Friday, August 16, 2013

Dr. Peter Linz: Sailing unchartered waters to provide medical care

I guess we are long overdue an update on our involvement with Mercy Ships. Guest blogger Dana Perino from Fox News has forced me out of my inactivity as now she is blogging about my hubby!  Time for some catch up.

This past winter all the I's were dotted and the T's were crossed finalizing the appointment of my dear as Mercy Ships International Medical Director. Huzzah!  Soon thereafter he drove off to the hinterlands of East Texas to the International Operations Center for a month long training program called "Gateway". This program provides not only background information on the history and mission of Mercy Ships but also has some discipleship training as well as real bonding exercises for the participants who will soon be heading off to Africa together.

After his month in Texas he came home but had a few follow up meetings with big wigs in Texas and many, many conference calls at home between even more big wigs in Texas and other parts of the world, including the ship.

In June Peter headed off to the ship's dry dock home in the Canary Islands with a side trip to Lisbon, Portugal to make a few presentations for Mercy Ships at the International Rotary meeting there. The meeting was great, the escape from Lisbon - not so much.  Being stuck in the airport for days on end due to a general strike made Lisbon seem a bit less enticing for our intrepid traveller. After missing three connecting flights and having his luggage arrive about a week later, Peter was safely moved into his new cabin on the ship right next door to the room we occupied for five months in Togo.

After a few weeks on the ship, covering for the crew physician I made a guest appearance so that we didn't end up spending the entire summer apart. All I can say is "Wow!"  The Canary Islands are beautiful!  No wonder most of Europe heads there whenever they need to escape the long, dark winters or the calendar says "Hey, it's August!"  I stayed for an idyllic two weeks and even got to go on a mini cruise as the ship left their maintenance berthing in Grand Canary to hang out in Tenerife waiting for the rest of the crew to arrive prior to setting sail.

We rented a car and saw a fair amount of the island, ate some fabulous Spanish food and worked hard to stay awake as late as the night owl Spaniards. The wisdom of the siesta became immediately apparent.

I left the day before the ship set sail so I was able to reconnect with some very good friends I last said good bye to Togo over a year ago.

As the ship sailed Peter would secretly go out on deck and use the satellite to determine their location and plot it on a map. Since their location needed to stay secret due to the threat of pirates he couldn't share their location but now that they are safely in their berthing it's probably OK to show the map.  Or I would show the map along with all the other pictures I'd picked out to post with this entry but I can't seem to make any of them work via my iPad. New technology - new challenges. Since I'm running out of time and have an inordinate amount of things to accomplish this morning I'll just post this without the pictures. If I become more technologically savvy - or I fire up a PC I'll give it another attempt. Until then. Keep Peter in your prayers as they head into their big screening in the next few weeks as well as during his continued travels.  It is rumored that he plans to make a guest appearance in San Diego next month. It's possible.  Until them enjoy out guest blogger from the Fox network.


Dr. Peter Linz: Sailing unchartered waters to provide medical care