can stove with Heet for fuel. After dinner, we got a nice thunder storm show, which Victor was kind enough to take some pictures of. The stars were also out in full force, with the exception of the occasional passing cloud interrupting the view.


The next morning, we had a brief rain storm which we weathered in the tarpaulin. We broke camp around 8:30 am and began our decent. At 11:00 am, we were met at the quarry by a security guard for Mittal Steel (the company owning the land we were on). He just wanted to make sure that we were all safe. Sometimes the locals in Liberia will try to pretend to be protecting you from some danger, existent or make-believe, in order to get some cash from you. I’m not so sure that this guy wasn’t trying that.


I talked to him for a while, since our taxi did not arrive for an hour or so. He had worked at the mine before the war, and fled to Guinea when the rebels arrived. He also told me that there were lions in the area. I was, and continue to be, highly sceptical of that remark. Maybe he meant mountain lions…

We took taxis back to the wash out, took our tro-tro back to Daa Mo’s to settle up with Amos. After paying Amos for the accommodations, we went to dinner in town (about 2 USD) and started the seven hour ride back to Monrovia. We stopped on the way to and from Ganta in a town called Kakata. It was a nice place to stop. If you are into diamond mining, you can find plenty of people around that know some titbits that you may find interesting. The same is true for a lot of Liberia, particularly near the borders…

The whole trip cost around 70 USD per person. Not a bad deal for a great West African experience.

Technical Difficulties

I have been trying to post this great blog I wrote about a trip I took two weeks ago for the past two weeks. Unfortunately, I can't seem to upload pictures onto Blogger. Once this excessively irritating issue is resolved, I will put up a nice post about mountain climbing in Liberia... Until then I will continue to exercise patience and self-control.

Postseason 2007

Versus

The Red Sox are into the postseason with a tough league championship series against the Indians. Unfortunately, I'll have to stay up all night to catch the games, so long as I don't forget to reserve them on the sat. television...

On a local note, there is a four day weekend coming my way, courtesy of the ship's management team. I don't know why, but I'm going to utilize it to visit Nimba Mountain. I'd miss a series game for that, no questions asked.

A Better View

This is where I went swimming last week. It is an abandoned iron quarry known as Bong Mine. A group of five or six people from the hospital ship I work on took a train ride from Monrovia to Bong County, where this quarry is located. It was really fun, with the exception of one of my mates getting her camera stolen...

For me, one of the most difficult things about being in Liberia is the mix of response to our presence. Some people are all smiles and waves and so happy that someone is trying to help them out. Others see us as an easy target to extract money and goods from. Still others despise us for how fortunate we are. Within each of the responses, there is a spectrum of differences in the attitude still. Some fall into two or even all three of these responses at different times, but that's just another example of how you can't group people together nicely and make generalizations.

I know of several pastors in Liberia that are really glad we are here, and glad that we are helping out, but they still take every chance they get to take advantage of the white man from the big ship. It's not their fault, for the most part. So many NGOs and missionaries have come through and given out so much that they've come to expect handouts.

What I'm about to say next is in no way saying that the people of Liberia are less human or valuable than any other people group on the face of the planet, it's only a metaphor to exemplify the NGOs and missionaries have a tendency to be like a child that finds a wounded baby animal near the treeline in a park. The child wants to help the animal recover so that it can survive, but lacks an understanding of the animals needs for survival. Since the child does not realize that the animal needs to maintain its survival instincts, the child may bring the animal home and give it warm milk and splint its leg and feed it plenty of food and love the animal and play with it, but when the animal is taken back to the park, it will have a much more difficult time surviving in the wild if it has become dependent on the care of the child.

Many NGOs and missionaries that have worked in Liberia have done this to the Liberian people. If we come to the aid of a country and hold it up, how will it learn to stand on its own? If we come and show them how to stand, and coach them. We need to maintain a very tricky dynamic tension to help Africa and I by no means think that I know better than anyone else how to do it, but I know if we keep doing things the way we are, we will change some of the problems into different ones, not help eradicate them.

I've been stressing sustainability for a lot of this post, but that is not the whole story. The reason we have to maintain a dynamic tension is that there are people that will die if we don't help them and they won't die because they have some disease that is just too awful to treat, they will die because there is no one to treat it. That's the thing that I like the most about working with Mercy Ships, the organization has an understanding of the need for sustainability and for the immediate need of people in life threatening situations, and they address both. There is room for improvement, though. We still have a lot to learn about how to work in each of the nations of West Africa.

Resolve and Dr. T F Chen

I feel like I think this every time I remember that I have a blog:

"I need to post more often so that this blog isn't a total waste."

I'm taking a stand. Viva a la revolution!! I'm shooting for a post a day regarding what I'm thinking about, which will prove to be quite an eclectic collection of science, religion, culture, and procrastination in the form of over-organizing everything.

The first of many to come:

Gawker Artist, Dr. T F Chen.
Category: Culture

After reading Francis Schaeffer's The God Who is There, I have found modern art and culture far more interesting. I used to enjoy nice looking art, but rarely took a liking to the edgier stuff. With Schaeffer's perspective of what artist's like Van Gogh and Picasso were thinking and what this logical implications of the views they were expressing were, I have found a new desire to understand their perspective so that I can help people find what they are looking for.

Back to Doc Chen, the guy makes some really neat art. I like it. I like it for two reasons: A. It is aesthetically pleasing. B. It is designed to communicate something meaningful. While I don't necessarily agree with the conclusions that Dr. Chen makes, or the solutions he is suggesting, I feel the need that he is addressing. He has established a philosophy that is very interesting, though I haven't found it to be complete. I think he makes a good step towards truth in his "Five Dimensional Cultural Philosophy."

