"The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective..." James 5:16

As I've been writing my blog, I've been hoping to keep everyone at home updated on what I have been doing here. However, in focusing on what I am doing, I have forgotten to include the things you all can lift up in prayer. I thought I would just write a quick blog to mention the things I personally need prayer for and what the ship as a whole needs.

First of all, I am leaving with a group of ten others to go to Ghana for the weekend. We are leaving at 4 a.m. Friday morning and will return on Monday evening. We have our cab drivers and overnight arrangements all made, but I would appreciate if you all would pray that everything goes smoothly. We are especially praying that we do NOT have a repeat of last week's adventure to Possotome. We will be visiting some of the most well known landmarks in Ghana, including a big waterfall. While the sites we are visiting do not require as much hiking as what some of the past groups have done, it will still be physically demanding. In the past couple weeks my knees have started bothering me while I run, so I am also praying that I am able to physically complete all of the hiking we need to do without any knee trouble.

Second, Mercy Ship's is sending the advance team to Togo on Monday so that they can begin to do all the preparations needed before the entire ship comes to port. They will be making the necessary connections, scoping out the area, working with the government for their help, arranging water and trash services for the ship, etc. They make all of the logistic arrangements so that when the ship arrives in Togo we just have to sail into the port and everything is ready. We are praying that everything goes smoothly and that they are able to make all of the arrangements without any trouble.

Finally, we began praying this morning in our devotions for the Togolese elections. The elections take place at the same time we are scheduled to arrive in Togo. The elections create the potential for lots of unrest within the country. We have been told that in the past, only those from Togo are in any danger and that we, as outsiders, should be fine. However we would still like to pray that there is as little fighting and danger as possible! If there are riots in the streets than the ship will go into lockdown, not allowing any crew off of the ship. If the danger is too great, then the ship will not go to Togo, but this is not expected to be the case. Although it is still over three months before we go to Togo, we are praying that the transitions will all go as smoothly as possible.