Dear Friends & Family – as organizations, churches, businesses and governments are sharing with us their plans related to COVID-19, I wish to share Mercy Ships.  As I am currently at the International Support Center, I was asked to co-lead a travel team to assist with flights for early departure of many crew from Senegal.  We worked tirelessly to find options and made bookings.  Though we did not expect the airport in Senegal to close so quickly.  Thus all the work for the bookings after the closure could be seen as a waste of time.  But I shared with my team, that is not the case – the crew were heard, we answered emails quickly, researched and found flights and even found others when the airline canceled a flight we booked.  I believe we as a mission and as individuals were and continue to live out core value #2 – loving and serving others. 
The statement from Mercy Ships 24 March 2020:

The evolving situation of COVID-19, highlighted by the WHO as a pandemic and the increasing travel restrictions applied by several countries, have made it impossible for Mercy Ships to continue to carry out its programs to the required standards, while protecting against the possible spread of the virus.

Therefore, in line with the measures taken by the President of Senegal and in consultation with the Ministry of Health, Mercy Ships has reviewed the activities associated with the Africa Mercy and made the decision to suspend the programmatic activities in Senegal.

The main concerns of Mercy Ships are the health of the Senegalese people and the safety and well-being of our own volunteers, crew and staff worldwide. Following the suspension of the programmatic activities, we are presently considering alternative ports for the Africa Mercy.

Annually the vessel undergoes routine maintenance and we currently are assessing how we can accelerate the commencement of that work. This would enable us to bring the Africa Mercy back to Africa once the immediate crises is over and continue our mission to bring Hope and Healing to the forgotten poor. Mercy Ships is also evaluating how the organization, given certain operational limitations, can be utilized to assist in the global COVID-19 response.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 Mercy Ships has focused on three main actions:

* Looking after the patients under our care, including development of plans for the completion of their treatments in partnership with local healthcare services in Senegal
* Caring for our crew members, our local volunteers in Dakar and our staff globally by following the infection control practices according to public health guidance from the CDC and WHO
* Adapting our longer term plans to fulfill our mission to provide surgical care and medical capacity training

For more than 40 years, Mercy Ships has focused on bringing hope and healing to those we serve. For the past 30 years, we have concentrated our efforts in Africa. During those three decades, we have worked to strengthen local healthcare systems. We are encouraged by the good results we have realized through direct surgical care for patients and by training local healthcare professionals. We are eager to do even more in the future.

As we face these challenging events, we would like to thank you for your ongoing prayers and support to Mercy Ships and our mission to bring hope and healing to the world’s forgotten poor.

Prayer Requests:

* our dear patients who we had to cancel surgery due to leaving early – those patients we had on board not ready to be discharged were transfered to hospitals in the Dakar area to continue to receive care

*  countries and people impacted by COVID 19 – coronavirus – that all those involved can work together solve this for all those infected and countries impacted. 

* wisdom and guidance for our leaders.