Betty Hunter was my roommate aboard the Anastasis in 2004.
A Life Devoted To Helping Others
Written by Melissa Mason
Mercy Ships volunteer Elizabeth Hunter, who comes from Yorkshire, England, stopped into the Australian national office recently with fellow volunteer Mike Hughes. Elizabeth was holidaying in Melbourne, where she met up with fellow Mercy Ships alum Fiona Lanting,before making the trip north to the Sunshine Coast for a reunion with Mike. The two served onboard the Anastasis at the same time while it was docked in Sierra Leone. 71-year-old Elizabeth began her service with Mercy Ships in 2003, when she served on the Anastasis for three months in Togo. As a traditional birthing
attendant, she trained others in how to deliver babies. She also served in Benin and visited the Africa Mercy several times as it was being refurbished from a rail ferry in Newcastle, UK, and again after completion.
“Everybody’s nice onboard”, Elizabeth said. “It changes your whole life; not only [the lives] of the patients, but the people on board”.
Elizabeth has devoted her life to serving as a missionary. After becoming a newly qualified midwife she served in Israel for a year and later in India,
where she adopted a young Indian girl who now works as a lawyer in London.
During her time with Mercy Ships in Liberia, Elizabeth became involved with the Alfred and Agnes Memorial Orphanage. After the civil war the orphanage was left severely damaged – rebels had stolen the orphanage’s pigs and the building’s doors and any other pieces of wood they could sell. “They deliberately ruined things, just because they could”, she retold.
Elizabeth raised enough funds to buy the orphanage four new lots of breeding pigs.
It was at Alfred and Agnes where Elizabeth met a young boy, Mohammed, and his
sister. Since being discovered in a displaced persons refugee camp after their
parents’ death, Mohammed would not smile. Elizabeth and others at the
orphanage would try to encourage him by enthusiastically saying “smile Mohammed,
smile!”. He did not, until one day the orphanage was given a drum for the
children to play with. Mohammed began beating on the drum, playing rhythms that
seemed to come from nowhere, with a giant smile on his face. Upon returning
home, Elizabeth wrote a story about the young boy, titled Smile Mohammed, Smile,
which she published herself and sold, raising £2,000 for Mercy Ships.
While in Liberia, Elizabeth was also involved in building six new buildings for child birthing, where women could be cared for before giving birth, give birth and recover afterwards. The buildings were stocked with all the necessary equipment, some of which was surplus from the Anastasis and given as a donation.
“I’m totally amazed by how He’s using me”, Elizabeth says of God’s will. She recalls that she was unsure if her application to Mercy Ships would be accepted, but “I applied just after Christmas and by March 4th I was on the ship”. “I wanted Him to use me in whatever way He could, over and above what I was already doing”.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
I like our American education…
Many say that America has a poor quality education.
I disagree.
I have had students from South Africa, Ghana, Great Britain, Norway, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. I have not found the students from any one country any better prepared than my American students. I do know that in other countries the only students taking the college-entry type standardized testing are the top students who have been filtered out at age 11 and again at age 16. In America everyone, including those that are challenged in some respect, takes the standardized tests. Because it is so inclusive, the test has been made increasingly simpler and therefore less challenging to our upper students. The average of our scores is inclusive of everyone at the top and at the bottom. We often compare our results with those of European college-bound students who have made it through the 11-year and 16-year-old filters.
I like our system. It reflects our land of opportunity.
Let me explain. When I lived in Portugal I discovered two things.
First, a student had to be accepted into a track at age 16 (10th grade) in order to go to that particular study in university. If he or she could not succeed in that study, he or she had to begin again. Thus there were day and night classes for high school students; students in their 20’s worked with regular students, trying to finish those last 2 years of classes to be acceptable in college.
It seemed to me that that was similar to our community college system. I like our system better, for it prevents us from sending 25-year-olds among our 17-year-olds.
The second thing I discovered was how the exclusivity at the heart of the educational system fulfilled itself professionally. The job ads in Portugal clearly stated, “No one over 35 should apply.” One had to be established in his or her career by 35 or he was doomed. Once a person was 35 he was given no second chances. In America the community colleges are full of people over 30 seeking to improve their career options through education, or seeking to simply improve their lives. I like that.
I like our American system.
Considering how many foreigners move to America every year, I think many agree with me!
I disagree.
I have had students from South Africa, Ghana, Great Britain, Norway, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. I have not found the students from any one country any better prepared than my American students. I do know that in other countries the only students taking the college-entry type standardized testing are the top students who have been filtered out at age 11 and again at age 16. In America everyone, including those that are challenged in some respect, takes the standardized tests. Because it is so inclusive, the test has been made increasingly simpler and therefore less challenging to our upper students. The average of our scores is inclusive of everyone at the top and at the bottom. We often compare our results with those of European college-bound students who have made it through the 11-year and 16-year-old filters.
I like our system. It reflects our land of opportunity.
Let me explain. When I lived in Portugal I discovered two things.
First, a student had to be accepted into a track at age 16 (10th grade) in order to go to that particular study in university. If he or she could not succeed in that study, he or she had to begin again. Thus there were day and night classes for high school students; students in their 20’s worked with regular students, trying to finish those last 2 years of classes to be acceptable in college.
