Mercy Ships Monumental Moment
Hello church family!
May marks a crucial month for Mercy Ships – and for healthcare across the continent of Africa!
Your prayers and support have been crucial in helping us reach a monumental moment.
Right now, Mercy Ships is co-hosting a ground-breaking pan-African symposium in Senegal. It’s being run in partnership with African countries, and aims to set critical targets to provide life-saving surgery and medical training in Africa by 2030. This International Symposium brings together more than 200 participants who will agree an historic roadmap for surgical, obstetric, and anaesthetic care across Africa called the Dakar Declaration.
A few weeks later, our newest ship the Global Mercy will be commissioned in Senegal on June 2nd –she is the largest charity floating teaching-hospital in the world. There’s a virtual tour here.
May also sees, our first ever Mercy May. Led by staff in my team.
Mercy May is a fun way for churches and Christians to help provide free surgery and vital medical care to those in unjust poverty and urgent need. You can download everything you need to take part here.
Finally, a few weeks ago we launched our exclusive yearling partnership with Premier radio and magazines, building to an on-air week in October. Please pray for this and for the other projects above.
Please can you also pray for our whole UK team, as well as the volunteers who crew our ships, our patients and the local surgeons we train. We are particularly looking for audio-visual volunteers and theatre nurses at the moment, to spend time on our ships, more here.
With so much going on… crew recruitment, a new ship, a symposium, partnerships, fundraising campaigns and caring for our UK Speakers, life at work is pretty hectic. I’d value prayers for our team and for wisdom and fruit in all we do.
Thank you also for your prayers for our family over recent weeks, with Caroline’s health scare.
Darren Richards
Your generosity, prayers and partnership are transforming the lives of patients like brothers Ousseynou and Assane.
Twin brothers Ousseynou and Assane share more than just their looks — both boys developed an identical condition that made their legs curve outward at the knee, causing them to be ridiculed by others in their village.
Their parents, Abdukka and Awa, worried that there was nothing that they could do to protect or heal their children.
“We could not hide Ousseynou and Assane away. So, we all had to live with people treating them as inferior” Awa said.
Mame Sor, a nurse at the local clinic, knew of the twins’ ailment, and told the family about Mercy Ships coming to Senegal. She even arranged to collect the boys and their mother to drive them 200 miles to the patient registration. It was the first time they were that far away from home, and the first time either of the boys had seen a ship.
Awa was a bit nervous about all of these new experiences, and even more so when the nurses came to take Ousseynou and then Assane to the operating theatres. But after the operation, when her boys were wheeled out, she was thrilled for the opportunity for free surgery. “I was so happy,” she said.
Once their casts came off, the physical therapy sessions began. Eventually, the twins were running faster and more confidently than they ever had been able to before.
Awa said, “Since I gave birth to Ousseynou and Assane, I have never seen them run. The surgeries created this opportunity. It is something that comes only once in a lifetime.”
Now, both boys have a bright future and have started school with renewed confidence.