I suppose you could call me a 'guest blogger' since it seems that its so long between posts of my wifes more exciting life in the Ward or ICU.
On my end, the days started getting long last week when we found out the crane for lifting our trash out of the kitchen (because we use big metal bins, you have to imagine a lot more trash from dining room and galley than those few bags you have at home) would be out of service till it could be fixed (and no one was available to do it over the weekend apparently). Hopefully they say it will be done by tomorrow.
We now have our vision trips starting to come to the ship. We also had 2 days of Pastors Conferences on board (Liberian pastors just in case there is some confusion). Both of these combined made plenty of extra work in the form of small lunches and dinners and planned meals for the pastors conference, special meetings, and vision trip people along with the feeding of the regular crew. AND to top it all off actual galley crew staffing is low.
[What is a Vision Trip? Simple answer: Mercy Ships vision trips are one week (maybe longer?) trips intended to give a small number of people a very detailed first hand view (on location, on the ship) of the ministry.]
But I do need to mention (for all the Tyler folks, but not to upset our Grace Community Church friends in Young Marrieds...) that we have had the pleasure of 5 hard workers from Green Acres Baptist Church working in our dining room and galley this past week, so that has DEFINITELY helped us out! Thank You! (here is a post from the Green Acres Pastor's blog - Pastor David Dykes)
I am now sitting at a small table in the 'cafe' area finally getting a little time off to relax and post this blog...while sipping on my chocolate mint latte. Stephanie is off for Bible study with the girls at a local orphanage (she's blogged about it in earlier posts).
Friday it will be the one year celebration of the 'Passing of the Torch' last year when I was recruited for the Maiden Voyage of the Africa Mercy when the retired Anastasis "transferred" over to the Africa Mercy - ..."Passing of the Torch" ceremony on board when the torch was passed from crew member to crew member starting from the top of the gangway of the Anastasis to the top of the gangway of the Africa Mercy.
We will have activities and dinner on the dock for all of this on Friday evening...so hopefully if all goes well BBQ Ribs, Chips/Fries, Baked Beans...coleslaw? rolls, etc...
Monday will bring another small luncheon for guests, separate from the rest of the crew and then, well, it just keeps going. Functions, special events, special meals, the daily feeding of the crew as usual.
Stephanie and I are doing great! But then again she is back on nights so there may be a 'grump' throw down (or fight for those of you who may not know this term) later this week to see who has the right to be grumpier and complain more from all the work we are doing...and whose working the hardest, and why we should be more sensitive to each other because we both tend to start feeling selfish. (this is a usual skirmish at the end of spells of night shift or hard working schedules, but nothing to be alarmed about) But Stephanie does tend to get mad when I laugh about it because I can almost predict it coming!
Well, just as a funny side note we are almost out of cheese and ice cream (for the whole ship)...but hey, I'd rather sacrifice that than my coffee!
[I know, I know, you are probably saying "YOU GOT ICE CREAM?!?!?"]
Busy Body
Its been a busy time here since Friday and we are still waiting on the crane to be fixed before we can haul all the trash out in bulk instead of run it all up 2 or 3 decks to the empty bins on deck 8.
We have acquired a galley person in the salads section, and a 'loaner' from crew services...and from time to time I can talk my old (she's young) friend Tatyana from Brazil into doing a little galley work if she can get a babysitter! She used to work with me on another ship years ago, but has since become a mother and has more important priorities (no, not her husband, her other child!)
We have come to an end of the pastors conference, and soon to be finished vision trips (although its just temporary till the next one comes)...as the whole crew eats African food for African Night. And later after the dining room is cleaned quickly we refill for another 60 to 75 dinner guests with a church group that came to 'check us out'. They also are have the African Dinner.
What have all these 'African Dinners' consisted of? Besides West African style foods here is a more specific list:
Spicy baked/roasted chicken, with one of the following: peanut sauce, red sauce, palava sauce...
Rice / Jollof Rice
Spicy Black Eye Beans (black eyed peas, red palm oil, local peppers...)
Eggplant (skin, cube, saute with onion, garlic...later add tomato product like sauce, stewed, or past continue to cook)
Fried Plantains
Cassava/Potato Greens
The ward cook had a tasty looking dinner cooked for the patients yesterday made out of diced chicken, pumpkin, and of course a spicy tomato and red palm oil base.
This food is definitely high starch and not low fat...at least by Western standards.
We have acquired a galley person in the salads section, and a 'loaner' from crew services...and from time to time I can talk my old (she's young) friend Tatyana from Brazil into doing a little galley work if she can get a babysitter! She used to work with me on another ship years ago, but has since become a mother and has more important priorities (no, not her husband, her other child!)