However, from a few minutes of googling to find out about his religious stance, I uncovered a discrete association of Dr. Chen and the Unification Church, which has some rather erroneous doctrine about Zachariah (John the Baptist's father) being the biological father of Jesus (making Jesus an illegitimate child). While this religious organization is concerned with the idea of love, I'm afraid that they're leadership is not in touch with reality, or truth for that matter.

While I hold love to be supremely valuable, I also value the truth. Both can (actually, they must) coexist within the same worldview. I do understand why Chen would be drawn to such a group, as they have an overarching desire to accept and tolerate people from various cultures.

ahh, I better stop here or I won't be able to sleep! I'll save it for another post.

Relevant vs. Relative

I've been thinking about the difference between relevant and relative lately, particularly with regards to the Church. There's a lot of buzz (from what I can tell via the Internet) in the Church today regarding the way that some churches are "doing church." (Surprise, surprise. We've been doing that for Christianity's whole existence.) I'm noticing a few things: 1) parachurch organizations, 2) Emergent churches, 3)the mainstream response to both.

So the whole parachurch thing, I don't know how I feel about it. I can see the need, and the benefit they have, but I also understand the feeling that some of these organizations take away from the role of the local church. On the whole, I think they are a good thing that should work in conjunction to local churches in a way that allows the church to take ownership of the program that the parachurch is promoting/doing. This would make parachurches something that sharpened as iron sharpens iron the local church, which, at times, seems rather dull these days.

The Emergent church movement. I've read some particularly malicious things about this. Which leads me to believe that there is probably something God wants us to learn from this movement. I've read a few books by authors that get grouped within this group (some by association to the movement, some by similarity of thought). While I'm not so keen on throwing out some of the aspects of the modern church in favor of a church adept to ministering in the postmodern world, I do think that the movement has some ideas that are on target.

One such idea is a redefinition (maybe re-terming is more appropriate) of the "saved" or "born again" label. I would identify myself as both saved and born again to the "Christian-ese" speaker, but to postmodern "outsiders" I would be careful to make sure that the terms mean the same thing to both of us.

This is an example of a bigger problem with modern Christianity. We have isolated ourselves in a sub-culture. There are wonderful aspects to this sub-culture, but the bottom line is that it cripples our effectiveness because we don't know how to operate outside of it. One of the ways that we are particularly unable to operate outside of our Christian sub-culture is communication. Particularly in a spiritual context. Going back to the example: [conversation to you, a fellow Christian] I say "saved" you think "follows the teachings of Jesus, therefore going to heaven." [conversation with a postmodern non-Christian] I say, "saved" he thinks "judgemental, exclusive, and self righteous."

So what if we re-term our speech? Will that make us un-biblical? To abandon terms coined by people that lived in the past 200-300 years? Sounds to me like that's the same sort of thinking that people had after reading Martin Luther's 95 theses, or some people have in regards to using something other than the King James Version.

Really, what I'm starting to think is that the reactionary modern church might be the ones doing the real damage. Sure, they talk about sin being evil and bad, bad, bad for you. But does all of this talk make them less of sinners? I'm seeing a lot of reflections of the Pharisees in this sort of thinking. Will telling people that sin is bad really help them not sin, or will it make them sin more by hiding or not admitting their sin. You can't hide a wound and expect it to heal itself, it will only get infected. Why would we think that communicating to people that having a spiritual wound is unacceptable would cause them to bring it out in the open where they can get it treated? I think it will convince them of this:

"Even though this spiritual wound hurts, and might be killing me, I can't afford to let others see it and risk the rejection. I'll hide it and try to suture it myself. Instead of going where I can get antibiotics (since it might cost me the shallow and ineffective fellowship that I get), I'll pour my own household cleaners and chemicals on it to try to kill the infection. Maybe that will work."

I'm actually impressed with how well we do suture ourselves, or at least keep the old scars covered, but wouldn't it be better if we could make each other feel like we were a safe group to get help from? This is what I propose we do: start being like Jesus. Not the Jesus that would never swear or have a negative thought (although we should strive for that), but the Jesus that loves people that need it. Remember this line, "It's not the healthy that need a physician..."? We are the doctors. Do we know how to triage patients, because I think we live in an emergency room full of deathly ill people that need doctors, and they need them now. Should we be treating headaches, bellyaches, and sore throats or internal bleeding, broken bones, cancer, removing cataracts, and building prosthetics. How is our bedside manner with the patients that might want to walk out of our clinic, carrying their own severed limb, compared to the ones that come back every Sunday? Maybe we should love a little differently than we do.

But I said I was going to write about the difference between relevant and relative. The difference is this, if the Gospel (which is "the kingdom of God is at hand") isn't relevant, then it isn't going to make sense. You have to make the words fit the context. Relevant is when what you say out loud produces a picture in the other-half-of-the-conversation's mind that is at least similar to the one in your own. Relative is when you marginalize the truth for the sake of making that picture acceptable in someone else's mind. HUGE DIFFERENCE! The gospel isn't "be a good person and go to heaven", but it's also not "just say Jesus, I'm a sinner, and You're the way to heaven, and I believe in You." It's "Jesus is real. He is showing you how to live today, right now, right here, a hora. He's not teaching you the best way to get what you want. Follow His example, which is in accordance with the way He made you to work, and guess what? You will work! and at the end of it, you get to enjoy life with Him just like He intended!!!"

The thing is, you can't really say that and it make sense to a person if you live like most Christians live. Why? Because they don't see how Christians are like Jesus. They see Christians like televangelists or as an exclusive club that doesn't even have any benefits until after you die. It's less appealing than saving for retirement is to the average college senior!!!

I think it's time that we started taking righteousness seriously and pursuing it rather than the imitation of it. I think it's time that we started taking evangelism seriously and meeting people where they are instead of letting them be in our club if they ask nicely. I think it's time that we started taking love seriously and not just reciprocating it when we feel obligated. I think it's time that we started taking Jesus seriously. The kingdom of God is at hand, remember?

