Theology in the Raw - Doing Cross Cultural Ministry through Mercy Ships: Raeanne Newquist

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

Raeanne Newquist and her husband and 3 children joined Mercy Ships in 2019. After leaving everything behind in Southern California, they boarded the Africa Mercy in Las Palmas and made their way down to Dakar, Senegal for their first field service. On board, Raeanne volunteered in the communications department and later in chaplaincy. Currently, Raeanne is the host of the New Mercies podcast, and is the voice of the Mercy Minute daily radio broadcast. Find out how you can volunteer at Mercy Ships: https://findyourplace.mercyships.org/immediate-needs/ -- If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe to my channel! Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Or you can support me directly through Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Visit my personal website: https://www.prestonsprinkle.com For questions about faith, sexuality & gender: https://www.centerforfaith.com BaQvZ7hsORS3HUMBDtsa Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of theology in the raw. Hey, we are in a strange political season. And if you find yourself frustrated at our political moment or wanting some biblical guidance on how to handle all the various political conversations you're engaging in or avoiding, then I'd invite you to check out my book, Exiles, the Church in the Shadow of Empire. I'm not going to tell you how to vote. I'm not going to tell you which political party, if any, you should support or not support. What I do in the book is lay down a biblical theology of a Christian political identity. And I do think this idea of being an exile in Babylon is one of the ways in which the Bible conceives of our political

identity. So who has some help with those conversations? Check out my book, exiles, the church in the Shadow of Empire. Okay. My guest today is Rayann Newquist. Rayann and her husband and three children joined Mercy Ships in 2019 and just had an absolutely incredible experience. I know many of you have heard of, I think Mercy Ships. And I had to, but I didn't really know too much about it. So this podcast conversation is me and Rayann just talking about her time at Mercy ships and what the Lord taught her and just so many awesome experiences that she had. And I would encourage you to check out volunteer opportunities at Mercy ships as well. The links I have some

links in the show notes. So yeah, please welcome to the show. The one and only Rayann Newquist. Thank you for being a guest on theology. I ran really excited to hear your story. Let's just jump right into your story. Who are you? Give a little background, but then I want to know like what led you to decide to up and join a ship, especially well into your parenting, you know, married years, something that doesn't typically happen. Yeah. Yeah. Well, my name is Ryan and I am married. I have three kids and Southern California

was home for us for a very long time while my kids were born there. We were really established there. We had a great community, great jobs, everything was great. And my husband was a first responder. He was serving with the California Highway Patrol. And prior to that, he was a pastor in Malibu. He's an ordained minister, went to seminary, the whole nine yards. And after his time with the Highway Patrol, he was getting close to being eligible to retire. And he kept saying, you know, I feel like I really want to get back into full-time ministry, but I don't think I want to go back into the church necessarily. And I just thought, yeah, you know, I mean, I as well had been a college pastor for years and I'm like, yes, let's go back into the ministry. I would love that. We had three kids at the time. Mercy Ships just came on our radar. So we had a friend of ours who

had come to us maybe three years prior asking if we would support her. She was a kindergarten teacher going to serve on board the Africa Mercy. And we are hospital ships. So a kindergarten teacher on a hospital ship maybe doesn't make much sense. But we're a lot more than just medical. We're kind of floating cities. And so when families come to serve on board, we have fully accredited academies on board our school and on board our ships for our kids to go to school. So there's teachers from preschool all the way up to graduating seniors in high school on board. So she was going to go and serve and be a kindergarten teacher, asked us if we would support her because all our crew are volunteers. Anyways, we said, yeah, we love you. We've never heard of Mercy Ships,

but we'd love to support you. Well, flash forward three years later, you know, and my husband's looking to retire. And he got on Mercy Ships website and he said, Rand, they're looking to hire a chaplain in 2019 for two years. And I was like, oh, great. Yeah, there's no way in the world that my very safe type A first responder husband is going to take his wife and three children to live on a hospital ship in West Africa. So I thought, yeah, go ahead. Watch the videos.

Apply. Do whatever you want. There's no way this is ever going to happen. Although secretly deep down, it was like my dream. I would love to live an outside of the box life and do something that's totally countercultural, take my kids on a wild adventure, but I just didn't really marry that man, although I was wrong. So anyways, obviously, this was stirring in his heart and just kept giving him this passion for Mercy ships. He became obsessed with watching every video that they have on YouTube,

patient stories, also crew uploaded a ton of videos about their life on board and he was completely sold and got our kids roped in. You know, got our three kids watching all the videos and stuff. And I'm still just hanging in the background thinking this is not going to happen. I'm not going to get excited. And it did happen. So yeah, in 2019, my husband retired from his career. We sold our house. We got rid of just about everything that we owned, gave away our cars and furniture. And that's not a requirement of Mercy Ships, by the way, but it was something that we felt like God called us to. I mean, God specifically said to my husband, Hey, no plan B, you know,

just go for it. And, and so we did. Can you explain for, I mean, I think it's pretty well known where Mercy ships, at least, I mean, most people I've talked to have at least heard of it for somebody who doesn't even know what we're talking about. I mean, you mentioned it's kind of like a floating city, but what is the, maybe a quick history and mission of, of ships? Absolutely. So we've been around for about 45 years and we have the world's largest non-governmental hospital ships. And right now we have two ships in our fleet. We have the Africa Mercy that's currently serving in Madagascar. And then we have the Global Mercy that is currently serving in Sierra Leone. And we perform free life-changing and in many situations, life saving surgeries for poor

people in sub Saharan Africa. So we're not general medicine. We are we are surgery, we have about six areas of specialty that we deliver in for patients. And another big part of Mercy ships is our education, training and advocacy department. Really, what we want to do is strengthen and bolster any kind of medical facilities or medical personnel that are in these developing nations. So we do a ton of training. We have some simulators on board. We let local people come, not local people, local surgeons come and shadow some of our surgeons, not just anybody. We are trying to educate the people on like safe surgical practices, sterilization, all that kind of stuff, so that when we leave, that they can continue

