"Basic Firefighting", etc.

C.S. Lewis wrote something along the lines of, "It's amazing what a person can do when he has to." I have it underlined in a volume of his work sitting on my shelf back in Minnesota, so excuse the paraphrase. 

I arrived at the ISC (International Support Center) on a Sunday evening. A kind woman named Kathy (I asked if it was short for anything, and she laughed and said that's her full, legal name) showed me around the dorm and then gave me a warm hug. As I went to bed that night, I perused a "Welcome" guide to the ISC that was left on my pillow, next to a bag of peanut butter cookies. The booklet was filled with helpful information, and several particularly memorable lines, including, "The ugly, hairy spiders outside [are either a wolf spider, known as a jumping spider, or a tarantula, both of which]* are harmless." **

*The words inside the brackets were likely written by someone who, in their childhood, took sadistic pleasure in tormenting their kid sister.

**I have not seen anything like this in the two weeks I've been here. Knock on wood.

Our first week here consisted of Basic Safety Training, which, unfortunately, doesn't make for the most original blog fodder. I knew this because you can find similar posts from past participants with almost identical photos right here, here, and here, to name a few. But now I see that there's nothing quite like experiencing it first hand, and it leaves quite an impression on most anyone who has gone through it. Also, it was just plain fun, so how could I skip it??

Day two was slotted for practical exercises in firefighting. We started early, with the idea of finishing before the Texas heat got too severe. Our instructor, Captain Jon (so called because he has captained the Africa Mercy and several of its predecessors) lead us in a prayer for safety and agreeable weather.

As I stood out in the "fire field" with the other trainees, I took a moment to appreciate the strength and courage of the people I was learning with.

Pete and Georgia (obviously)

Georgia (who will be one of the writers on board the Africa Mercy) and her husband Pete (who will be a vehicle mechanic) found out that they were accepted just over one month prior to the start of training. That's one month to arrange for passports and visas, pack up everything they owned, get vaccinated, put their house on the market, run a 10k, send out support letters (that Georgia made time to write by hand), and attend a dear friend's wedding the day before boarding a plane to the United States. Also in the group were multiple parents who had chosen to move with their family to the ship to volunteer for at least the next year. Although many of them have previous experience in missions, I can't even begin to imagine everything that would go into a transition like that. Now that's courage.

And that's aside from the fact that at that very moment, barely twenty-four hours after meeting each other for the first time, we were all suiting up to tromp two-by-two into a 600-degree shipping container to put out a REAL FIRE with a REAL FIRE HOSE and the sheer power of teamwork. I couldn't make this up if I tried. We were laughing--laughing-- about the infernal heat inside our bunker gear, and the way our oxygen masks fogged up uncomfortably when we breathed (heaven forbid!). The flames stood no chance against our herculean positivity. Truth be told, I was not laughing quite as hard when the heavy head gear began to press my braids into the back of my head towards the end of the morning, which gave me a headache. After a few hours, we had enjoyed our new and exciting experience, but it's safe to say we were all very, very, ready to dump our bunker gear and cool off. Our wish was granted faster than we expected.

Enjoying the light rain after finishing our last drills

My partner (who will be a photographer on board) and I were the last in line for the final firefighting exercise. And I kid you not, as we came out of the container and doffed our helmet and heavy jackets, as though right on cue, the sky opened up and it began to rain. As we watched the water droplets turn to steam as they hit the top of the shipping container that had not yet cooled, we could just as easily imagine steam rising off of our own arms and shoulders--a collective tssssssssss.... Let me tell you, it felt glorious. We opened our arms, turned our faces to the sky, and grinned like fools at nature's uncanny timing. Captain Jon remembered out loud how the group had prayed that morning for cooperative weather. Sure enough, the sky had remained largely overcast the whole morning, culminating in this perfect finale.

By the end of the week, we were pulling on ultra-buoyant immersion suits (pron. "ultra-claustrophobic Gumby costumes") and playing shipwreck together, but that's a story for another day.

Trying on our immersion suits (a.k.a. Fanciest. Pajamas. Ever.)
for some emergency drills in the water.

A few of the On-Boarding participants have gone on morning runs this week. We smile when our trail takes us past the fire field, because was that really us dragging a hose around as we shed half our body mass in sweat, and was that really only two weeks ago? It feels like a lot longer, and it's hard to believe we had only just met.

In other news, the Africa Mercy has made it to Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands, where we will be flying to board the ship in about a month. She (meaning the ship) is currently in drydock, which looks something like this:

Wet to dry in 30 seconds flat #timelapse #drydock

A post shared by joshcallow (@joshcallow) on Jun 22, 2017 at 2:42pm PDT

Then she'll go back in the water before we get there.

For anyone that's interested, this is a sermon I first heard several years back, which has influenced the way I process big transitions. I've also added a list on the right sidebar (subject to growth) of blogs authored by other Mercy Ships volunteers that I have had the pleasure of meeting. If you know someone who might be a good fit for Mercy Ships, it could be a good starting place for them to find a volunteer to identify with. :) But if nothing else, it's a cool illustration of how people with widely varying gifts and skills come together to form this organization.

As a side note, I've noticed that my "subscribe" feature has been a bit spotty. Some of you may have noticed this too, and I apologize for that. If you are one who received an email notification, it would help if you could let me know, either in the comments or via email. If you didn't get an email for this post, and you were expecting one, check your spam folder for an email with "Douala Journals" in the title, because it might contain the link to finalize your subscription. I'm not sure exactly what's up, and if that feature continues to be spotty, I will look for another solution soon. Bear with me!