It seemed to me that that was similar to our community college system. I like our system better, for it prevents us from sending 25-year-olds among our 17-year-olds.
The second thing I discovered was how the exclusivity at the heart of the educational system fulfilled itself professionally. The job ads in Portugal clearly stated, “No one over 35 should apply.” One had to be established in his or her career by 35 or he was doomed. Once a person was 35 he was given no second chances. In America the community colleges are full of people over 30 seeking to improve their career options through education, or seeking to simply improve their lives. I like that.
I like our American system.
Considering how many foreigners move to America every year, I think many agree with me!
Retreat bonding...
I had such a good time with our students and staff and the two youth leaders who came along. One student led our singing on her guitar, and a pastor from the ship came and encouraged us to listen to God's voice.
He invited two Sisters of Charity to come and share their testimony. It was amazing. They are the women who follow in Mother Teresa's footsteps. We were all touched...
Retreat pleasures
On Saturday we enjoyed two waterfalls. We admired the one and had a picnic, but we got to swim in the second. I also enjoyed a little moment of weeding a vegetable patch on the base, and we all took time to worship, to meditate on the Lord and to put together our thoughts of how the Lord speaks to us. Here is my group's poster...
Student Retreat
This weekend (April 8-10) we took the 6th - 12th graders on a retreat away from the noisy metal and concrete setting of a working port and working ship to the mountains of Togo, to the YWAM base. Here are some images of the first day and a half, arriving, unloading, playing a bit of soccer, dodge-pillow, cards, with some time to meditate on hearing God's voice. Saturday we made a nice hike to waterfalls.
The elementary teachers invited me to a Seder (Passover meal). It was so lovely. They reflected on each aspect of the Seder as it represented the Old Testament memory of God's redemption of the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, and its New Testament meaning in Christ.
My favorite part was when Haley shared the meaning of the matzah bread. It is to always be baked without any leavening. Jesus compared leavening to sin, in that a little added to the dough manages to infiltrate the whole and corrupt it. Jesus is like the matzah bread served during Passover, without any leavening, without any sin, yet broken for us. Matzah bread is especially significant for us as it is pierced with holes (as was our Lord), and as it is striped (as was our Lord in the beating He endured).
Traditionally one piece of the bread is hidden and then looked for after the meal, even as Christ was hidden from His disciples for 3 days in death, before he was revealed anew, having conquered sin and death.
The Seder utterly delighted me and renewed my sense of gratitude...
Kenya Conference
Here you see our travel-happy group at Rift Valley Academy after a day and a night of traversing 3 countries. Our final lap was in the "cosy" bus!
Kenya conference prayers fulfilled.
Before we went to
You see, the Academy is seeking accreditation.
That is not so unusual. Most schools eventually seek national or international credibility.
Is the challenge that we are seeking to be a CHRISTIAN school?
I don’t think so, for the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) who put on the conference in Kenya serves some 5000 Christian schools in over 100 countries, and helps a lot of them with getting local or national accreditation. The ACSI offers its own accreditation as well, under the national guidelines.
The challenge is being INTERNATIONAL.
The way most schools deal with international students is to tell them that the school is offering American/French/British/etc. national curriculum, and the students simply have to deal with it. Up until now, our school has offered American education. This means that graduating seniors could go to American universities. They were not qualified to go to African, European or Australian colleges, because of the fact that those systems demand vocational emphasis for the last two or three high school years, whereas the US system maintains a broad education for 12 years. While a serious student can pursue his or her interest in math, science, literature, or other focus, often taking college-level classes, the high schools generally offer standard 5-strand coursework. This does not correlate to other countries’ educational systems.
Up until now our school could only offer American curriculum, because we change location every year, and the testing sites for European systems (like the British GCSE) were not reasonably available to us.
Is it righteous that families from all over the world should give up their homeland lives to serve in
We don’t think so.
Yet that is what often seems to happen. Serious students from our Academy end up in American or Canadian universities because the school is structured on the American curriculum. They often take jobs in
We don’t think that is fair.
In Kenya God enabled us to interface with schools across Africa that are using British curriculum at the 9th and 10th grade levels with international tests (IGCSE) at the end of 10th grade that allow the students to continue on in their own nation’s educational system. We can apply to have the ship be a testing center (not possible for the other national tests).
What an answer to prayer! The curriculum is a bit demanding, which means that American students will benefit by high-level education. We will use the test as we do final exams. Normally our final exams cover the year’s material. We will use the international grade 10 test to replace the grade 10 final exam, and it will cover 2 years’ study. Like the final, it will count 20% of the year’s grade. Thus an American student will continue on as usual, and the European or African or Australian student will be ready to go on in his or her speciality.
I am heading the English curriculum committee, and am responsible to develop a language arts curriculum that is founded in biblical worldview and will satisfy the needs of all our student body. What a challenge!
At the conference I received in-depth training from people from several different countries in how to do just that. Most of them have a national curriculum they follow. They are willing to help us develop an international curriculum.
God is remarkable. What a wonderful answer to prayer! How He loves His missionary families!
I am so grateful, for I feel profoundly unfit for this immense task.
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