to care for their people in the areas of need that they have. So it's kind of a twofold thing. But really, our desire is to kind of work ourselves out of a job. You know, if these countries are able to have the facilities and the personnel to care for their own people, then there'll be no need for us. But in the meantime, we go and pull into port for about 10 months. We're not just sailing around for, you know, a week here and a week there, but we'll stay in a country for about 10 months and perform as many surgeries as we possibly can during

that time. Okay. So the main foe, I guess I'm hearing like a twofold focus one, you know, life-changing surgeries that are necessary now, but also long-term training of local surgeons. So that, like you said, you work yourself out of that job. Well, I love that because in the past, sometimes Western missionaries didn't have that long-term mindset, right? They're like, we're going to go and do everything for them, quote unquote them, you know? And there are some immediate needs that need to happen, but that long-term training is really key. Has that always been built into the mission?

I think it's been an undercurrent, but in the last five to 10 years, it has really, really ramped up and come to the forefront. We have a legacy. I mean, there's been a lot of clinics that are formed and a lot of things that are continuing to happen in countries that we've been in. There's a dental clinic that's in one of our countries that we served in that came out of Mercy Ships, where some of the dentists on board, when we were serving, I think it might be in Ghana, don't quote me on that, but they were so passionate that they stayed and continued to do the work there. So we still partner with those people.

They help us out quite a bit and vice versa, but it's always been a part of Mercy ships, but it's really been more in the focus, I would say, in the last five to 10 years. Yeah. And with our new ship being built, the Global Mercy, it was a purpose-built hospital ship. And so we had simulators specifically built for that purpose that doctors could come on board and go through the simulators to learn to do surgeries. So I'm trying to get just, my mind just works very concretely. So I'm just picturing like

your massive ship. It's huge, right? It's like a cruise ship. What's that? I mean, yeah, I want to maybe not quite as big. So the Africa mercy has eight decks and then the global mercy 12. So the global mercy is much bigger than the African mercy, but we're not talking like massive principle. You know, there's not like water slides and go carts and stuff, but you know, Speaker 0.(1h 1m 5s): Come on. Oh, my buddy back. Okay. So a large chip still, I mean, do you, do you like, I would imagine there's a lot of organization ahead of time. Like, Hey, we have this floating city hospital. Do you want us to come into your port and sit there for 10 months? And

so I'm sure there's a lot of logistics. So then you pull up and what's the next step? Do you, do you start going into the city and telling people about this opportunity or, or are there people on the ground that have already done that? And there's lines of people waiting for you when you show up. Okay. Yeah. So we don't just show up. First of all, we don't go to any country that we're not invited to. So long before the ship pulls in, there has already been a team that has been building relationships with the government, with the Ministry of Health.

There is a whole advanced team, country engagement team that is living in the country, building all those relationships, setting the groundwork for, I mean, the port authority, we have to be able to get containers, you know, received onto our vessel for all our medical supplies and food. And so there's a lot of relationship building that goes on ahead of time before the ship pulls into port. But as well, we have our medical screening teams that are there before the ship gets there to go out into remote villages and stuff and find these patients. We pull into port, we can almost hit the ground running. I mean, there is a period of a month or so where we have to set up the dock with all of our rehab tents, screening tents, and then really to set up the hospital. I mean, we've just sailed

somewhere. And so now all the equipment needs to be pulled out, re-sterilized. You have to sterilize all the rooms, you know, but that advance work with the government, with the people getting patients lined up, that has already happened before we arrived. Okay. Okay. So the, the host people don't come into the ship. You have tents set up kind of right next to the ship and then that's where the makeshift hospital is or do you have it?

No, the hospital is on board. No, so the hospital is on board. Yeah. So what happens is usually on our dock space, we'll have a couple of tents set up for rehabilitation. So maybe once we do our orthopedic surgery to straighten kids' legs, they might have some of their rehab activities in those tents. There also might be additional screening. So when we go out and screen patients out in different villages or different areas, then they're given an opportunity to then come and have another screening by a surgeon.

So there's a couple layers of screening that goes on. They got to do blood work and all that kind of stuff. If there's any reason, you know, if there's potentially cancer, we don't treat cancer at all. So all that will come out in labs. But yeah, so the tents on the dock are for additional screening with surgeons before they're given a surgery date and also rehabilitation. But the whole hospital is on board the ship. There's about six operating theaters on board. How many surgeons do you have on each ship? Well, the thing with our surgeons,

which is really kind of cool if anyone's listening is a surgeon want to come hang out with us for a couple of weeks. A lot of our surgeons will fly in from all over the world, maybe just for a two week rotation. They'll come in and just do their area of specialty. So we're not just doing any kind of surgery all the time. We have like specific rotations, like we're doing a plastics rotation. And so there'll be plastic surgeons that'll come in, reconstructive surgeons or guys that have specialties

that they can do and they'll be scheduled to come just during that rotation. And it just depends. We have some surgeons though, actually, there's a couple who have been on, one guy has been on board for over 30 years. He came to volunteer and said, I'm not leaving and brought his wife and then they had two kids on board and their kids were raised on board. Kind of crazy, but we have a lot of repeat offenders, I like to say. It's such a phenomenal place to serve,

such an incredible community to be a part of that a lot of people come back time and time again. So how many surgeons are on board? It depends at any one given time, there's usually quite a few, but they might just be there for a month or three months or two weeks. And then they head back home. Okay. So then we'll have to commit to eight, nine months or something. What, tell me about the other,

I mean, cause you're not a surgeon and obviously you're involved and tell me about all the other kinds of people involved in Mercy ships that aren't surgeons. I imagine there's a whole host of other kinds of jobs and volunteer opportunities. Right. Absolutely. So like I said, we're kind of a floating city and you can imagine, I mean, if you're going to work at a hospital, just even in the United States, there's a dining room. So you've got like, you know, cooks there, you've got housekeepers there, you've got receptionists there. I mean, it's all kind of the same thing on the ship. We also have an HR department on board.

