It takes hundreds of volunteers to power Mercy Ships’ mission to deliver safe and free surgeries via hospital ships. These amazing volunteers need to be equipped with professional skills in medicine, seafaring, accounting, cooking, and many other fields. They come...
Dr. Marijke Westerduin and Dr. Salematou Camara met face-to-face as dentists on board the world’s largest civilian hospital ship – but their first encounter took place years earlier through a screen. In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe, Dr....
As a member of the international community living and working on board the Global Mercy™, volunteer assistant bosun Ishaka Sesay is conscious that he has become an ambassador for his home country of Sierra Leone. “That is why… people never see me with a frowning face,...
Swedish mariner Tommie Kristensson has had a lifelong career at sea, starting when he was just 17 years old. “That’s basically what I’ve been doing my entire life. You may say it’s a very natural environment to work on a ship,” he shared. Yet despite his years of...
Ngordy Sow was working as a national interpreter with Mercy Ships in his home country of Senegal when he received his next assignment. He was asked to care for a new patient, a young boy named Mamadou, who was on board the Africa Mercy® to receive surgery for a...
It was an episode of 60 Minutes that changed the course of Martha Rodriguez’s life. As she watched the show from her Texas home in 2013, she was captivated. The episode was about a Mercy Ships hospital ship, and Martha immediately knew she wanted to be a part of it....