Yeah! We are so excited to announce - and for some of you - announce again and again, that THIS SUNDAY the segment that 60 Minutes filmed at the ship in Togo last spring will finally air.
As a recap, during the time that Peter and I were in Togo with the Africa Mercy there was a passing parade of media types that descended upon the ship in the late April, early May time frame. Most notably there was the morning crew from my fav radio station - K-LOVE followed closely by a large crew of folks from 60 Minutes.
We had first heard that 60 Minutes was considering a story on the ship and the wonderful work done in Africa several months beforehand when the founder and President of the ministry, Don Stephens made a visit to the ship. What really impressed us was that as soon as soon as he mentioned that 60 Minutes was thinking of coming all the Americans on board were completely a twitter with excitement! No surprise you say? Well, what was surprising was the reaction of the non-Americans on board. Along with the American exuberance was an equally non- exuberant "meh" reaction from the rest of the ship's crew. So for the next several days we Americans attempted to explain the Sunday night ritual of many Americans that gather around the TV and watch Morley Safer et al ambush some ne'er do well CEO. then we'd have to explain why we were actually excited that this was going to happen to us. Yeah, um...no. They don't always expose the dirty under belly of organizations... So we're pretty certain that this will be a favorable piece on a ministry we love, doing God's work with the forgotten poor. Funny how cultural differences pop up when you least expect them.
Week after week we waited, wondering if they would come? We were sworn to secrecy until we knew for sure they were doing the story. During the weeks of blog writing where I had little to say it was tempting to spill the beans but we waited....
Then in late April the 60 Minutes folks sent producers and film crews for a couple of weeks to do background interviews, find interesting stories and preview patients that would be willing to be filmed during the actual shoot. After about a week or so of them crawling all over the ship and commandeering a part of the cafe with all their equipment the famous Scott Pelley showed up with his oh so handsome son. Both of them were very nice and we were extremely happy to get to meet them and share a little of our experiences on board. He was particularly happy to learn that we tape the evening news everyday and watch it without fail.
So - although the crew taped about 1200 minutes of stuff happening in and around the ship, the segment will only be about 12 minutes long so we don't expect to see ourselves except for possibly standing in line waiting to eat or something. But we are thrilled that you all will get a glimpse into the wonderful world of Mercy Ships and we pray that if the Spirit moves you to become involved with this awesome ministry that you will listen and respond.
We're certain that the Lord is still working on us in regards to Mercy Ships. In fact, Peter is at the International Operations Center right now getting training for future work with the organization. So - our prayer is that we'll see you on board some time in the future and if not. We know that you will be with us in Spirit as you always have been.
God's greatest blessings to all of you and enjoy the show!