We have a communications department, which is where I served with our videographers, our photographers, our writers, and they're creating all these beautiful pieces to tell the stories of our patients, to show the befores and after and really walk with them through their whole journey and hear their story story because we're not just kind of going in and performing surgery to correct someone's you know legs or remove a large tumor. That's a huge part of it that these people are so much more than their condition and so we love to learn about who they are and their family and their village and their story and sometimes always, but sometimes then we get to share those stories. So we need writers and videographers, all sorts of people in the communications

realm. Like I said, there's a school on board, so we need teachers. Gosh, there's just all the engineers, electricians, plumbers. It's a whole entire city. We have scuba divers because they got to go down and dive under the ship and clean out the intakes. So it's so cool. Yeah. I mean, and a lot of people do that. In addition, we don't have people who come just to dive, but a lot of our doctors, any of our other people, we say, Hey, are you certified? Would you want to be on the dive team? And they'll go down and do some maintenance and stuff, which is a blast. You know,

Yeah. Any snorkeling? I'm a snorkel. I'm not a diver. I've always wanted to get my diving license every, and I've gone to several places like islands and stuff where they have it. It's just, it's always, I'm busy with my family and it's like three full days and it's not cheap. You know, I'm like on vacation, I don't know if I take three days out just to go get my license, but one of my mini bucket list items. So how many people total? I mean, I'm surely it's, I'm guessing it's probably fluid. People are coming in, coming out, but in general, like, are we talking a couple of hundred people, a thousand people that are part of one ship or yeah. So like you said, we have, you know, crew that are coming in and out at all times. Someone might

sign up, like a nurse might sign up to be on board for four to six weeks or three months for a surgical rotation. They're flying in and out all over the world all the time. It just depends. The Africa Mercy is a little bit of a smaller ship. That's the ship that I served on with my family. I want to say there was about 400 to 500 crew members on board. And then whatever country we're in, we employ about 250 to 300 local workers that don't live on board with us, but they come and work on board every day. And they serve as our translators, not only in language, but in culture. And so they work in every department. So you add that on board. So now we're up to, you know, 800 people or so. Then

you have all your patients. Yeah. There's upward of, you know, a thousand people, um, on board our vessels or more at any given time. Those. There's a lot, you know? So, so I always pictured mercy ships. Like when you're like, you're basically living on the boat, your float, your spend most of your time in the open seas or whatever. But I'm, I'm guessing most of your time is not spent. Well, most of your time is spent. You're docked. You're you're you're and you sleep on the ship, right? But you, you're spending a lot of your time. Are you like on the ground and the villages and stuff? Or I guess it depends on your role, maybe where the majority of time spent.

Yeah. But everybody has the freedom to get off. I know when we were, when we were going as a family, so many people are like, are you ever allowed to get off the ship? I'm like, well, yeah, we're not prisoners there, you know? So we would go off and explore the city and go out to dinner. I learned to surf in Africa, which was super funny because I lived 10 minutes from Malibu for like 30 years and I went to the beach all the time, but I didn't surf until I went to Africa. But yeah, so many fun adventures went on your days off.

You get to explore, go to the local markets. It's amazing all the things that you get to do. But then there's so many cool activities on board as well. The community, I mean, you're in this multicultural community, right? People from all over the world, mostly, you know, believers in Jesus. And so we have like worship services on board. And then the holidays were unbelievable. I was a little nervous about being away from family at the holidays. But the way they celebrate, we celebrate like every country's tradition for the holidays. But the way they celebrate, we celebrate like every country's tradition for the holidays. So yeah, so like it's like days and days of Christmas,

you know, it was amazing. But there's so many fun activities on board. I mean, people are playing games all the time. And there's like karaoke nights and you've got, you know, just also, it's like summer camp for adults in a lot of ways with these highly trained professionals that are excellent in their field. Then they'll come and do karaoke at night with you and have like ice cream and you know, it's fun. How do introverts do it? Sounds like an extrovert dream, possibly an introvert nightmare, but I'm sure there's opportunities for people to get away.

Yeah. You know what? That's a great question because I'm married to an introvert. And so where our cabin was located, we were at the very back of the ship. And when we'd have to go to the dining room, you'd have to walk through the ship. And there was, you know, there's a couple of different levels, as I mentioned. So I would always want to take the route that went through the main area, like midships, where all the cafes are and stuff and all the people.

My husband would be like, I'll meet you in the dining room and he would take the lesser traveled route. But it's true, I mean, you're almost never alone. I would get up at like five in the morning to go down to the library just to like have some alone time. I might be alone for five minutes before someone else would come in. And granted, they weren't talking to me.

It was kind of a more quiet space, but it is really hard to get alone. I mean, that's just a fact. It's hard to get alone when you're on a ship with hundreds and hundreds of people. Do you feel your energy levels going down the older you get? It could be that your mitochondria is telling you that they need a little help. Okay, so mitochondria are your body's tiny energy factories and they help power almost everything you do. But here's the thing, the older you get,

they can struggle to keep up, just like the rest of us. This is where Timeline's Mitopure comes in. Just two Mitopure soft shells a day gives your mitochondria the tune-up they need to keep you running smoothly, no matter your age. So Mitopure targets your cells, energy centers, your mitochondria, and it helps them to work

like they did when you were younger. So none of us are getting any younger, you can't get younger, but that doesn't mean you can't feel younger. Backed by over 15 years of Swiss-made research, Mitopure is designed to renew and revitalize you from the inside out. And studies show results in as little as 60 days of taking Mitopure every day so that you won't have to wait very long to feel the difference.