Cheshire Home for the Handicapped

Today I went with Lorah and a few others from the ship to Cheshire Home for the Handicapped. It was a great experience. I enjoyed it tremendously and my time there felt eerily natural.

The people living at the Cheshire Home are severely handicapped. Half of them don't have the capacity to use the toilet, only two of them can walk, several of them cannot communicate in any evident manner at all, this includes hitting things.

It may seem strange that I would say that I enjoyed visiting people that have such a difficult time interacting with other people. It wasn't, it was one of the most natural experiences I've had working with the Liberian people. I think it's because they don't talk about the war all of the time. They might remember the war, and how bad things were then, but I think that they have such a hard time with life as it is, that the war isn't their excuse for how hard life is. They just know that life is hard.

Really, it almost makes me feel dirty for how little I appreciate what I've got. How about you?

Ending months of silence to say...

It's time to talk about Africa. I have been here for almost three months and I haven't shared any experiences. Plenty plenty to share now-o. (That last sentence was in Liberian English.)

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Allow me to begin by enlightening you with some facts-of-life in Monrovia.

First topic: nightlife.

The nightlife of Monrovia can be best described by it's streetlights. They exist, but they are riddled with bullet holes. They don't light up because the power station for the capitol was destroyed during the 14 years of civil war that ended in 2003.

Second topic: Commerce.

Fairly large, room for lots of commerce. Three piers, one container dock, a lightering station for tankers, and approximately sixteen shipwrecks crippling the port's productivity including one on ship heeled over on the container dock.

Third topic: Cultural food.

In Liberia, most people eat once a day, unless they have to pay for something else, like going to the hospital, or bribing a police officer. On Jamaica Road, just outside of the port, I have a favorite restaurant. It's called, "Food Ready Now," or if it's closed, "Food Not Ready." They have a menu consisting of rice and fufu, the typical meal there cost 30-40 Liberian Dollars (about 50 cents). Sometimes you get a piece of meat or fish with your rice or fufu.

Fourth topic: Accommodations.

Looking South from the port of Monrovia, you will notice a large hotel perched delightfully on top of a large hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. This is Ducor Hotel, fully equipped with a swimming pool, elevators, and a marble dance floor. Unfortunately, the Hotel did not remain untainted by the long civil war and no longer has running water, windows, doors, electrical cabling, furniture of any kind, or the kind of atmosphere that would entice you to enjoy a dance on the marble floor, even if you were to over look the human excrement covering it.

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These facts-of-life are not happy thoughts, for anyone. But I would like to suggest that the people of Liberia are not without hope or happiness. While their condition is sever and their help is limited, they remain hopeful of a prosperous and peaceful future.

Last Tuesday, I had dinner at Food Ready Now. The cook, Mama Israel is constantly cheerful. Her son Israel, the bus boy, is usually playing with his Matchbox toy car. I asked him if it was fast and he told me, "No. But I still like it a lot."

When you ask a Liberian, "How are you?" the typical response is, "Tank Ga!!!" (or "Thank God!").

Most people smile and wave at westerners. Instead of blaming us for their situation. They also sing a lot.

A while back, I took a day trip to Buchanan, the second largest sea port in Liberia (currently closed due to wrecks). This was a common sight on the trip to the town.

A lot of people in Liberia get their livelihood from the sea by way of fishing. Most people fish out of canoes such as this one.

I think the saddest thing about this country is that the people here are just like people else-where. The difference is that a few people have abused the power that they have had so that they could have more power, and the little man has become corrupt because that is the only way he has found to survive. Not all people here are corrupt. Not all people in power here are corrupt, but I think that it is the norm. I think that what Liberia needs is a paradigm shift. A paradigm shift from looking at their situation to looking at their God.

x plus y equals...

a good day, where x is a can of sour cream and onion pringles and y is...

a NEW REDSOX HAT!!!

Thanks for making today special. Thanks to everyone who sent me an email or facebook message, it was really nice to be remembered from a distance.

Now for a short rave about how much of an awesome gift a new Redsox hat is:

The other day, my best friend told me that she couldn't wait to give me my birthday present, and I was super excited, because when someone can't wait to give a gift, it's a good gift. When we parted ways shortly thereafter, I pondered what this good gift might be. I thought of a few good things to get, some a bit fanciful, but the hat was at the top of the list, and, being in Liberia, where the heck could she come up with that??? As it turns out, she ordered this most excellent gift quite a while ago, and had it shipped to Mercy Ships in Texas and then forwarded to the ship in Liberia. What an awesome friend and sweet gift. Also the REDSOX are the best baseball team in the world, as proven by their current standings and statistics, but moreso by the fact that they stand in direct opposition to the Evil Empire (read: NY Yankees). I'm going to go check the current standings again, now that I have my new hat on!

Rise Above

Rise above.

Two simple words, a whole new world.

Rise above.

I have taken to telling myself, "rise above," every time that I become overwhelmed by work or my suspicion that Mercy Ships' has a PR obsession and I cannot explain in words how effective and LIFE CHANGING the action has become. I'm a huge advocate of saying "rise above," at any and every opportunity currently, solely for it's uplifting qualities.

I never really bought into the whole changing your perspective on your circumstances thing, but I've got to say, that's exactly what I've done and it's made a world of difference. Dang it, I totally just lost my train of though because I looked to my right and saw the most amazingly beautiful girl I've ever met. Where was I?

Rise above.

That's right. Seriously, I'm trying to get it to be the official, un-official motto of the Africa Mercy. I hope it catches on. I've been drilling it into my people at work, they're actually catching onto it, if only in a sarcastic way, it's still on their minds. I think you should give it a try; rise above your circumstances and see the world around you for what it really is, see it through God's eyes.

