“Every once in a while, my grandpa – a schoolteacher – would get a pliers and yank out someone’s aching tooth,” says Dr. David Ugai, recounting his grandparents’ experience as missionaries in present day Zimbabwe. “The funny thing is, my grandma never got gifts for...
Embarking on a volunteer journey with Mercy Ships fulfilled a lifelong dream for Deddy, an operating theatre nurse from the Netherlands. “I always wanted to go to Africa since I was little. I had already told my parents, ‘I want to be a nurse,’” she said. Coming on...
A patient was brought into the operating theatre at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia. It was a child with a cleft palate. Dr. Chris Kapeshi, the senior maxillofacial surgeon in the country, stepped aside to allow his visitor, Mercy Ships volunteer...
“Togo is my country, but Mercy Ships is my home.” It was a conversation with her pastor, all the way back in 1995, that changed the trajectory of Clementine’s life. She was working at her church when she heard that a hospital ship would soon be arriving in her home...
Every morning, Francois Tounamou wakes up at 4:30am and spends more than two hours travelling to the Gamal Abdel Nasser University dental school in Guinea. He gets to the clinic early and leaves late, sometimes hours after class is scheduled to end. In his spare time,...
Imagine a child whose life has been spent in shadows and darkness because of a simple cataract. For most people in developed nations, a quick trip to the ophthalmologist would resolve this issue, but for those who have little to no access to quality health care, their...