I'm currently on around day 40 of taking Mitopure, so I'm excited to experience the results as I keep taking it every single day. Timeline is offering 10% off your first order of might appear. Just go to timeline.com forward slash theology. Okay, that's timeline.com forward slash theology to take advantage of 10% off your first order. When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof like Allo or Allbirds, sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand, and great marketing. But an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business, making selling and for shoppers, buying, simple.

For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Nobody does online business better than Shopify. It's home of ShopPay, the number one checkout in the world. You can use it to boost conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going through to checkout. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash income, all lowercase go to Shopify.com slash income to upgrade your selling today. That's Shopify.com slash income.

Volunteer opportunities. I mean, you mentioned like surgeons can wide open opportunities to serve for a couple of weeks, couple of months, 30 years, whatever. For those who are listening, who aren't surgeons are like, man, this sounds like a great experience. Talk to us about the volunteer opportunities. I assume, you know, you raise your own funds. Are there, is there always openings for people to jump in and help out? Or is it? Yeah. You know, a great way to find out what our openings are is to go to mercy ships.org slash serve. And there's a whole list of opportunities there, but we always need like housekeepers and cooks. A lot of them come just for a three month rotation. Um, we always, you know, are in need of nurses, especially we need a lot of nurses to come and care for

these patients. So yeah, anytime that people, you know, have any questions or ideas, if they get on our website, mercy ships.org, they'll be able to find out a ton of information about the opportunities to serve. Okay. So there does have to be an opening. It's not like if anybody wants to serve that they necessarily can serve and however they want to. Yeah. So what often happens is people will inquire and apply and will say, oh my gosh, you are a specialty nurse in this area. We have these openings for just an adult nurse where you might say like, I'm a pediatric nurse. Well, would you be willing to try something

new? We can use you in four months from now, you know, or we can use you next year. So, you know, we kind of try to plug people in where there's openings and sometimes we have something where people we kind of keep them on our waitlist, if you will. It's like, Oh yeah, this person, we really need an ophthalmolic surgeon. And, you know, we have one on board right now, both of our ships, so we don't need it right now, but we're going to need one in eight months. Can we call you back type thing? Okay. What's the length of time commitment? Is it for, for non-surgeons? Is it, is it the same thing? You can come for a short amount of time, long amount of time, or it ranges depending on what you're doing. So for example, as a

family, we made a two year commitment to go. That's what they required of chaplains. A lot of teachers, we require a two yearyear commitment. A receptionist, three months. A cook, housekeeper, three months. So it kind of depends on what role you're taking on. It also depends on our need. So we might be in desperate need of a teacher, and we'll say, you don't have to make a two-year commitment. We just need someone to finish this school year because we had someone leave on maternity

leave or, you know, a family emergency, whatever. And we have an urgent need right now, could you come for six months? So it's kind of a little bit of a fluid process. However, there are some general guidelines. People aren't just showing up for a week because they want to visit. Right. I would imagine there'd be a priority on relationship building as well. That would obviously takes time. So if everybody's coming for two weeks, you probably wouldn't have

the kind of bond that I'm sure you- Well, you'd be surprised. I feel like ship years are like dog years. And so it's so intense because you're like, you're living together, you're eating together, you're working together, you're playing. It's like college, you're together all the time. And so if you're there only two weeks, it can feel like you've been there for two months. Oh, wow. Interesting. It's kind of special.

You really build relationships quickly. How much money do people... I assume people have to raise money to do this or... Yeah. ...if so, how much? Right. So traditionally, we are a volunteer-based organization, and so our crew do raise their funds to go. Right now, we're in an interesting season where our crew fees are waived until

the end of 2025. So that's not normal, but that's something that we have right now. Mercy Ships also is assisting with some airfare for certain roles, but our crew have to raise their support for their vaccinations that are required to go, maybe medical insurance and travel. So there are other things that our crew do raise their support, and that varies. You create your own budget for the things that you have to pay for, and then people do find some donors and support to help them with those financial needs. But wait, I just saw are they are people like crew they don't have to or do they have to

raise for like room and board? Like are they paying monthly to stay there and to eat and everything? Or is that all kind of included? So the room and board is what we call our crew fees. And currently, those are suspended. So when my family served, you know, we got off the ship about four years ago, we did have to pay for crew fees. But just for this year right now, into the end of 2025, our crew fees are suspended. So for this window of time, for the special offer of $9.95, you know, you don't have to pay crew fees right now, but

that's not something that is an ongoing thing. It's just a temporary measure in place. When you do have to pay them, how much is it? I'm just trying to get a ballpark, like 500 bucks a month, a thousand or- Sure. It ranges. No, I mean, again, that's something that our financial department works with on an individual basis. It depends on what country you're coming from. There's different things according to what your budget is. I want to say for someone in the US, it's roughly 400 a month. It's going to be way cheaper than what you're paying for your rent wherever you live and

all your utilities and stuff like that. Like I said, that's not a hard and fast number. That's something our finance team deals with. That's nothing. I thought you were you could say like two grand or something. And that includes your room and board, like you're all your, unless you go into the city and want to eat out or something. Right, right. Of course. Yeah.

