Josh Scott had heard about Mercy Ships long before he ever stepped on board.
His mother, Ruth, served aboard the Anastasis, Mercy Ships’ first vessel, as a teacher in the early 1980s. The friendships she formed became part of Josh’s childhood.
“They’ve all become my aunties and uncles back home,” he says. “My wider community really was just made up of so many people from Mercy Ships.”
Her stories of adventure, close friendships, and life in community filled his childhood.
“I heard so many stories growing up. I wanted to come myself.”
At first, it felt like a distant possibility. But over the years, childhood curiosity grew into something harder to ignore.
“It was almost inevitable that I would come at some point,” he says. “And here I am.”
A Dream That Stayed
When Josh was 12, that sense of direction took a more defined shape.
One night, he dreamed he was standing in the hull of a ship, wearing blue scrubs. At the time, it made little sense.
“I wanted to be a farmer,” he says.
The next morning, when he shared the dream with his family, his father revealed he had experienced the same dream: that Josh would one day serve on board the ship.
At the time, Josh was also living with childhood epilepsy. Stress-induced seizures often came at night, making sleep something he feared.
“It was really hard… going to sleep at night was something I really struggled with.”
But the dream gave him something to hold onto.
“It helped me because I could go to sleep and think of good things and things to look forward to.
Choosing a Different Path
As Josh grew older, the dream never disappeared. It simply became quieter.
Through high school, he wasn’t sure what direction to take. By his own admission, he wasn’t the strongest academic student, but one teacher believed in him enough to spend extra time helping him succeed.
With her encouragement, Josh discovered a love for science and went on to study nursing.
“I fell in love with it,” he says. “I just knew that nursing and that lifestyle was for me.”
He began working in emergency care in New Zealand before becoming a travel nurse in Australia. Along the way, the idea of Mercy Ships slipped into the background.
“I was kind of chasing money… wanting to buy a house and go up the career ladder.”
A Call He Couldn’t Ignore
While working in Australia, Josh visited a church in a remote part of the country. After the service, a stranger approached him.
“She said, ‘You can discard it if it doesn’t mean anything to you, but I’ve just got this word… and the word is mercy.'”
“I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.'”
A short time later, in a completely different city, it happened again.
“Someone came up to me and said, ‘I feel like God’s called you to missions in Africa.'”
Two separate encounters. Two people who didn’t know him. Both pointed back to something he had been trying to move on from.
“That’s when it clicked,” he says. “It just really felt like the time was right.”
He applied soon after and, within weeks, was asked if he could begin in eight weeks’ time.
“I said yes.”
Stepping Into the Story
Forty years after his mother’s service aboard the Anastasis, Josh stepped onto the deck of the Global Mercy™ to begin a journey of his own. The journey from New Zealand to Sierra Leone took three days. As the ship came into view for the first time, the weight of the moment hit him.
“You see the ship, and it’s like a real thing,” he says. “You hear the stories your whole life, and now it’s there in front of you.”
Stepping on board, he felt overwhelmed. But it was on his very first shift that everything fell into place.
As the team gathered for handover, the charge nurse began with prayer.
“All my nerves gone,” Josh says. “I just felt so much peace in my heart knowing that this is exactly where I was meant to be.”
Josh originally planned to stay for three months.
“I wanted to dip my feet in before I really jumped in.”
But after just one week, he knew he wanted to stay longer.
Working as a ward nurse was unlike anything he had experienced in emergency care.
“I’d never looked after a patient for more than six hours,” he says. “So, the idea of looking after someone for days… I was quite nervous.”
Instead, those longer relationships became one of the most meaningful parts of his work.
“You really get to journey with them,” he says. “That relationship that you build with patients is so special.”
Each day, patients and crew gather to play games together, something Josh never had time for while working in emergency care.
He has also witnessed the lasting impact of surgery.
“People who couldn’t go to school beforehand… now they can,” he says. “That one surgery can change their whole life.”
But somewhere along the way, Josh realized the experience wasn’t only changing his patients.
“People say you’ll leave more changed than the patients you touch,” he says. “That’s so true.”
“More than me serving them, I think they give me so much more.”
Within days, Josh made another decision.
“I just want to give my yes now and just jump right in.”
The three-month commitment became two years. Today, Josh serves as Preoperative Manager aboard the Global Mercy.
Looking back, he still marvels that the dream he had as a 12-year-old has become his everyday reality.
“The dream of being in the hull of a ship in blue scrubs is literally what I do every day now,” he says. “It’s crazy seeing the fulfillment of that dream.”
Your skills could help bring hope and healing to people who lack access to safe surgical care. Learn more about volunteering at www.mercyships.org/volunteer.
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