I am planning on spending some time (2 months) aboard the Africa Mercy - which is a medical mission ship that will be docked in Guinea, West Africa for 10 months to provide medical aid in the form of surgery, health checks and dentistry, I will be working as a carpenter on board, to support the medics to enable them to do their stuff.  If you have a look at the video it will give you an idea of the kind of work that is going on.

It is a massive thing to cater for 450 staff on board.  I will be providing on call carpentry skills and will be part of the team responsible for evacution in the event of an emergency. Some people go for a couple of years and others for shorter periods. 

I have been accepted to serve on board from the 21st October to 31st December - these dates may change slightly depending on flights etc I believe (obviously) it is His will for me to be doing this. To encourage you that this is the case, while praying recently about the my next steps I felt God saying He wanted me to do some short term mission and to do it soon, I had a desire for it to be Africa.

So I contacted a lot of mission organisations to find out information. Before I started this I thought about Mercy Ships (various people I know have worked with them) and ignored it because I knew it was medical staff etc and thought it wouldn't be appropriate, anyway as you probably guessed I eventually looked on their website at the positions available and they were all doctors, nurses, dentists, mariners, engineers etc and I couldn't do any of them - about 4 pages of vacancies I was just about to give up looking when I saw the very last position was a carpenter immediately available on board the Africa Mercy leaving in August for Guinea - West Africa. 

I am training to do a half marathon which is a race against a steam train from Cheltenham Race course up into the hills and back again - I will need to maintain a pace of 8 mph over the 13 miles to beat it back to the station so looking forward to it.  If you want to know more have a look at the link below.

http://www.cotswoldcare.org.uk/train/details.php

The reason we pay for our costs if you hadn’t already realised is because then all the money raised by Mercy Ships goes to helping people.

If you felt you would like to give £5 or £10 for example and felt embarrassed or that it is not enough or worth offering then please don’t feel that because if everyone I know gave £10 I would have the money very quickly.

Thank you so much for being willing and for taking the time to read this.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe  – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.