Sarah says she and American husband Michael felt God calling them back to serve as volunteers with Mercy Ships following their marriage instead of going out to buy all the whitegoods that seem to go with newly married life. "It's not the same for everyone, but for us it also meant selling the car, forgetting the need for possessions, saying goodbye to a number of comforts and doing what God told us."
About ten years ago Sarah discovered Mercy Ships while searching the internet with Google for the word mercy. "I started receiving the charity's regular newsletters and felt a tug at my heart that said I am going to do that one day. My call to be a nurse for the exact purpose of going to Africa came when I was 17. Then followed work in the Liverpool Hospital where my involvement with translators dealing with patients in the Intensive Care Unit gave me an experience of how to communicate compassion when words could not be used or understood."
"That has helped greatly with my nursing in Africa where some patients don't speak any language that even our translators know. It is a challenge, but it is possible to show even through actions that you care for them, there is a God who cares and who has made a way for them to reach the ship where free surgeries are provided. I am certain that every nursing experience I had was perfect preparation for my time as a nurse on the ship."
After nearly two years of service with Mercy Ships in Ghana, Liberia and Benin, Sarah says she is ready for life at home in Australia for some time, and she and Michael will be home in September.
Most of the financial support to enable Sarah to do what she has and is doing has come from her local church, family and friends. Reaction has been mostly positive. "Some people, however, think we are crazy as we don't get paid and also have to pay crew fees. It is just so different from the way our world expects us to think."
"That is also true of my perspective on life itself, seeing and experiencing the way others live. God has used all of these experiences to change and refine me. My view of what poverty is has changed. I have met the most amazing people who have nothing financially, but who are rich spiritually. They praise God for waking up each day. While performing surgery on people is good, the true result of what is being done is often simply showing how God loves them. There are so many who have been forced to live as outcasts because of deformity, whose lives are changed just because someone onboard is prepared to touch them and love them."
"People in many of the West African nations lack access to basic health care, education, human rights, clean water and so much more. I realise I have been blessed to have grown up in Australia where all these things are available. Due to lack of education and widely held traditional beliefs in witchdoctors and curses, babies born with cleft lips are seen as cursed and often just thrown away."
Sarah says more than her original dream of nursing in Africa has been fulfilled. "I felt it was the perfect time to go to the hospital ship the first time. Then God gave me a husband to be involved with me in further missionary work. What an amazing journey! Someone said to me earlier, 'Not many people achieve their dreams, and now you will need a new dream.' I have realised that this has not been so much a dream of mine, but it was God's way of leading me on the path he had chosen. He will also place new dreams in my heart when the time is right."
"Soon I will be coming home. I am forever changed. I know there will be another 'God dream', but I don't know anything more about my future," she concludes.
Mercy Ships is an international Christian charity that has operated hospital ships in developing nations since 1978. Following the example of Jesus, Mercy Ships brings hope and healing to the poor, mobilizing people and resources worldwide. The emphasis is on the needs of the world's poorest nations in West Africa, where the hospital ship Africa Mercy provides the platform for services extending up to ten months at a time. Mercy Ships works in partnership on land-based projects in Sierra Leone with other organisations, while teams also work in several nations of Central America and the Caribbean. There are 14 support offices around the world, including the Australian office on the Queensland Sunshine Coast. www.mercyships.org.au