Liberia, Sunsets, and Extravagant Love

Tonight is the end of my second day in Liberia. Days one and two were spent in meetings, chasing drainage problems for air conditioning evaporators, more meetings, watching AC Milan win the European cup over Liverpool FC, and enjoying the final community meeting on the Anastasis. So far, I'm really happy with the way this new part of my life is unfolding, there are some changes that have occurred in my personal life that have been very challenging in the days between the sail from Santa Cruz, Tenerife to Monrovia, but even those changes have been an opportunity to develop as a person. Thanks, God for that opportunity.

I'd like to take a moment to just reflect on how faithful God is. Isn't it amazing how He will stick with us? God has taught me in the recent events that He wants me to be like that too. He wants all of us to be like that. When will I learn to stick by people regardless of the things that they do or say? Hopefully I'm learning that now. I hope you get that blessing through some event in your life soon as well.

I feel like I've learned a lot of perspective as well. I was sitting out on deck eight of the ship (the top weather deck) a few nights back when I wasn't all too happy with the current events around me, and looking out at the sea, that ever-constant reminder of my smallness and helplessness, I remembered just how much God cared for me. For you. For all of us. It's an amazing thing that He would be so faithful to care how I am making it, even though I'm simply one man, on one ship, on one ocean. How ridiculous, when you think about it, is the extravagance of His love for us! Why, of all things, would the Maker and Creator of all things be interested in my daily survival, much less how content I am with my circumstances? Incredible. Extraordinary. Scandalous! Honestly, the way that God loves us is so utterly, extravagantly vain... Think of a sunset. First, just think of it as you see it. Completely beautiful, yet only lasting for a few moments. Now, think of the incredible amount of energy and power that is in a sunset. It's amazing! The sun, a huge burning ball of gas, tons of miles away, shining at just the right angle through just the right amount of ozone, particulate matter, water vapor... and the result, sheer beauty. Now, think of this, the whole thing lasts only a few moments, but it continues on, around the world continuously, gracing all of creation with an ever-changing display of extravagantly beautiful visual love letter written across the biggest thing we could ever hope to see in this life-time. WOW. What extravagance!

Ships and Ferries

Tenerife, 16 May, 2007: 1433. Less than two hours until I stand my next watch... and I'm spending it blogging. It is noteworthy that now is siesta time, so I'm not sacrificing time in paradise for blogging.

The sail from Rotterdam to the Canary Islands is over and the Africa Mercy is in one piece, barely. Things proved by this trip (I was already aware of these things, but I'm only a little indian, and I came around a little to late to influence any decissions...):

1. This ship is a ferry.
2. Ferries are made for coastal operation.
3. Ships sail the high seas.
4. Ferries do NOT sail the high seas.

We had to cross the Bay of Biscay, a notoriously rough section of sea just south-east of the English Channel on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. When we did, we were very fortunate to encounter only moderate weather, and the ship actually handled a bit better than I had expected. However, most of the offices were totally wrecked, two tables bolted to the deck in the mess room broke free, and about 2/3 of the crew weren't seen for a few days. I can only assume that it was because they were white-knuckling the porcelin rim. But we're here, and I seriously doubt that this ferry will ever go above 40 degrees north again (well I doubt that it should. It probably will, due to the absolute vitality of public relations...)

Tenerife has been great, eating outside, climbing small mountains that over look oceans and small villages and the ship... I could probably live here. My Spanish would definately get a lot better. To my supprise, it is pretty good already. I haven't had much trouble at all finding things, getting what I want for a meal, getting directions. We're leaving here tomorrow and that's okay with me because I am ready to get to Africa. I'm looking forward to it a lot. There is a lot of work for me on the ship, but when (or should I say if...) things quite down onboard, I hope to get to spend a fair amount of time ashore working with locals. I think it would be great to get to work with community development services and with the outreach department. Dig some wells, talk to people about Jesus... that just sounds right up my alley. I've got about six months left before I come back to the states, I think that I've settled on a job, but I'm not going to let everyone know what it is yet, because I'm not totally sure. I've been discussing it with a few people onboard, and I think that I'm making the right move.

Well, its 1457, I'm going to do something else for a half hour before watch.

See ya.

Crazy Dutchies...

The Africa Mercy is currently in Rotterdam, Holland (or Netherlands). A couple of nights ago, Lorah and a few friends got me to go out to watch Spiderman 3. It was a good, I was worried that it wouldn't be up to my expectations, but I wasn't disappointed. I noticed that most of the people in the theatre really enjoyed watching the characters getting hurt emotionally. It was a little weird, and these people were ruthless! I'm talking these people were cheering and yelling at the points in the movie where you are supposed to be sobered by the weight of the circumstance. I don't know if a lot of Dutchies are like that, but wow! It was a whole theatre full of them! I thought that was strange, but when the movie finished, I wasn't expecting the cherry on top of this crazy Dutchy sundae! While we were waiting to get out of the theatre, a group of like six guys started beating the CRAP out of this one smallish looking guy. It was so bizare to see something like that in the middle of a theatre... and virtually no one in the theatre did anything at all to help the situation, the movie security came in after like ten minutes, but it was all over anyway.

FYI, I'm not anti-Dutchy now or anything, I just wonder how that many violent people got in one place...

A Sorrowful Loss

It's been a while... Sorry. Here's a quick sample of the things I've done since my last post:

1.Visit California
2. Visit the San Diego Zoo
3. Qualify as a Navy sharpshooter
4. Jump from an airplane at 13,500 feet
5. Surf a lot

oh, yeah and...