The people that come, I mean, so is Mercy Ships reaching only coastal cities or do people come in from deeper parts of the inland country that you're talking about? Yeah. We have some amazing stories. These people in these developing nations, with little to no access to medical care, in a lot of ways, they're just desperate. I mean, some of them are in situations where they've kind of just given up and they're resolved to live with their condition. And sadly, a lot of them are outcasts in their communities and they've been shunned, you know, by a gross lack of education, someone with a huge tumor, their community will say that you're cursed, or they're afraid that

they're contagious and I don't want that tumor. So they're complete outcasts. And, you know, some of them have family members that stick with them and they're just desperate to do anything to help them. And when they hear that a ship is coming, they will start to try to travel hundreds of miles to get there. And it's really remarkable. Some of the stories are absolutely unbelievable of what these people will go through to find hope and healing for, you know, for their loved ones. And so, you know, the majority of the world lives close to the coast. I think it's something like, you know, over 50% of the world's population is by a coastline. But there definitely are a lot of people inland from these countries that we're in that will travel. There are people that will travel

from other countries to get to the ship when it's possible for them. So yeah. What country were you at? Were you at Ghana, you said? No, we were in Senegal, in Dakar, Senegal. Senegal. Yeah. Okay. And you spent nine months there? Or no, two years. You spent two years. Well, we were supposed to spend two years there, but we got on board in July of 2019. And we all know what happened in March of 2020. So, yeah, we kind of were the victims of, you know, the COVID cruise,

and it was really hard. We had, you know, like I said, we gave up everything to go. And we have no regrets in doing that and felt really confident in what God was calling our family specifically to do. But had we known it was only going to be 10 months before, you know, the whole thing was over, I don't know. I don't know if we would have done something differently. But yeah, so we were only on board for 10 months. And then Mercy Ships, we didn't shut down helping people because as I mentioned, we build so many partners in country. And so during COVID, even though our hospitals were not up and running in our ships, we build so many partners in country. And so during COVID, even though our hospitals were not up and running in our ships, we still were, we had doctors on the ground in a lot of

different countries helping out other organizations that have brick and mortar and then continuing to try to provide supplies and different assistance with the partners that we have. How did you, how old were your kids and how did they do? Yeah. So my son was 10 when we got on board and my twin daughters and they were 13 when we got on board and they all had their birthdays, you know, that bumped them up respectively. But all of us, our lives were forever changed because of our time on board. I mean, I can honestly tell you there is not like two or three days that goes by when we don't talk about the ship.

And you would think, well, it was only 10 months of your life, you know, but no, 10 months, like I said, ship years, and especially during a global pandemic, we were really there about seven or eight years is what it felt like, you know? And my kids were radically impacted. You know, I just dropped my twin daughters off at university and as freshmen. And one of my daughters is going to nursing school at Samford in Alabama, because all she wants to do is become a nurse and get back on board and serve. I mean, at 13 years old, God called her into the medical field. Her life was totally changed by our time on board.

And it was extraordinary. I mean, what a wild adventure for kids. My son, he was like, I never knew where the kid was, literally. I mean, we would not know where he was. You're so safe on board and it's like a huge family. And the kid was like exploring the engine room. He's like in the bridge with the captain. You know, they're fishing off the ship with some other older kids, you know, playing soccer on the dock. It just, it's an incredible education for children, you know, not to mention the literal education they get in the classroom with teachers from all over the world, but their field trips and things that they got to do.

It was just unbelievable. So I would imagine just an amazing cross-cultural experience, both on the ship and at whatever city you're at in, in Senegal. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So after the pandemic, so you came, they, they had to tell everybody to like go back home. Is that, or did they strip down the crew significantly during COVID or? Yeah, we did. So yeah, so what ended up happening for us was, you know, during that time that COVID was kind of rocking the world. Luckily, there was hardly any COVID in Dakar, in Senegal, where we were. And there was none on the ship at the time initially. And so we really quickly wrapped up our service and tried to get out as soon as we could because had any COVID come on board one of our vessels,

we would have had to locally admit it in a hospital. We didn't have those resources on board. We didn't have ventilators. We weren't equipped for infectious disease, right? We're surgery. And so we wanted to get out as soon as we could so that we wouldn't cause any more damage should anything happen. So that was pretty traumatic and really difficult. I mean, we had patients in the hospital, we had people that we had to discharge, we had to make arrangements to make sure that they had follow-up care in country because we had to leave really quickly. So that was hard. And in that time, a ton of our crew were faced with this decision of, oh my gosh, I want to go back to my home country and take

care of my own people. So there were a lot of people that left naturally. There were a lot of people that stayed to continue to care for our crew, to continue to care for our patients as well, until we could discharge them. It was kind of a mess, to be honest. It was really difficult, but we also had to pare down to a small crew so that we could sail. And we were granted safe passage to Tenerife and the Canary Islands where we were at a very remote port and isolated there for quite some time. Oh, you sea spent, how long were you in Tenerife for?

Well, our family was there. We, so we pulled out of Dakar, I want to say like March 26th or something like that. And we, as a family, we were there until the end of May. So about two months, a little over two months, we remained on board and then we did fly back to the United States. But there was a lot of crew that remained isolated on board and then we did fly back to the United States. But there was a

lot of crew that remained isolated on board for over a year. It was a long time. Yeah. Oh, and couldn't get off the ship for a year. Well, no, no, no. So when we were on board, we couldn't get off the ship for over 65 days or something like that. We weren't allowed off, even though we were the only ship there. or something like that. We weren't allowed off, even though we were the only ship there, but the country of Spain was like, no, no, no. So we, then they finally let us come off in like groups of five and just to walk on the dock is all we wanted. I mean, there was no town, there was nowhere to go, but we just wanted to get off the ship. And then eventually that opened up a little bit more and more, but it was, it was very, very interesting. Tenerife. I've always wanted to go there too.

