Episode 9: In the beginning was Onboarding

ACT 1

Texas looms large. It borders both the states of Louisiana AND Colorado. Why, the Texas city of El Paso is closer to Denver than fellow Texas city Houston. The Dallas/Fort Worth airport is almost as wide as the panhandle of her cowering self-conscious neighbor, the state of Oklahoma, So when we heard the Mercy Ships International Support Center was “near” Dallas, we should have known better.

Nestled amongst the Loblolly and Slash pine trees of East Texas, the sprawling Mercy Ships campus sits on over 400 quiet acres. Nearing the end of the dormant winter, the crunching brown grass glows greenish when the light hits it just right.

The buildings, reminiscent of a bustling 1980’s church camp, sport names like Leeward Lodge, the Quarterdeck apartments, and Bosun’s Locker – conjuring more the images of Nimitz or Nelson than a dusty Texas Ranger.

Marci, Natasha (‘Tosh’ as I am now allowed to call her), and I were all met at the Dallas Airport by our Mercy Ships driver Karl. He drove the busy freeways for two hours and got us to the Oasis cafe in time for lunch. I will post about the food later, but if you are reading this in anticipation of a future stay – rest assured you will not go hungry nor be disappointed.

After lunch we were delivered (again by Karl) to our accommodations. It is so awesome to have your driver ask to pray for you as he brings your luggage inside. Tosh to a shared bunkhouse style lodge and Marci and I to a couples apartment. It was well appointed and spacious (with a fully stocked kitchen to boot). Nice touches like a welcome card and snack basket made us feel quite at home. We were lucky enough to have Johnny Murphy (the Onboarding Manager) as a tour guide to get us started in our first home away from home.

Day 1 of our training (we will be here 24 days) was a basic Coast Guard course on the governing laws and rules of shipping across the globe. It was taught by two long-time Mercy Ships officers who both hail from Brazil. With the inclusion of our South American instructors, the group also represented Africa (Sergine is from Congo), Europe (Alianne from the Netherlands and Simon from England), and North America with Natasha, Marci and I. A very Mercy Ships like mixed group.

The first day was tough, because it was technical, designed for people who spend their careers on ships and full of acronyms. Day 2 was called “crowd management” and was much more interesting and relevant. It was a wee bit disconcerting when Rodrigo recommended several ship’s disaster movies to watch as examples to his instruction. Ummm, does he know we are going to live on a ship? But he and Marco were really quite warm and want us to know how to handle ourselves and others should something bad ever happen!

We all passed our first tests and got to the quiet weekend unscathed. Some of the group made a run to Wal Mart for various items (transport provided by Mercy Ships) and we had a couple of nice walks on the large grounds. There is some wildlife here and Marci and I ran across a wild hog and her babies (she was big but as spooked by us as we were wary of her) and they fled the scene faster than a KC Chiefs fan at an Eagles SuperBowl party.