Bound for Africa
It’s hard to even begin to summarise such a wonderful adventure, to get words neatly down on a page and start processing the last three months. I can easily recall where it all began...on a gruelling 12 hour bus ride from the capital of Madagascar to the coast, where the Africa Mercy was anchored. I felt relief more than anything else. I am finally back in Africa! My heart has longed to be here, to serve God on this beautiful continent once again. There was a sweet peace to being in the centre of His will as we bumped along the winding roads for hours. I had planned to serve on the Mercy Ships since I was last in Africa, on a YWAM school in 2009, so our arrival was the fulfilment of a dream. And this time I was in Africa with my best friend, Ben Woollard, sat right next to me! There is so much glory on my adventure buddy; I felt a tingling anticipation of what was to come for us. The big white ship eventually rolled into view and I tiredly and happily dragged my big bag up the gangway into its waiting arms.

When I was little, my father would tell me countless Ananse stories. These were Ghanaian tales about a cunning spider called Ananse, who was full of greed and selfish ambition and who would seek out any opportunity to gain knowledge, wealth or food for himself at the expense of others in his village. However, every story would end with his failure and demise, because the moral of the story would be that ultimately, selfish ambition does not succeed no matter how cunning the plan. I wish this were true of our world, I wish we actually believed prosperity comes with greater solidarity and community social action, I wish  we weren’t taught that in the real world, those that get ahead have to leave others behind and make sure they stay behind. I learnt something about this during my time in Madagascar.