Back from Sierra Leone

I'm back in America!

I feel incredibly blessed to have been given the opportunity to journey to Sierra Leone. And on the way back, we stopped in Brussels, ate Belgian Waffles (which are very light, flakey and overpriced by the way) and saw some awesome sights.

Aqua Honey Badger enjoys a Belgian Waffles

Less than 12 hours after returning to Colorado Springs, my housemate Seth left for his project trip to Thailand! We had a little send-off for him, excited to hear about what he gets to do there.

I'm excited to jump into three months at the Colorado Springs office. Our goal is to finish the written report for Mercy Ships within a month so they can begin planning their next step. After that report is done, I get to jump on whatever other projects need help. I'll continue to update here about how God is using me and what He is teaching me over here.

To start off that theme, one of the biggest things I learned over the course of the trip is a small aspect of a well known bible passage. In one of our morning devotionals in Sierra Leone, the team went over the story in Luke 10 of the good samaritan. What stood out to me so clearly about the story is how the good samaritan finds the half-dead man "as he traveled". He finds him as he travels, as he walks through life. He doesn't go on a search for half-dead men, he doesn't have a 5 year ministry plan. He's traveling. This convicted me hugely that God desires for me to show mercy in the places he's already led me too, and leading me through. Take my heads out of the clouds so to speak and pay attention to what's happening right in front of me. It's definitely stuck with me too. Good stuff!

Until next time!

-Mike

Sierra Leone, Day 10

For R&R, we sure work hard!

Being our last full day in Sierra Leone, and having given our presentation last night, today was reserved for debriefing and decompressing from the last week and a half of assessing, reporting and presenting. After breakfast, we took off in two cars on a two hour, bumpy-as-no-other car ride to River No. 2, one of the nicest beaches in Sierra Leone.

River No. 2

Ironically, after not raining the whole two hours it took to get there, it started pouring almost the minute we hit the beach. But the minute I stepped into the ocean, the rain didn't matter, because the water was so warm! Being from California, growing up with the Pacific all my life, the ocean has always been a painfully fun experience, too cold to stay in for long but too fun to leave. The atlantic felt like a jacuzzi! And with the rain pouring down as we swam, it felt like a scene out of Shawshank Redemption or something like that.

Proof!

Anyways, after a great time in the water and some fresh barracuda and rice, it was time to head back to the ship. Another 2.5 hours and one overheated engineer later, we got back to The African Mercy just in time to grab dinner.

Hooray for muddy roads!

I may or may not have fallen asleep on the ride back...

By far the best part of the day was after dinner. We did a debrief highs/lows/prayer request/affirmations time, going person by person around the team. A great time to hear how the rest of the team has grown, and share a little bit as well.

Brad and Aqua Honey Badger work late into the night

Now its time to pack up! We leave for the airport at noon tomorrow, via car to a ferry to another car to the airport. Our flight leaves Sierra Leone at 7pm and hits Brussels around 6am. We're planning on taking a train into town once we get there and grabbing Belgian waffles for breakfast, should be fun!

Please pray for safe travels as we go by land, sea and air. Looking forward to updating again soon.

In Christ,

-Mike

Sierra Leone, Day 9

Today was the big show!

I spent nearly the whole day in the depths of PowerPoint, compiling each sub-team's slides and ensuring consistency between various formats and themes. After years of school presentations and compiling College Life PowerPoint slides every week for the last year, it felt like I was trained just for this moment!After lunch, we met and tried out a dry run of our whole presentation. Afterwards constructive criticism was exchanged and the presentation was tweaked in a few spots.
We got a short break after meeting to decompress, eat dinner, and then we headed up to the international room, a meeting room with around 150-200 seats, where we were scheduled to present. There were a few minor issues with transferring over the PowerPoint file to their system computer, but once we got those figured out we were ready to go!
To my surprise, around 50-60 people showed up to hear what we had to say! Of the group there, only a few were actually involved in off-ship programs, everyone else simply had a genuine interest in the status of the three primary hospitals in Sierra Leone! A very encouraging turn-out, and the actual presentation went super well. Every person who spoke was concise and we only went a few minutes over our time limit.

Geoff presenting his electrical summary

The Q&A proved to be very educational as well, and after everything was through the director of off-ship programs affirmed the work we did and how this is a amazing starting point for this new venture into complete health care improvement, from staff to facilities. He also said if I didn't have anything going on after eMi, I should give him a call. Something to pray about! :)
Another awesome day in Sierra Leone and on the Mercy Ship! The day was concluded by an intense game of Jenga with some of the on-ship staff. Brought back some good memories from playing Jenga on houseboats last summer!

Too bad you can't see how the boat is swaying in this picture!

Tomorrow we're headed to River #2, apparently one of the best beaches in Sierra Leone, for a day of debriefing and processing the trip. Looking forward to getting that time with the team!
-Mike

Sierra Leone, Day 8

What a great day!