7. LOOSE MY RED SOX HAT.

All of the cool things I've done in the past couple of weeks have been overshadowed by the loss of my beloved Red Sox hat. I feel powerless to fight the Evil Empire (i.e. Yankees) without it. The worst part is I can't seem to replace it anywhere. The whole time I was in California, I looked for one, but I could only find totally unacceptable "one size fits all" versions. These are for lesser fans, I need the faded cotton fitted one with big "B" in the front and the two red socks in the back. The haunting part of this loss is that I know exactly where I lost it. In theatre 6 of the East Bolden Cinema, just after the 9:42 showing of Hot Fuzz (which wasn't nearly as funny as Shaun of the Dead). I've been trying online to get a new one, but I can't get one shipped to England, much less to the ship. So if any one that happens to read this and pities me for my loss, you can send me a hat from lids (size L) to:

Justin Ray
Mercy Ships Africa Mercy
c/o: Port of Bylth
Wimbourne Quay
Northumberland NE29 3PB UK

Come on, you know you don't like the Yankees.

Esc key vs. F1 key

How about a boring work-related story? No need to continue reading if you don't want to read one.

In AutoCAD, you have to use the escape key to deselect stuff, and as any savvy computer user knows, the F1 key is right next to the escape key. What not every computer user knows is that the F1 key is the designated "help" shortcut. I use the escape key a lot, and it's really close to the F1 key, and sometimes I hit the F1 key by mistake.

This wouldn't bother me if it was just a little window that popped up really quick and I could close it immediately, but AutoCAD is a really big, powerful, dangerous program and has an enormous help directory. So enormous that it takes several minutes to load.

I probably hit the F1 key by accident three to five times a day. If it takes an average of three minutes to load this, I loose nine to fifteen minutes of my time each day to closing the stupid help menu. During the course of a work week that's forty-five to seventy-five minutes of lost time.

I wouldn't mind if it was lost time checking blogs or reading about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and their outlandish presidential campaigns. (I have nothing against having a black president or a woman president, I just want a MODERATE president. No more political extremists!!!)

Back to the F1 key. I learned a time saving trick this morning. If I just minimize the help window, it pops up immediately instead of loading for several minutes. So I have a temporary fix until AutoDesk sends me an updated copy of AutoCAD with my new, super-awesome upgrade of having the help key on a delay requiring it to be held down for 3 seconds before loading!!!

Snoitulos Drawkcab (Backward Solutions)

I have a HUGE disdain for street-sweepers. At least in urban, densely populated areas. Seriously, what were the inventors thinking? "I know, we can make this cross between a vacuum cleaner, a fan, and a riding lawn mower and say that it cleans the streets!"

I have serious doubts about the efficiency of these machines ability to pick up dirt and trash from the road. From my experience, they mostly kick up massive amounts of filth from the ground (where gross and dirty things should be) and transfer it to the air (where nothing dirty or filthy should ever be). In addition, they run on internal combustion engines, which pollute the air.

Side note:

The boogie man isn't real, the sky isn't falling, and global warming is a bigger load of crap than anything else in this sentence. CO2 is considered the worst green house gas, but only a fraction of one percent of the CO2 released annually is realised by human actions. The relationship between global warming and the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has a margin of error of close to two percent. All of that means that there is no way to tell if any of our efforts has affected the rate at which the earth's temperature is rising. None the less, we do have pollution problems, they're just localized. Around cities across the globe, the air quality is considerably lower in urban areas. (READ: driving two miles to work every morning instead of walking or riding a bike is only doing a few things: 1. Making you fat, 2. saving you a few minutes (which you get to spend in utter joy as you arrive earlier at work), 3. making the air you breathe taste like a tater-tot that got dropped into the fire on the grill.

Resume:

Really, wouldn't it be great if they got rid of all of the street sweepers and gave homeless people brooms and dustbins and some projects to live in and hired some people to cook for them and paid all of them enough to get on their feet? I know that most people don't trust the homeless with money, but if we would hire more social workers (creating more jobs...) the homeless people could be brought to a place where they would be able to manage their money successfully. Unemployment would go down, your air would be easier to breathe, people would stop asking you for your change when you come out of Starbucks, and your walk to work would be much quieter. What's the downside, we all loose some unsightly belly-fat? Crap, I know, you really like your "love handles" but come on, take one for the team.

End note:

I'm not a greenie or anything, I just think that the world God gave us to live in rocks, and I want my children to get to enjoy it at it's best, not some cheap broken down version. If we would just come to grips with the fact that a better standard of living is going to cost us a little bit of comfort and make the sacrifice, life would taste just that much sweeter.

So, what's your plan to save Africa?

This morning as I was rediscovering the outside world via drudgereport.com, I came across a couple of articles about Bono's [RED] campaign. The first was pointing out the meager 18 million dollars raised by the first year's efforts. The second one I read was about a spin-off organization, buylesscrap.org. There was a third Bono/[RED] campaign related article about Bono's guest editor-ness of Vanity Fair in the coming month. In case some of you are not familiar with the [RED] campaign, the idea is that you buy products like iPods, Motorola Razr mobile phones, sunglasses, designer tshirts, credit cards, etc. and some of the money goes to help the AIDS problem in Africa.

A lot of people are really bashing the idea. I don't particularly think it's awesome, but I do like some things about it:

1. Bono. He just rocks at life.
2. Red is a good color.
3. It DOES help some people in Africa
4. It has long term potential

The only thing I don't really like about it is that feeds off of the Western Culture's consumerism. I don't really like anything about consumerism, but I do like healthy economics. If you think of economics using the metaphor of the human body, you'll understand what I'm getting at.

Starving people have little body fat, and very hungry people's bodies use what they eat vastly more efficiently than most tubby Houstonians. I'm pretty close to the middle of that, I take in quite a bit more than the recommended 2000 calories each day (5000 calories/day), but I burn a whole heck of a lot more than most people. I also have about 8% body fat. I'm a really healthy guy (mostly due to God's blessing, but also due to a healthy amount of exercise, etc.). If my body were an economic situation, I would have high cash flow, and relatively low savings (by American and Western standards). This is a very healthy economy. Most healthy people eat their 2000 calories (maybe a bit more or less) and have a fair bit more "savings." (15-25% body fat sound fair?) These people are still very healthy. They might not be in the best situation, but they are in no danger at all, actually they are a little safer than I am. If they were economies, they would be Western economies.

