Christmas?

 While the rest of the world is shoveling snow, our families are enjoying sunny beaches! It is summer in South AFrica!

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Come work with me!

If you would like to come teach in our Academy, check out this website:

http://community.icontact.com/p/brianandwarriecom/newsletters/mercyshipsacademy/posts/mercy-ships-academy-september

We'd love to have you. It is an adventure of a lifetime, and we have the most delightful students you could ever ask for!

Teacher close-ups: Spirit Day

In my last entry, I gave you a glimpse of some of the fun costumes of Spirit Day. Here are two of my favorite ones, my buddies the 4th grade teacher (Nemo) and the pre-school teacher (Africa Mercy) making some of their silly faces.

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Spirit Day at the Academy: Sea Theme

 Once a month the school has a Spirit Day. This means whacky costumes and funny stories. So here you see the 9-10th grades and mentor teacher, with Snail and Sponge Bob Squarepants leading in their managerie. Next we have grade 4, with the mermaid, the shrimp, the Academy beachcomber, Nemo, and the local jellyfish. Then I couldn't resist showing you the sea, the sea cucumber and the giant jellyfish, the 11-12th graders and mentor teacher. What a creative bunch!

This message and any attachments may be privileged or otherwise protected from disclosure - Mercy Ships.

Sailing along South Africa

I am sitting at my desk, enjoying a spicy breakfast of curried potatoes and garbanzo beans. (I think some of you call them chick peas?) Our Gurkhas got up at 4 a.m. to cook up this treat for us. They even made chapatis! I feel impossibly spoiled, having just passed a delightful hour in prayer with my prayer partners as we watched the sun rise over the sea. We are nearing Durban, and will be having our South Africa arrival briefing this morning at 8:00.

We have lots of briefings on a sail, and need to be very flexible with our classes. However, we serve with such a delightful crew, and have such interested and enthusiastic students, no one is complaining.

Here are a couple of photos of some of our students enjoying the bow to watch the sun as it prepares to set. Enjoy!

Togo says good-bye

As we head out to sea, a final fishing boat waves us off, and the Togolese navy chaperones us until we are out in the open waters, a very gracious send-off.

And the school?

You may wonder what the Academy does during departure. Well, we all go out on decks 7 and 8 and watch! Sometimes there are church bands and government leaders seeing us off, but since Togo is very actively involved in government protests, we left as quickly and quietly as we could. However, we were all out on deck to see it happen. This was on the weekend, but we would stop classes for an hour or so to see it if we departed during school time.