The morning was more report prep work. Made final Sketchup layouts for both hospital sites, specific site drawings for various sewage and water systems at both sites, and began gathering each sub-team's power point slides.

Another day in the office!

After 3 days straight on the boat, I finally stepped on land this afternoon! Brad and I got a ride with Dulce (one of our Mercy Ships hosts) into town to check on the progress of a past eMi design project. We met with a construct manager named Fara, who detailed the successes and pitfalls to the design concept eMi prepared for them almost two years ago. Check out the link to see what they worked on!

Meeting with Araf at First Step

http://www.emiusa.org/projects/projectprofile_5504.php

After the meeting, we hopped over to the Connaught site to get some specs on pre-existing pumps on site. One of the pumps happened to be on a shed roof, about 12 feet off the ground. Naturally, its the intern's job to climb up there and get work done! So we went to the maintenance department looking for a ladder. We found a wooden one, but it was about 5 feet too short. 5 minutes later, we had a metal ladder just a foot short of reaching the roof, good enough for government work, right! After placing the ladder upside-down and a foot under the roof, the maintenance manager insisted I climb to the top. Fun stuff!

On the roof, getting work done!

That's all the adventures for the day! In my spare time on this trip I've been making a few videos, which will be posted on youtube after I get back to the states and have access to youtube (its blocked here on the ship). I'll post links here once those go live.

The big presentation is tomorrow, be praying we can keep things concise as we have 30 minutes to go over all of our report!

-Mike

Sierra Leone, Day 7

Hello world!

Another day in the office! Doing a lot more writing and diagram-ing for our report and final presentation on Tuesday. Having a team of engineers with ten to thirty years of experience has been a huge blessing. They have a full grasp on the project, which allows me to play a support role, assisting them in whatever they need. Transferring hand drawings to CAD, putting spreadsheets together, etc. have been the majority of my day, I love it!

Everyone else on the ship now knows us as "those-nerds-in-the-corner-of-the-dining-hall-always-on-their-computers". One of the Mercy Ship staff came up to me today and said she felt sorry for me. I told her it's not so bad, thats how us engineers role!

Two more days until our presentation to Mercy Ships!

-Mike

Sierra Leone, Day 6

Hey everyone!

Just a quick update for today! Brad and I were supposed to go to a past eMi project site this morning to see the progress there, but it's been pouring most of the day, so we had to postpone the tour. Hopefully we'll get to drive over and take a look tomorrow!

Today has been a lot more report writing. It looks like we have most of the information we need to make a cohesive and complete assessment, now it's time for the engineers to kick in their communication skills! :)

I've been doing a lot of AutoCAD, SketchUp, and image editing today. Fun stuff.

Also finished the book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller. I started just two days ago, and couldn't stop myself from finishing it. Definitely recommend it!

That's all I got, still loving Jesus and loving being on the Mercy Ship!

-Mike

Religious Tolerance = Religious Transit?

A very unique feature of Sierra Leone is the religious tolerance among its people. Though the population is fairly broken up between Christianity and Islam, they function amongst each other very smoothly. This is very evident in the public transit, where every bus is labeled with a religious phrase, like "The Lord is my Shepard" or "Allah is God" or something along those lines. It doesn't get old seeing hundreds of the these buses (vans) driving around as you sit in Freetown traffic for an hour. Here's some pictures of a few of them. Enjoy!

-Mike

Sierra Leone, Day 5

Today was a hot one!

After finalizing the Connaught

structural details with Joe yesterday, we headed over to the Siamese Twins with Brad and Wes to asses the buildings there. Although the amount of buildings was roughly similar to the number at Connaught, we worked through this site in about half the time. We had a more focused approach, with Joe making structural evaluations and taking notes, while I took photographs and kept us oriented in the facility.

But we didn't see any major structural issues...

Our assessment was also expedited by having Sandra with us. Sandra is a doctor from Holland who actually grew up on a Mercy Ship and has been working in Sierra Leone Hospitals for over 5 years! She had an expert knowledge of almost everything related to the site, we couldn't have been so productive today without her!

Got back to the ship in time for lunch, and then quickly set up our mobile office in the dining hall again. Typed up more report data and printed a few pages out for reference (yes, we have a mobile printer too, its awesome).

In a few minutes we're gonna get a tour of the engine room on the ship, I'm super stoked! I'll be sure to post pictures of that soon.

Overall, the team is flying at a pretty fast pace. Work has been divided to suit each team members strengths and we've really meshed into one cohesive engineering unit. Continue to pray that efficiency and skill carry through the next four days of work ahead.

Look for a funny post on this blog soon.

-Mike

Sierra Leone, Day 4

Today looked very different from yesterday.

Instead of going out and taking data on PCMH and ODCH, I stayed back on the ship with Joe and the two electrical engineers to process the information we gathered yesterday.