What I'm saying is that consumerism isn't the healthiest of American economic attributes, but it does the trick. I eat a lot, but I burn a lot. Donald Trump makes a lot, so he spends a lot. I burn more of what I eat than Donnie spends of what he makes, but that's why he's fatter than I am.

So back to Bono, his [RED] Campaign feeds off of Donnie's fat. I think that's great, he's making our economics better. It might not be the most effective of methods for fighting AIDS (some may liken it to feeding the poor with table scraps, but hey, we've got a whole crapload of table scraps!), but it is progress. And progress is what these people need.

On to buylesscrap.org. I think that this is going to be a much more efficient effort. But not more effective. If everyone would do it, great. It would be a solid way of fighting the problem of wealth distribution. The thing is, we Westerners don't want to give our wealth to the Africans, we want everyone else to do it.

I love both organizations and I am so happy that they exist and that the founders have created them from their desire to help those less fortunate than themselves. I work for an organization very similar to each of them, with some differences that I'll discuss next post. The thing is, they don't really address the root of the problem. Africa is not a problem for the West to come in and fix. Africa is a home for millions of people. You wouldn't be too happy if someone came in when you were having money problems and took what you had and treated you like a child. Africa is a lot of people with some very serious problems with very complicated causes. Wouldn't it make sense that the solution was equally complicated? We should help Africans fix Africa, not try to fix Africa for them.

Happy Friday

Tie-dye. What says "happy Friday" better than a tie-dye t-shirt and a pink bandana? Some may say a cold brew says, "happy Friday" better, but you can't drink cold brews at work, so the way I spread Friday cheer is by wearing my "Friday shirt" as it has become known.

It's actually not my shirt. It is the property of one Ben Cubbage. I'm holding it for him until the ships meet and transfer to the Africa Mercy.

The reason I'm writing is to inspire others to find some way of bringing joy back to the workplace. Really though, how dreadfully sterile and boring has life at work become? I contest that work was meant to be a life-giving endeavour, not a life-draining punishment. I contest that, as a Christian, I am meant to bring Heaven down, not wait to die so I can enjoy it for myself.

A lot of people have a hard time with stuff like this. They see all of the bad things that happen in this world and they say, "How can a just and righteous God allow so much suffering?" I was reading in Leviticus the other day, and I realized that almost the entirity of the first five books of the Bible are a warning to prevent us from having to live like we now live (as cultures, that is. Not all people live with the same problems, because not all people have rejected the way God told us to live.).

It's not that God just wants to control us, or to manipulate us, it's that He genuinly loves us and wants us to enjoy life. When you buy something, or someone makes something for you, don't you find out how to use it from the maker? Why don't we believe the Maker when He tells us how to enjoy this gift that He has given us? Why is it that we think we know better?

So I wear a tie-dye shirt on Fridays and tell everyone I talk to, "Happy Friday!" because I know that there's more to this life than fighting to get ahead, and there's more to this life than dying and going to Heaven. I am going to live it today, right now, this very moment.

Silly people with their silly emails...

"Mr. Ray,

Since you are sailing at this particular time you should state it ashore.

Best Regards,
MARAD GRADUATE"

What??? If I'm sailing, how am I ashore? Don't ships float, in the water? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

Or maybe it's just that I'm dealing with the WORST GOVERNMENT AGENCY EVER.

I've got to prove to these crazies that I worked in the maritime industry during 2006. I hope they believe me, because if they don't, I get to be active duty or pay the Maritime Administration some where in the neighborhood of 180,000 dollars. Like I've got 180,000 dollars. I haven't gotten a paycheck since mid 2005.

Sorry about the rant. I think that is was just a tyop... I mean, typo. I hate those.

Ship Update

Saturday I started writing support letters to send back to the States, since I am virtually out of money. During this attempt, I decided that it would probably be best if I just started staying at work a hour longer each day and working on letters and updating ye ole blog with ship related information.

The ship is coming along nicely. A couple of weekends ago, we ran the main engines and clutched in. Everything went really well. It was nice to feel the ship vibrating. Last Monday, I had a company come in with 34 tons of weights, two tirfors, two come alongs and two load cells to run a test on the container system. It was a success and the containers moved with very close to the amount of force that my calculations showed. A decisive victory.

Friday we finish installing a new oily water separator and I made a drawing of it and sent it to Bureau Veritas for approval. I've sent a few other drawings this past week to Bureau Veritas. The biggest item we have to overcome before we can leave the yard is certification. All of the mechanical systems have to be certified as well as all of the machinery. Much of this is already taken care of, but there are still some lingering anomalies to be resolved. One of those is my newest task.

The sprinkler system needs a bigger pump. That means it needs a bigger motor. That means it uses more power. That shouldn't be a problem, except that our emergency generator is now too small and we have to provide a new means of emergency power for this pump. One pump. So I'm working on figuring out all of the regulations for the enclosure of a second emergency generator up on the weather deck of the ship (the top part). I spent all day looking through classification society books and writing notes about what we need and determining what kind of boundaries we have to have in the event of a fire. It's really tedious work.

There are only a few big issues remaining before we can leave for Africa. The fire detection system still needs some work. They thought that they had finished it last week, but this weekend a few faults showed up, so they have to sort that out. Once that happens the ship yard will remove their fire alarm system, which is a few thousand meters of cabling running throughout all of the passage ways, and we will be able to close all of the doors.

Another big thing that's in progress is vacuum system. I organized a test of this system two weeks ago and we found major problems. The vacuum system is the system that makes the toilets flush and operates the sinks, showers, and drains. Serv Vac, the company that installed the system, has run some tests and they think that they have fixed the problem. We are going to test the system a few more times and hopefully agree with them that the toilets do, in fact, flush.

