I am reblogging this from Alexander Bairrington's blog, From Balclutha to the Africa Mercy, so you can see there's a myriad of jobs available on the good ship!
It was a hot day down in the engineering storeroom. It's been that way
for a while because the compressor for the ductless air conditioning
system serving my office failed a couple weeks ago. A replacement is
being shipped from Europe. In the mean time, work in the stores
continues. John (my supervisor) and I have been working on receiving
the contents of the latest container shipped from Mercy Ships Holland.
Yesterday, we unloaded the pallet in the cargo hold on deck 3 and
brought the packages down to deck 2, where we began entering them into
the computer system, a process which we continued this morning.
Here's a picture of me with a pile of bearings on my desk. As you can
see, our shelves are pretty full. John, who has a background in
logistics, was telling me that it is desirable to keep a stock diverse
enough such that about 80% of requests can be granted on the spot
without having to order something. Much more than that, and you will
end up spending a lot on purchasing/shipping/storing materials that
rarely get used. Much less than that, and you will end up slowing down
work around the ship.
We tend to lean to the heavier side of that equation here on the Africa Mercy. That means when it was time to unload this month's container into the dozen or so storerooms throughout the ship, I had a hard time finding room for stuff. Most of the supplies on this container were for specific jobs- genuine spare parts for the engines, the generators, the incinerator, even a PLC for monitoring the batteries in the lifeboats (I volunteered to take a crack at programming it). It wasn't easy finding homes for all these parts, but we managed. It's all really important stuff, either for maintenance here or for more extensive repairs when we go to dry dock in Durbin this summer.
But then there was one box that really threw me off. Actually it was a couple of boxes. Upon opening them, I found them to contain nothing but...zip ties. Thousands of zip ties. All sizes. Soon they were all over the room as I was trying to sort them and figure out where to put them. There were more zip ties than we could use in a month of Sundays. Why did we have to order so many? I tried to put them on their shelf, but they just became a pile, and then proceeded to spill themselves onto the deck. I was frustrated. We're already short on storage space, and now we're using it up on all these extra zip ties.
When John returned from his meeting, he explained that, normally, when we enter a country, we have to set up tents for our patients to rest in after surgery (after they are well enough to leave the wards on-board). These tents require a lot of zip ties. In Madagascar, though, we've been blessed with more permanent structures in the city of Toamasina/Tamatave. That explained things, but I was still frustrated with our lack of storage space.
I decided to bring the situation to God. I needed help to fix my attitude. As I was praying about this, I was reminded of a couple sections of the Bible that tie in. The first one was Psalm 23. David, ancient Israel's second king, was praising God for filling his life with blessing, or making his cup "runneth over". My shelves certainly runneth over. Maybe this wasn't such a bad problem to have. We have plenty of stock, thanks to many generous people who have been moved by God to donate their time, their money, and sometimes their product. God has definitely supplied our ship abundantly. The second section I though of was 1 Kings 17, where God miraculously provided flour and oil to sustain a widow and her son, even though they had barely enough for one meal at first. I think in the same way, God is able to provide enough storage space, even though I feel like we have very little. As I use what space I have faithfully, God is able to ensure I don't run out.
With these thoughts in mind, I resumed my duties. Bring on the next container!
We tend to lean to the heavier side of that equation here on the Africa Mercy. That means when it was time to unload this month's container into the dozen or so storerooms throughout the ship, I had a hard time finding room for stuff. Most of the supplies on this container were for specific jobs- genuine spare parts for the engines, the generators, the incinerator, even a PLC for monitoring the batteries in the lifeboats (I volunteered to take a crack at programming it). It wasn't easy finding homes for all these parts, but we managed. It's all really important stuff, either for maintenance here or for more extensive repairs when we go to dry dock in Durbin this summer.
But then there was one box that really threw me off. Actually it was a couple of boxes. Upon opening them, I found them to contain nothing but...zip ties. Thousands of zip ties. All sizes. Soon they were all over the room as I was trying to sort them and figure out where to put them. There were more zip ties than we could use in a month of Sundays. Why did we have to order so many? I tried to put them on their shelf, but they just became a pile, and then proceeded to spill themselves onto the deck. I was frustrated. We're already short on storage space, and now we're using it up on all these extra zip ties.
When John returned from his meeting, he explained that, normally, when we enter a country, we have to set up tents for our patients to rest in after surgery (after they are well enough to leave the wards on-board). These tents require a lot of zip ties. In Madagascar, though, we've been blessed with more permanent structures in the city of Toamasina/Tamatave. That explained things, but I was still frustrated with our lack of storage space.
I decided to bring the situation to God. I needed help to fix my attitude. As I was praying about this, I was reminded of a couple sections of the Bible that tie in. The first one was Psalm 23. David, ancient Israel's second king, was praising God for filling his life with blessing, or making his cup "runneth over". My shelves certainly runneth over. Maybe this wasn't such a bad problem to have. We have plenty of stock, thanks to many generous people who have been moved by God to donate their time, their money, and sometimes their product. God has definitely supplied our ship abundantly. The second section I though of was 1 Kings 17, where God miraculously provided flour and oil to sustain a widow and her son, even though they had barely enough for one meal at first. I think in the same way, God is able to provide enough storage space, even though I feel like we have very little. As I use what space I have faithfully, God is able to ensure I don't run out.
With these thoughts in mind, I resumed my duties. Bring on the next container!
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