We set up shop in the Dining Hall, put 3 tables together, opened up the laptops and got to work. It ended up being a very productive day of data summarizing and report writing.

Tomorrow I am headed to the Maternity and Children's Hospitals. They are two hospitals but share the same campus and utilities (electrical, water, waste water), so we've affectionately dubbed them the Siamese Twins. I'll be touring the facilities with Joe and noting many of the same things we did at Connaught yesterday. Hopefully our experience with Connaught will expedite the process at the Siamese Twins.

That's all I got for today! Tonight we're going to the ship "Community Meeting", we'll see what that means! I'm stoked.

-Mike

Sierra Leone, Day 3

Another eye-opening day in Sierra Leone!

We met last night to arrange a plan of attack for today's off-ship work. I ended up driving to the Connaught Hospital site with Joe (structural engineer), Geoff (electrical engineer) and Ryan (Mercy Ship's off-ship project director and all around awesome dude). The rest of the team walked to the closer Maternity and Children's Hospitals.

At Connaught, we first met with the hospital manager, who introduced us the head maintenance guy. From that point on, the head maintenance guy led us from building to building, answering any questions we had or referring us to someone who could.

At each building, Geoff evaluated electrical supply/demand, working closely with Phillip, their head electrician. They took close looks at each building's power management systems, getting specs on power distribution panels, generators, and other electrical things that I have little to no clue about.

Joe looked at the structural condition of every building and took note of areas of concern. Luckily, upon first glance, none of the buildings are coming down soon, but we'll be going back in the next few days to take a closer look at the more worrisome structures.

Ryan and I took general notes on every building, identifying facility functions, patient capacity, equipment conditions, and perceived immediate needs from the hospital staff. Two things really struck me from our initial walkthrough.

First, every waiting room is full. Every single one. And whats more, I figure that most of the people with tickets in line wont get in before the day is done.

Second, there is so much equipment that is either in pieces, broken, or not being used. The hospital has one working X-ray machine. Just next door, another X-ray machine has been sitting in pieces for 5 years because no one knows how to put it together! Didn't expect to see that.

It's easy to get overwhelmed by the excess of immediate needs that this hospital has. But when it comes down to it, we're here for a specific goal: provide consistent and adequate water, electricity, waster water management, and structural stability to all the hospital facilities. This in and of itself is a monumental challenge, and it is re-assuring to know that we are only Phase 1 of Mercy Ships work with this hospital. I hope and pray the assessments and recommendations eMi provides will serve as a base point for this hospital to better serve the people of Sierra Leone.

Until tomorrow!

-Mike

Sierra Leone, Day 2

We're in Sierra Leone!

I am currently with the rest of my project team on the Mercy Ship in Sierra Leone. Brad (my project leader) and I left early Sunday morning, met the other 6 members of our team in Washington DC, and flew from there through Brussels to Sierra Leone. The travel adventures didn't stop there! Upon arrival our team along with the other twenty-some Mercy Ship volunteers were herded into taxi cars. The cars drove us in the pitch black through dirt roads to a local ferry to take us across the bay. Mercy ship cars were ready to pick us up when the ferry landed at Freetown. After a quick drive through town we arrived at the Africa Mercy…

And what an incredible ship it is! I share a room with another team member, Geoff, and upon arriving to our room we found closets, drawers, sweet bedding, working shower, and best of all… Air Conditioning! We're really roughing it, huh?

We headed to bed right after we got to the ship, attempting to recover from a full two days of travel. This morning was ship orientation and a meeting with the Mercy Ship representatives. Included in orientation was an extensive tour of the ship, which led me to the conclusion that this place is HUGE!

In the afternoon we toured the three hospitals which we will be suggesting renovations for. Traffic is a huge problem in Freetown, as the city of nearly two million people has expanded far more rapidly than the infrastructure has. As a result, we spent over an hour driving 4km to our first site, Connaught Hospital. We got a tour of the facilities from the hospital manager and then moved on to the Maternity and Children's hospitals, which share a campus only 1km or so from the Africa Mercy.

Initial impressions from all three hospitals are there will be a lot of work to get done in the next 9 days, and prioritizing which services (plumbing, electrical, sewage) need to be renovated in which buildings will be critical.

After an entire day of work, I'm even more excited about what we're doing here. The goal Mercy Ships has of improving the entire medical infrastructure from the bottom up is an exciting proposition. The goal being to not only train local doctors, but provide them with the facilities to maximize the skills they've been given. Sierra Leone is the pilot country for this program, and our results here will determine how Mercy Ships proceeds with future projects.

Please pray that God continues to provide safety and health for the team. The scope of this project is very aggressive, so an energized and enthusiastic team will be important to continue the momentum through the rest of this trip.

Also, pray for personal encouragement, as not many (if any) of the assignments I will be working on relate to Mechanical Engineering. I know God has me here for a reason, I just need to trust that!

Many blessings and thank you for reading this. I look forward to updating more about the trip in the near future!

-Mike