Other than those problems, we're ready to head out to sea. I hope that they get sorted in a timely manner...

3 Things to Learn from Loosing Your Wallet

Well, I dropped the ball. I didn't take a picture of Dom and Amy when we had dinner together. Sorry. But they were awesome. We went to Panis and had a nice meal with a nice bottle of red wine and some great conversation. Dom just finished university and is starting with a law firm in a few months. These two awesome people are going to go on a long holiday soon.

Reflecting on the lost wallet saga, I can say that I have learned a few things about myself and life in general.

1. Some things just don't bother me.
2. Some things don't bother me until people start worrying about them for me.
3. Credit cards are for your wallet, cash is for your pocket. I accidentally lucked out on this one. I just happened to stuff all of my money into my pocket instead of my wallet in the guitar store just a few hours before ditching my wallet under a bench at a train station. Not that it would have mattered, Dom and Amy would have found it and all would have been well, mostly because they rock and are super awesome and because they are honest and would have returned my wallet with all contents undisturbed.

Another thing that I learned from this experience is that most people are good people.

Really.

It's true. I think...

I mean, Dom and Amy were perfectly random people. They could have been anybody. They were as perfectly honest as anyone I could have hoped for. They actually went through a fair bit of trouble to find me (they must have, because I still can't find this blog on Google) so that I could have my wallet back, which didn't have any money in it, so it wasn't really worth much. If I never got it back, it wouldn't have been a big deal. Not that I'm not unbelievable happy to have it back, but I'm more happy to have lost it and had this experience than to have found it again.

I don't really feel like I'm conveying what I mean to say very well. Dom and Amy are a perfectly random selection of human beings. They are extraordinary people, for sure, but are they really better than the average person?

Not to be a media-basher, but I think that my perception of people as individuals has been tainted by what I read about on www.cnn.com and www.drudgereport.com. I was reading a Bill O'Reilly column this morning about Hillary Clinton. He was asking why is it that people hate her so much? He also asked why people hate George Bush so much. I think it's because we are so dominated by our fears. We live, day after day, with this false perception that there are a whole load of people out there that just hate everyone.

Why?

What makes us think that most people are any different than we are? Maybe the thing is, we know how we are, and we don't trust ourselves.

The thing about that is we all love ourselves. Well, all of us that aren't suicidal love ourselves. We might not like ourselves, but we do love ourselves.

---break---

Some of you may be thinking at this point that I'm going to be making some revolutionist's claim that we should all start acting radically different like a bunch of crazy cult people. Life might be a little better if we did act different, but I want to know why we do what we do. You can't fix anything if you don't know why it isn't working. A lot of our "solutions" are remedies for the symptoms of the real problem.

---Resume---

So if we all love ourselves, and if we don't think that most people are worse than us, why aren't we more open? I think it's fear. Of what? Of putting ourselves out there and getting rejected. I tried something the other day, I said "hi" to like 30 or 40 people on the street, almost everyone of them completely ignored me. People don't even interact with one another anymore. I think it's because we're afraid of being rejected and you can't be rejected if you don't give anyone anything to reject.

I realized shortly ago that I have not posted virtually anything about the Africa Mercy or Mercy Ships, so I'm going to take a few lines to do just that.

Work on the subcontractor and ship yard side is going quite slow. We are making stead progress in the engine room (we had an engine test this past Saturday, I'll write about it more later). My other big responsibility, the container hold, is going forward for the first time in years (big cheer). We are going to have a company deliver weights and test the nylon slides at some point in the next couple of weeks (I'll write a post about that as well). Moral hasn't been so great among the crew the past few weeks. It's because of the rumor of bad news on the way. We got part one of the bad news talk last week at our community meeting. The jest of it was that Ken isn't going to be our executive director when we get to Africa. I'm not totally sure of the effect that will have on me or my work. But part two of the bad news saga is coming on Wednesday, and I suspect that the climax will be in that segment.

I came up with this new idea for posts. I'm going to start doing a study for myself on how Jesus interacts with other people and groups and start posting my findings. I'm excited to do this study because Christians are supposed to be "little Christs" so we should treat people like he did...so we should know how he treated people right?

Three Cheers for Dom and Amy, honest and good citizens of Tynemouth (I think...)

Sunday afternoon, I lost my wallet at a Metro station while Lorah was dragging me around the yellow line [sarcasm intended]. We turned around and went back to the station we got on at, thinking that I may have dropped it while we were sitting on this bench waiting for the train. When we got back, it was already gone. Thankfully, the awesome Dom and incredible Amy spotted the estranged wallet and googled my name. Some of you may think that's not too much effort to go through, but google my name and you'll find out that this blog isn't exactly the first thing that comes up... sincere dedication must have been present to make the return a success. So here's to Dom and Amy, the most awesome strangers I know!



P.S. Lorah and I are taking Dom and Amy out for dinner the first chance we get, but don't tell them yet, it's a surprise.

Disclaimer: Neither Lorah or I smile like this on normal occasions. However, we find it appropriate on some occasions to look rather silly.

Kevin

I know I usually post a fair amount of pictures, but I don't think that this one will have too many (if any). This blog is about three weeks behind the actual events in my life, but I'm going to try to put for a good effort to change that.

A couple of weeks ago, Lorah and I went to Newcastle for dinner. Actually in was New Year's Eve and our intention was to see the festivities. We got off the Metro (that's the train system around Newcastle, it's about the equivalent to the Long Island Rail Road) and went to find out where the show was. Unfortunately, it had been canceled earlier that day due to high winds. Quick note: in Newcastle, the Metro stops early on New Year's Eve. Cabs also charge a double rate. And the fireworks are at six in the evening, not midnight. Don't ask, I don't know. We just made it an early night...