So you didn't get to explore Tenerife. Well, we did. I mean, because we started in Tenerife. So our family, we got on board the ship in the Canary Islands and Gran Canaria. And then we were there for a week or so. Then we sailed to Tenerife and we were there for a couple of weeks and then we sailed down to Senegal. So yeah, we did get to explore the Canary islands and it's, it's beautiful. You should go. It's pretty awesome. Yeah. So here when I w I w I lived in, when I lived in Scotland, um, a lot of people would, there was always cheap flights from like Aberdeen down to Tenerife and saw the Scots when they

get sick of the weather, which is, you know, pretty bad about 11 and a half months of the year, they would always go down to Tenerife. What are some of the, I guess I'm going to ask a twofold question. Number one, the main things you and your family, that God taught you and your family during your time. And then the second part is what are some of the biggest challenges that maybe were really difficult for you and your family? We learned so much and we were so significantly impacted by our time on board. I think one thing that we learned very quickly is how little we could live with, how much we could live without, maybe is a better way of saying it. I mean, all five of us were living in

500 square feet in our tiny little cabin. And it was awesome. And we didn't have anything. And people would come into our cabin and they'd be like, oh my gosh, you guys want to, you know, when you're in the Canary Islands, a lot of families or people will go into town and go to, there's an Ikea in Tenerife. And so they'll buy stuff for their cabin, you know? And we're like, no, no, no, we just got rid of everything we own. I don't want to start amassing more stuff.

So just the simplicity of the lifestyle for a family was awesome. I wasn't running from ballet to soccer to baseball practice to, you know, a hundred different things. Your whole life is right here, right now. And it was so beautiful. We got to have lunch with our kids every day. Our kids have an hour off for lunch at the school. It's kind of like a European model a little bit. And my husband was like, I've never had lunch with my kids every day because he worked in downtown Los Angeles, you know, and there's so many special things. I think what impacted me personally the most was the people in Senegal. And what I've been told is it's not uncommon for West Africa or really Africa in general,

but they have this phrase. It's kind of hard to translate because it's not so much words as it is a concept. But basically in Wolof in Senegal, it's Noko Bok, which means we are together. And I got to experience that in such a beautiful way when we were there. I mean, in America, frankly, we're kind of an individualistic society. It's what's best for me. What can I get out of this? What about me? But in Senegal, it was so much more about what is best for everyone. The whole is so much more important than the part. And as I mentioned, you know, when COVID came on board, I mean, I'm sorry, when COVID hit the world, and we had to shut

down, all of a sudden, we had world, and we had to shut down, all of a sudden, we had so much work that had to be done in a very small amount of time. I mean, it takes us over a month to set up the hospital and the tents on the dock and all that kind of stuff. And now we have like two weeks to tear it all down. We knew we couldn't accomplish that without our local day crew workers that come on board as our translators and as our, you know, helpers in so many ways. And so we asked them, over 250 of them, we asked them, would you be willing to isolate with us? In other words, you can't go back home to your family.

We'll set up camp for you on the dock. Will you stay with us and help us until we leave? And they all said yes. And I just couldn't believe it. I would think pandemic, I need to go take care of my family. I'm sorry. I love you guys, but I got to go, you know, but no, they stayed. And there was this one man in particular named Mambala. He was like in his 20s, I'd say. And he worked in the little guard shack, if you will, that was right at our dock. So when we were going in and out of the port and in and out of our dock, into the port,

sorry, kind of confusing here, he was like security, he would kind of sit there. And what was funny was the kids, and especially my daughters in the academy, they had chores every day that they had to do. Like they had to empty the trash from the school or they had to vacuum the school at the end of the school day. And so when they would take the trash out, the dumpsters were located outside of

our dock into the port. So Mambala was sitting there. So they would meet Mambala. They would chat with Mambala when they take the trash out. One night we were going out to dinner and we walked by Mambala and say, Hi Mambala. And he was chatting with my daughters and I thought, hmm, what's this about? And the girl said, no, no, we talked to dinner and we walk by Mambala and say, Hi, Mambala, you know, and he was chatting with my daughters and I thought, hmm, what's this about? You know, and the girl said, No, no, we talked to him when we take the trash out each day. I was like, Oh, that's cool. So COVID is happening. They say that they'll isolate with us and some of our crew were flying home and we were down on the dock to say goodbye. Whenever anyone leaves a mercy ship, there's a big production to say goodbye. Like a lot of the crew come down and send you off because you've become close so quickly,

right? So we're down on the dock saying goodbye to some of our crew. And I see Mambala and I walk over to him and I said, I just want to say thank you for staying with us. And he looked at me and he said, of course, mom, you're my family, we are together. And I just stood there and cried. I was so impacted by the selflessness and the concern for everyone else more than themselves. And that was something that I think impacted me a lot. And I wish so badly I was raised in a society where that was the norm. And that's what was ingrained in you from the time of birth, you know, rather

than, Hey, you look out for number one, you know, which was the society I grew up in, but just the, yeah, the selflessness of the people was, was amazing. Is that hard coming back home to a very individualistic, materialistic society? What was that reentry? I mean, it wasn't that, I mean, it's the last few years, really. Has that been hard and challenging or? Yeah. You know, it was unique to reenter during COVID because everyone was isolated in the United States. And when we came back, I mean, when we flew from, I guess, Tenerife back to San Francisco,

we were like the only people on the plane. It was kind of amazing. The airports were completely empty. But when we got back, and I had to get in line at Trader Joe's for an hour and a half to get food, people wouldn't even make eye contact with you. People were so paranoid and afraid. I literally said, I went up to pay for my groceries and the guy said, oh, you got to get back behind the yellow line. I was like, oh my gosh, I'm sorry, I'm

new here. I felt like such a foreigner in my own country. Because where I was, if there was a problem, people surrounded you. When our patients get on board, for example, a lot of them, as they've been like, maybe shunned or, you know, outcasts in their society, their healing actually begins before they even get in the operating theater when they come on board, because all of a sudden, they're faced with nurses and doctors that touch them, that hold their hand that look them in the eye. But when they get on board and they find other patients with their same conditions and they realize, even in my own culture, I'm not alone, those people form such a tight bond

and such a tight community. Like all the orthopedic kids or all the women in the women's health rotation, they all take care of each other when there is a need. And I kind of came back to a country where everyone was like, stay away from me, the women's health rotation, they all take care of each other when there is a need. And I kind of came back to a country where everyone was like, stay away from me, stay away from me because of COVID, you know? And so it was, it was very challenging. I think what was really hard for us as well was after a year and a half of waiting, hoping that we were

going to get to go back to the ship, we finally realized we don't know how long this pandemic is going to last, we need to settle down. So buying a house and buying back the death that we intentionally got rid of, that was really, really hard. It was really hard. When did you make that decision when you realized that the pandemic isn't slowing down and you need to settle down? Was that 2021 or when was that? Yeah, it was about 2022 when we finally bought a house and you know kind of re-established, started to re-establish and it was really difficult you know. We were grieving the community on board. We just loved you know that family that we had forged and really just grieving the lifestyle. We loved that life on board.