We have come to an end of the pastors conference, and soon to be finished vision trips (although its just temporary till the next one comes)...as the whole crew eats African food for African Night. And later after the dining room is cleaned quickly we refill for another 60 to 75 dinner guests with a church group that came to 'check us out'. They also are have the African Dinner.
What have all these 'African Dinners' consisted of? Besides West African style foods here is a more specific list:
Spicy baked/roasted chicken, with one of the following: peanut sauce, red sauce, palava sauce...
Rice / Jollof Rice
Spicy Black Eye Beans (black eyed peas, red palm oil, local peppers...)
Eggplant (skin, cube, saute with onion, garlic...later add tomato product like sauce, stewed, or past continue to cook)
Fried Plantains
Cassava/Potato Greens
The ward cook had a tasty looking dinner cooked for the patients yesterday made out of diced chicken, pumpkin, and of course a spicy tomato and red palm oil base.
This food is definitely high starch and not low fat...at least by Western standards.
Alison
My friend Alison is leaving tomorrow. I will miss her. We have had many adventures together. We often went to the Royal Hotel for breakfast on our days off. It made me feel like my life was more normal than it really is since I live on a ship in Africa.
Alison has been at the center of fashion at the tailor and has inspired us to have him make us different things. We share a love of Anthropologie and have brought him many torn-out pages of the catalog and have been pleasantly surprised when it turns out exactly like we thought.
We have had many great talks and I will really miss her.
Alison has been at the center of fashion at the tailor and has inspired us to have him make us different things. We share a love of Anthropologie and have brought him many torn-out pages of the catalog and have been pleasantly surprised when it turns out exactly like we thought.
We have had many great talks and I will really miss her.
Seriously?
My friends Becky, Meghan, and I often sing the Switchfoot song "This is your life. Are you who you wanna be?" when some things happen that you just feel are completely ridiculous. On Grey's Anatomy, they say Seriously? Like, no way, this is not happening to me. The last 24 hours have been full of these moments.
Yesterday I helped carried a little 5-year-old girl, her name is Best, to the bathroom so she could use the potty. Well, Best does not have the best aim and my flip-flops (they flip and they flop, they are nothing as the Captain would say) and my toes quickly went from dry to saturated.
Today I went to ward nurse devotions on the dock. The topic was spiritual warfare. Not my favorite topic. I know it is real, but I feel like way too often we blame far too many things on spiritual warfare and do not take responsibility for our own actions and sin. I was only half listening, actually, I was looking up at the sky at some birds. I don't think I have ever seen a bird here in Liberia. As I was watching the birds fly above the 20 nurses out on the dock I thought I betcha that bird is going to ....... oh crap he pooped on me. Maybe I should give spiritual warfare more thought.
When I first came on to my night shift tonight, I went around to visit all my patients. Mary said that her IV site was hurting. As I placed a new IV, the tubing was not clamped blood came spurting out all over the bed and my pants.
There seems to be a theme. Should I walk around with an umbrella to shield away the next bodily fluid that is going to attack me? I am thinking that wearing a garbage bag over my clothes and an emesis basin on my head could be the obvious solution.
I have really been complaining a lot lately. Mostly about other people complaining. Today I spent most of the day really searching out how to find joy even in the irritations of life.
Psalms 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my anxious thoughts
I read this over and over again. What I took from it was that it is about what my thoughts are. I do not need to be concerned about others. It is only creating my own sin to complain about complainers. It sounds so simple as a write this, but it really was a revelation for me.
It is quite funny to me that I feel like God was trying to get my attention through bodily fluids, but it worked.
Yesterday I helped carried a little 5-year-old girl, her name is Best, to the bathroom so she could use the potty. Well, Best does not have the best aim and my flip-flops (they flip and they flop, they are nothing as the Captain would say) and my toes quickly went from dry to saturated.
Today I went to ward nurse devotions on the dock. The topic was spiritual warfare. Not my favorite topic. I know it is real, but I feel like way too often we blame far too many things on spiritual warfare and do not take responsibility for our own actions and sin. I was only half listening, actually, I was looking up at the sky at some birds. I don't think I have ever seen a bird here in Liberia. As I was watching the birds fly above the 20 nurses out on the dock I thought I betcha that bird is going to ....... oh crap he pooped on me. Maybe I should give spiritual warfare more thought.
When I first came on to my night shift tonight, I went around to visit all my patients. Mary said that her IV site was hurting. As I placed a new IV, the tubing was not clamped blood came spurting out all over the bed and my pants.
There seems to be a theme. Should I walk around with an umbrella to shield away the next bodily fluid that is going to attack me? I am thinking that wearing a garbage bag over my clothes and an emesis basin on my head could be the obvious solution.