Once we discovered that the fireworks were canceled, we decided to head to the river to eat. On the way over down, we ran into a guy named Kevin. Kevin had some obvious problems. Some probably drug induced. He asked for a few pounds to get a train ticket so he could make it home. There must me millions of people in the world in his situation. I know that giving him a couple of pounds may have enabled him to get another fix or whatever, but I really felt like it was the right thing to do. We talked to him about who he was, his life, family, gave him a few pounds and prayed with him. When we walked off, I felt kind of sad. Hopeless, actually. I felt like there was really nothing that I could do, actually nothing that anyone could do to help the people like Kevin.

It's hard when you know their names and you know their stories. It's hard because you can't forget that they're real people. Not made up. Not characters in some story. They're real. I know Kevin's name. I know his story. I know his daughter's name. Malorie. I know that he loves Malorie's mother, but that he doesn't know how to love her. I know that, no matter how much I know about Kevin, that I can't do anything to help him myself. Even if I could afford to give him everything that this world has to offer, I couldn't give him anything on my own that would be of any actual, real, lasting help.

I also know that the only thing in the whole world Kevin needs is love. He's not starving. He doesn't have some terminal illness that requires an expensive operation or a miracle. He needs someone to love him. I can't give him what he needs by myself, but God can give him what he needs through me, and through other people that he meets.

I wonder how many other "Christian" people Kevin knows, or sees everyday that don't show him the slightest courtesy, much less Christ's love.

What is it with that?

Who are we to hold back the gift that we've been given. The grace extend to me and to you, is it to end with us? What could be more unfair. What could be more contradictory to the nature of Christ?

I'm not saying that we need to give all of our money away. In fact, please don't. I don't want Kevin to be comfortable or to have what he wants. I want him to have exactly what he needs. What he needs is love. A lot of times, the best way to show people love is to spend time with them. Maybe you can only spend a few minutes, like we did with Kevin, or maybe you can build a lasting friendship, but no matter how much time you have, you've got to sacrifice some of it to love someone. That's genuine, giving someone your time.

Some people go through their entire lives without meeting more than a dozen genuine people. They meet fake personalities constructed to fit into a desired category. The reason that Jesus was the most influential man in history was that He was real, 100 percent, everyday, utterly real. I'm not. I try to be, but I'm a miserably fallen man that wants to be accepted and understood. I don't want persecution, I don't even want anyone to disagree with me. I want to blend in, and so do you and every other person either of us know.

I'm glad that I got to meet Kevin. I'm glad that I got to show him Christ's love. I'll probably never see him again, but at least I was able to step into his life for a brief moment and to be real for him. A lot of people don't ever get that. They never meet real people. They meet a fake personality constructed to fit into some desired category. I hope I don't fit into anybody's categories. I know I didn't fit into any of Kevin's categories.

Ironically, I saw Kevin twice that night. The second time was near the Black Gate to the castle, by the statue of Queen Elizabeth. He was with another guy, I think his name was Josh. They were being searched by the police. At first, I thought that he got busted for some sort of nonsense, but as it turned out, he was just being searched because he had a history of drug abuse (I inferred that at our first meeting) and other disorderly conduct. Lorah and I decided to wait until the police left and then to go talk to them. I'm glad that we did. It was the sort of thing where we were able to really show him that we cared about him. I can't shake the feeling that he went to bed that night thinking about Lorah and me and the lives that we must lead. I really hope to meet him again, but if I don't and you do, love him. Because if he keeps meeting people that love him, he'll understand. If he understands, he'll get what you and I got, grace. Don't let it stop with you.

South Shields Walk

Okay, I'm sorry that my first two real posts have had very little (if anything) to do with my work with Mercy Ships, but it's really not that interesting or glamorous. When we leave England and get to Africa, I'll be sure to post tons of pictures and the like of things like digging wells and helping the needy. Trust me, though, you don't really want to see a bunch of pictures from the shipyard. I'll post some, but I don't want to bore anyone. Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, Here are some pictures from a walk I took from South Shields to Marsden with Kent Simpson and Lorah Styer.

We started the walk around 6 am and went down the coast to watch the sun come up. While we were down there, we saw the ferry come in from Denmark (I think that's were it was coming from, sorry I didn't take a picture of it). When we got to Marsden, we went inland to this great little tea room and had a nice little breakfast with a couple of cups of tea. The ladies working there were very friendly.

On the way back, we went down to the beach (we walked to Marsden up above the beach on a cliff). Here are some pictures from that part.

When we got back to South Shileds, we had a little picnic on this old turret. It was good fun, I wish I had the other guys pictures, I didn't take very many (good ones).

Hadrian's Wall

A couple of weeks ago, Ken Berry (tech. superintendent), Jeremiah Kelly (welder), David Brenner (deck hand), and I went for a nice hike along Hadrian's Wall. Here are some pictures from the trip.

This cliff is from an old rock quarry.

It was a rare day for this area, no rain...

It's a goat!!!

It was a beautiful day for a walk. A little chilly, but not cold.

It's a shame that the days are so short during the winter up here... We weren't able to walk too far before it was close to dark. It was a really fun hike. Jeremiah and I had spent the previous two weeks building a fence in the cargo hold (maybe I'll post a picture of it sometime), so it was particularily nice to be outside while the sun was out. Towards the end of the hike, Ken asked me to extend until 2008 and to take over the documentation and certification project. I had to pray about that one for a while! The tree from the Robin Hood movie with Kevin Costner (is that how to spell his name?)

Behold, the future!!!

Welcome to my new supporter blog. This site is dedicated to relaying information about what I'm doing to the people that make it all possible. Thank you so much for your help!

Hopefully I'll have some pictures up and a relevant post up by this Friday. Don't hold it against me if I don't make my projected time frame, I'm a Mercy-shipper...