We loved the African people. We loved just their hospitality and their kindness and their generosity. The generosity is kind of mind blowing, you know, especially the people who have nothing, you know, I mean, in a lot of these countries, like especially in Dakar, there's a lot of wealthy people as well, But you get out into the remote villages and the poverty is astounding. But we would have patience. Their gratitude was palpable. I mean, it was unbelievable. I remember one time I walked into the office and there were bags, huge, almost like garbage bag size of peanuts and hibiscus flowers and a huge g gourd and you know stuff and I just thought what is this and they said this family came back and gave us all they

had to say thank you and I just thought oh my gosh you know how many times do I have such deep gratitude that I would give all that I have you know I think sometimes I'm even going to a birthday party and it's like oh gosh we only spent ten dollars on our gift. I'm so embarrassed. Everyone else is bringing these lavish gifts, but there's no embarrassment. They're just so grateful that they will just give

whatever they have to say thank you. And it just is testament to how their lives have been transformed. And they even think about it with us, our brokenness and our issues in our life. And when God comes in and heals us and transforms us and forgives us and makes us new, what kind of gratitude do we show Him? I mean, am I giving all that I have in gratitude for what God has done in my life?

It was convicting, you know? It was really convicting, but also inspiring to kind of say, yeah, God, I want to give my life away. You've given me so much. I want to give you all that I have. And if it means selling my house and getting on a ship and serving, then that's what I want to do. Cause I am so grateful for what you've done for me. Yeah.

Golly. Yeah. I've, I've, my family and I first it was incredibly hard coming back, right? Because he battled with like just cynicism and, and just, I don't know. Like you just look at the state of the church in the West and it's just like, ah, like where's the community? Where's the radical hospitality? And then he realized, okay, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I the church in the West and it's just like, ah, like where's the community? Where's the radical hospitality? And then you realize, okay, you know, I, you don't want to be overly judgmental. There's, there's people's Christians struggle with different things, different parts of the world and nobody's perfect and

whatever, but it's hard. It's really hard going back, especially if you're longing for that kind of just, you know, new Testament kind of Christianity, which yeah, in my experience, it's, it's, it's not that it doesn't exist in America, but it's, it's, it's hard to find hard to define. I mean, our individualistic cultures, you said is just so pervasive. I mean, I, it's not, I'm not insane. Like them out there. Like I feel it, dude. Like, you know, I, and like you, when I, when I have experienced like giving up of myself, simplicity, and I've had seasons where it's been like that. And I just feel so much more fulfilled, you know, that I just fall back into the kind

of materialistic consumer mindset and the rat race of loaded America. And it's like, it's just, it's hard. It's really, yeah. It's hard to completely live against whatever culture you're in. Yeah, for sure. And that's one thing we really got to experience on board. I always say it's kind of like the community is like the church at Axe. Everyone was giving to each other according to their needs.

And I'm talking about just the multicultural crew on board. There's that thing on board called the boutique. And because you're living in such small spaces, you don't have a lot of room for a lot of extra things. And so a lot of people, maybe they'll get a skirt made in the market, local market. But then when they're leaving the ship, they're like, oh, I'll just leave it in the boutique.

So people leave stuff all the time. And then when new crew come on board, they go to the boutique and they shop for free and they just take whatever they need, you know? And so everybody is like taken care of. But more than that, on board, it's like everyone, even though you're coming from all corners of the globe with different specialties and different expertise, everyone's coming with one common purpose.

And that is to bring hope and healing to the world's forgotten poor. It's to transform lives. And so there's no hierarchy on board. There's no competition. No one's getting a bigger paycheck than anybody else. You know, we're all volunteers. And so I might be sitting at dinner with my kids, with the captain, with the surgeon and a housekeeper, and we're all total family.

You know, I mean, it was just this incredible experience. Yeah. Like, you know, just this New Testament church vibe was so, so beautiful on board. What's there ever, I mean, you're living in close quarters with a lot of people. I would assume there had to have been some kind of interpersonal conflicts that broke out or did you experience any of that? I mean, no, it's tensions Can you imagine raising three kids on a ship I mean there were times I mean when you like have to discipline your kid in public

It's a little bit and and different cultures do it differently and so it's a little bit crazy You know or you get in an argument with your spouse. And so you think we'll take this into the cabin. Well, those walls are paper thin, you know, everybody can hear you, you know, whatever you're shouting about or whatever. So yeah, you know, there's definitely some heated moments. But you just deal with it and people give grace, you know, I mean, there's a lot of a lot of community meetings that we have and they'll be talks about, hey, how to have a crucial conversation with your roommate. Because even if

you're not a family, you come on board as a single person, you're going to have roommates, you know? And you might think, I'm 40 years old, and I got a roommate, you know, you might have four roommates, depending on how long you're coming for, you know, and different cultures. And there's, you've got to learn to live with each other for the time that you're there. There can be some sticky things, but nothing that's that you can't deal with and overcome, you know, Speaker 0.(1h 10m 29s): Were there any cross-cultural challenges? What I mean by that is you encountering yeah. People of other cultures and just, they do things differently, you know, and, and were there any kind of conf maybe possible conflicts or maybe learning experience experiences

where you learned about other, well, that culture, the big one for me is like clock time versus event time. You know, like, you know, Americans are very, very clock driven, you know, and most of the world, you know, other countries are not so much. And that could be frustrating if you're like an on-time person and like, Hey, the meeting is supposed to start at one. I'd be showing up at one 48, you know, it's like, yeah. So any, any kind of challenges cross-culturally that you experienced? Oh yeah. I mean, there's definitely, you know, different cultures express themselves differently. I don't think this is bad to say, cause we were told it and it was very true, but the Dutch are very direct and there's a lot of