I have really been complaining a lot lately. Mostly about other people complaining. Today I spent most of the day really searching out how to find joy even in the irritations of life.
Psalms 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my anxious thoughts
I read this over and over again. What I took from it was that it is about what my thoughts are. I do not need to be concerned about others. It is only creating my own sin to complain about complainers. It sounds so simple as a write this, but it really was a revelation for me.
It is quite funny to me that I feel like God was trying to get my attention through bodily fluids, but it worked.
Salmon, a good basic recipe
Its been pretty busy here on the ship. Especially in food services. We are catering a pastors conference on Monday and Tuesday (lunch only) and then an African Dinner (with West African style food, hence the name) on Tuesday night along with doing the African food for the regular crew that night also...and a lot of other little things going on...the founders of the Organization coming, a group from a church that has wanted to get involved, etc...
In the galley we have several holes in the floor past the tile and into the concrete trying to pinpoint a water leak in the floor itself, several food coolers going down at the same time, the crane (which lifts two big size rolling bins out of the ship with our massive trash in it) has broken down, a lull in staffing in food service right now (although said church is helping out tremendously when they can in the galley)...
Oh, thats right, Salmon! This basic brine or marinade is great especially for Salmon, but I have not really tried it with white fish, because I don't think it would look appealing when it changed the color of the white fish...but oh well, you can always try and see.
Only soak the fish in this mixture for 1 hour, and definitely not longer than 2 (for those of you who don't follow instructions good). Fish will take on flavors quick.
1/3 part sugar
2/3 part soy sauce
add fresh garlic as much as you want or powder till taste is strong
add fresh ginger as much as you want or powder till taste is strong
But use equal parts of garlic and ginger.
I don't really use a whole lot of measurements, I like ratios so it can be scaled up or down. The taste is supposed to be strong because the fish will push out some water AND because this taste will get diluted separated between the fish. This works great on baked, grilled, pan seared, and/or fried Salmon Fillets.
A good example of this recipe would be like this:
1 gallon soy sauce
1/2 gallon sugar
1/4 cup powdered ginger (or half cup fresh!)
1/4 cup powdered garlic (or half cup fresh!)
On the ship, the fish sometimes looks terrible baked in mass quantity with congealed Grey blood and such...so a mass quantity trick (or if its hard to bake flat that many pieces of fish like it is for us) is to flash fry or maybe more technically correct par-fry the fish in the deep fryer till they look good, or golden brown and crusty (but not till there done) and then fill up the hotel pans/chafing dishes and cover and finish cooking all the fish in the oven. Comes out wonderful, looks great, great texture and color on the outside, and tender & moist on the inside. That is, if you don't cook it too long and dry it out!
Thats it! Leave a comment if you have further questions on some of my techniques or recipes found here.
In the galley we have several holes in the floor past the tile and into the concrete trying to pinpoint a water leak in the floor itself, several food coolers going down at the same time, the crane (which lifts two big size rolling bins out of the ship with our massive trash in it) has broken down, a lull in staffing in food service right now (although said church is helping out tremendously when they can in the galley)...
Oh, thats right, Salmon! This basic brine or marinade is great especially for Salmon, but I have not really tried it with white fish, because I don't think it would look appealing when it changed the color of the white fish...but oh well, you can always try and see.
Only soak the fish in this mixture for 1 hour, and definitely not longer than 2 (for those of you who don't follow instructions good). Fish will take on flavors quick.
1/3 part sugar
2/3 part soy sauce
add fresh garlic as much as you want or powder till taste is strong
add fresh ginger as much as you want or powder till taste is strong
But use equal parts of garlic and ginger.
I don't really use a whole lot of measurements, I like ratios so it can be scaled up or down. The taste is supposed to be strong because the fish will push out some water AND because this taste will get diluted separated between the fish. This works great on baked, grilled, pan seared, and/or fried Salmon Fillets.
A good example of this recipe would be like this:
1 gallon soy sauce
1/2 gallon sugar
1/4 cup powdered ginger (or half cup fresh!)
1/4 cup powdered garlic (or half cup fresh!)
On the ship, the fish sometimes looks terrible baked in mass quantity with congealed Grey blood and such...so a mass quantity trick (or if its hard to bake flat that many pieces of fish like it is for us) is to flash fry or maybe more technically correct par-fry the fish in the deep fryer till they look good, or golden brown and crusty (but not till there done) and then fill up the hotel pans/chafing dishes and cover and finish cooking all the fish in the oven. Comes out wonderful, looks great, great texture and color on the outside, and tender & moist on the inside. That is, if you don't cook it too long and dry it out!
Thats it! Leave a comment if you have further questions on some of my techniques or recipes found here.
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