This week has been a big one for us ~ getting ready to sail and then... Thursday the President of Ghana and the Minister of Health made a visit to our ship! With two days notice and no idea of how many entourage we would have to entertain, we all scurried around the ship scrubing, cooking, and looking up old patient files to get some of our old patients to come back to show our work up close & personal :) The morning of, us nurses were buffing the ward floor when the secret service showed up early and we rapidly took to sliding around like Pipi longstocking on towels to dry the floor! 11am sharp turned into 4pm ish as he got stuck in a meeting. We all warmly greeted and waved to him from up on the Promenade deck as he arrived with 3 flashing, white motorcycles, blaring sirens, 4 black cars and a long line of others. Open car doors lead to a flood of military men in berets & long guns before seeing the President.
He stepped out at our gangway to meet our Captain & Executive Director who escorted him on a tour and into our International Lounge for a presentation of M.S. and press conference. I got real lucky and slipped into one of the last 3 seats! What was about to happen none of us could have ever anticipated..and would NEVER happen in the U.S: After, Dr. Gary- our max/fax surgeon of 20 years onboard, talked about what we do, what we are about & showed a slideshow of our projects, surgical patients and time in Ghana, the President got up and was left almost speechless.. He told us about how he had come not expecting to see much more than some medical people doing some good work to the unfortunate and to get some good press coverage, but instead he found an amazing spiritual climate on the ship that he was deeply touched by in a way he never expected. He opened up right there in front of everyone about how he was a "Sunday Christian", but seeing all the work completed through our time here at M.S. makes him desire to emulate Christ in his own life everyday. THEN...the Minister of Health, who is the one that hunted down the President to make sure he came here b/c he himself was left speechless with his and the Vice President's visit last week...stands up and gives a small sermon directly TO the President in front of the cameras about how he DOES have the power to do miracles in the lives of HIS people everyday through Christ in HIS heart :) I think we were all sitting there with our jaws dropped! I couldn't believe I was witnessing this, ha. We had been praying that he would see more than just our ship when he came!
Both men had a great sense of humor as well...joked that they were going to close the port so we couldn't leave and invited us to a Cocktail Thank You party in the city on Friday nigh! Got ready not knowing what on earth to expect, but soo excited for an excuse to put on a nice dress...(hurtin' for some heels, miss them!!) Walking down the gangway to get on the buses with our own flashing motorcade escort seemed like we were all going to the African Oscars~ somehow everyone managed to get all the dirt & grease layers off....we clean up nice! The Minister of Health was our M.C. for the night and even played a number on the drums for us, joined in on the dancing! He was determined that we eat, drink, and be merry! This man has really gained my respect, he was incredibly encouraging and supportive., even asked to be a crew memeber ;) He send us home with 200 boxes of plantain/yam chips his wife made through her own company. I felt a little bit better about leaving Ghana after meeting these men, Ghana seems to be in good good hands!