Dutch people on board. You know, Americans can be a little bit more like, oh, how are you? It's nice to meet you. And the Dutch will be like, hello, you know. And you're like, ah, you know, she's kind of cold. And it's like, no, no, no, they're just direct, you know. And then you learn to like value that because you're like, we have a problem we need to solve.

Let's get the Dutch in here because they'll just go right to the problem, you know. Let's get the Swiss people in here. They're right on time. They're very precise. You learn to value the cultural differences. But yeah, there can be a little friction. There can be a little getting

used to different communication styles. Also, for most of the people, English is not their first language. Unless you're an American or British person or Australian on board or whatever, a lot of these other cultures, they're brilliant, and they speak multiple languages. And so sometimes things get lost in translation a little bit, but that's all stuff that we are

prepared for during our onboarding. We talk about, you know, what it's like to live in a multicultural community, and appreciating differences and all that kind of stuff. But it is a little different once you get there and experience it firsthand, but it's also what's really exciting. We just learned so many cool things. I think it depends on the temperament and personality of the person. You seem very optimistic and inquisitive, but other people, maybe if they're not so much, these cultural differences can be more annoying than like, Oh, this is a cool learning experience.

You know, that's usually not the kind of people though, that sign up to go on, you know, an adventure like this and being a multicultural community. It's not a surprise. No one's shocked when they get on board. Like what? Everyone's not American. It's like, no, you're, you're living in a developing nation. You're going to have different cultures. Yeah. You run a podcast, right? A Mercy Ship podcast now? Or was that something you did when you were there? Yeah. So no, once we came home and I continued to serve with Mercy Ships, I transitioned

into the marketing department and I did host and produce a podcast for them called New Mercies. And we produced about a hundred episodes where we interviewed a bunch of different crew from all different departments. We had captains and doctors and nurses, parents, and that kind of has been, has been put on the shelf for a little bit. So there's no new episodes coming out right now, but we have a catalog of about a hundred episodes that are pretty interesting. I mean, the people are phenomenal with the stories they share. Okay. One last question. And then I'll let you go. Can you just give a pitch for people listening that maybe their interests is peaked? Maybe like, gosh, I, maybe I want to consider

looking up for volunteer opportunities. What do you want to tell that, that person that maybe on the, on the fence or they're kind of intrigued. They want to hear a little more. They need maybe a nudge to fully consider this. You know, I, I would say one of the greatest things you can do is get on YouTube and search Mercy ships and just grab a box of Kleenex and watch a couple of the patient stories. They're beautifully produced. Some of them are only three or four minutes long, so it's not like a major commitment. But just to see the lives being transformed of our patients, I mean, that sells it all right there.

I mean, the patients that we got to meet on board and to watch them walk up the gangway, terrified and ashamed and inward, and then to watch their whole lives transform before our eyes, to watch them walk down the gangway so excited, you know, and so renewed was phenomenal. So I would say go watch some videos on YouTube, get on the website, mercyships.org, slash serve, but also just pray about it, you know? So a lot of times the enemy wants to tell us, Oh, you could never afford to do this. Oh, you don't want to raise support or you don't have time. You can, your job's not going to let you have the time off, but if God is calling you to do something, he's going to provide and make a way.

So I would say just pray and be obedient. Um, it is truly the adventure of a lifetime. Makes me want to go. So I, I, uh, visited and, um, experienced a similar hospital called cure international. And if you guys have heard of that, it's not on a, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Very similar where they perform these life changing. You do. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. One of their guys on my, one of their doctors on my podcast. Oh, really? Oh. Okay. Yeah. They're amazing. One of their guys on my, one of their doctors on my podcast. Oh really? Oh, awesome. To see the life transformation when you perform these surgeries, like in the city, you already said it all, but like the stigmatization that

surrounds these, these, um, ailments that people have, Oh my word. And to see that, see those being corrected and healed. And then the social impact that has on this person's life, especially children that are looked upon as being cursed, cursed by the gods or whatever. I mean, it's, it's incredible. So it's, it really is life-changing to witness that. So yeah, I encourage people to go check it out. So again, the link, I think I wrote it down. Mercy ships.org forward slash serve. I'll put it in the, is that it? And I'll put it in the show notes.

Thank you so much, Rayann for being on the podcast. Really enjoyed this conversation. And yeah, you bring a lot of inspiration. You get me, make me excited to be a Christian. So thank you for your spirit and yeah, blesses to you. Well, thanks for having me. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network. Greetings and God bless. This is Tyler Burns.

And this is Dr. Jamar Tisby. And we want to invite you to check out our podcast, Pass the Mic, Dynamic Voices for a Diverse Church. Pass the Mic has been speaking directly to the core concerns of black Christians for over a decade. On our show, we've got interviews from theologians, historians, actors, activists, and so much more. Not to mention heartfelt, open dialogue on some of the heaviest issues facing the church

in the United States. Be sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. We'll see you there on the next Pass the Mic. Be sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. We'll see you live out your faith every single day and together we will break down these walls by digging deeply into God's Word in a way that you can really understand it. If this sounds like the kind of journey you want to go on, please join us on the Hearing Jesus podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.