Monthly Archives: October 2008

It has been a wild ride for me this past year. I came to the ship arrogant, to be totally honest. I simply thought I had something to offer to the community of the ship and also the people of Liberia. Yes, I have skills, gifts, and talents that the Lord has blessed me with but I thought, Stephanie Ruth Barton could make a difference.

It all changed on February 18th. It was screening day and definitely the worst day of my life as a nurse. That one day of seeing the true needs of Africa (not just what… READ MORE!

It is so easy to get wrapped up in my own little world. It is easy to complain about spending most of the weekend in the bathroom feeling like death is just around the corner. It is easy to complain about my 4 night shifts in a row, 2 of them being 12 hour shifts. The list goes on. Then a reality check came crashing in. His name is Melvin. He had a tumor on the side of his that pushed his eye over to the left. If you just looked at him, you would think “ah not that bad… READ MORE!

This is Arthur. He came onto this ship a baby with this overwhelming tumor protruding from his face. He cried constantly, I think it was because he could never get comfortable. I was working night shift on D ward the night before his surgery. To be honest I was a little afraid of this tiny baby, he just looked too much like our dear baby Greg that went to Jesus in July. Every time I saw Arthur I would pray, “Please Jesus let this one live.”

At… READ MORE!

As nurses we ordered these wonderful hooded, zippy, sweatshirts. I set aside a sizable chunk of my missionary money and began waiting for this snugly hoodie to appear. We were told it should be here 5 weeks at the latest. We started asking about them at week 6. Each time mail would come up the gangway we would look for big boxes from the company we ordered from. Almost 2 months later still I and 50 other cold nurses (the AC is very strong) are hoodieless!!

Please pray that wherever they are, whoever has them would relinquish them to… READ MORE!

Sometimes when I am relaxing or enjoying a moment of leisure with my wife I lean back, put my hands behind my back (like when laying down on a hammock) and say, “Its good to be KING!”.  Partly for humorous reasons, to aggravate my wife, and to express a mock pride of being in ‘control’ and loving it.

But the last time my wife started laughing and I said, “Why do you laugh, its biblical!” and I proceeded to put on my best religious pios-ness (if thats a word)….she just looked at me like ‘Yeah, RIGHT!’ (with a sarcastic… READ MORE!