After two weeks of radio silence, our newest team of Mercy Ships volunteers has finally joined the Africa Mercy.

I’ve seen 100 pictures of the ship, but it is SO MUCH BETTER when people you’ve grown to love are standing in front of it. There’s Ally from the UK and Lewanna from BC with Stefan our Field Service Director.

Photo Credit: Amy Jones

Prior to boarding, the team spent two weeks working in a local orphanage in Pointe Noire, Congo. Since there was no internet connection (nor running water or power evidently) I’ve been jumping out of my skin in Texas to hear how it’s going, because someday I’ll get to go too.

KJ from Seattle wrote a fun post about it here. Ally and Amy, husband and wife team from the UK photographed it here and wrote about it here. Katie and Jordan from Ohio talk about it here. If you’d like to see missionary work in action, complete with its myriad heartbreak and surprise, take a moment and check out these blogs.

Photo Credit: Amy Jones

All of these people have committed to living on the Africa Mercy for at least 10 months. Some are planning to be there for years. They raise their own money and actually pay Mercy Ships to do this, committing their lives and finances to deliver healthcare to the poorest of the world’s poor.

The money part used to seem weird to me, but it doesn’t anymore. It’s just another example of how life works in the beautiful, radical, upside down Kingdom of God.

**As ever, the views expressed herein are my own and not of that of Mercy Ships International.