A Typical Week

What does our week look like?  Well, sort of like yours, I suppose.  Here's a run down of what we do during a "typical" week:

The girls go to school from 8:00 to 3:20 each day.  We do get to join them for lunch in the dining hall.  Most days we eat together as a family- some days they sit at a “two-top” with a friend for a lunch date.  They kiss us goodbye after lunch and skip off to the second half of school.  Sunday evenings they have Bible club (run by the middle-schoolers), Tuesdays they have hand bells, Wednesdays Savannah has piano lessons, Thursdays running club will start in two weeks, Fridays will be ballet, and all the other moments they are doing homework or finishing chores so they can play with their friends.

Typical play dates include: building forts (the steel walls and ceilings make for great forts since you can hold blankets up with magnets at whatever angle you’d like), playing babies, looking for fun pictures on the computer, swimming, riding pedal cars or playing on the jungle gym on deck 8. 

My day begins most mornings at 6:00 in order to beat the sun for a “cooler” run outside.  I pick up breakfast for the family in the dining room, wake up the girls, have devotions with them, and make sure everyone gets out the door.

Dan and I start work at 8:00, except on Mondays when we attend the weekly communication meeting from 7:45-8:15 where we say hello and goodbye to crew coming and going that week, ask any questions, find out news, and get on the same page for the week. 

Dan’s work includes coordinating the transportation of patients that need to arrive from upcountry or out of country, providing advice, support, and management to several departments (admissions, outpatients, palliative care, infant feeding program, screening team, and rehabilitation).  He is also helping to spearhead a quality assurance program within the hospital to track infection rates and identify and deal with problems in a timely manner. 

On top of this, he is the dive team leader and works hand in hand with the captain to make sure that the water flow into the vents isn’t jeopardized by trash or debris in the water.  He dives twice a week (thanks to their cage inventions, this is a much reduced schedule from earlier this spring) – usually on Mondays and Fridays.  Work finishes at 5:00 on most days, but he carries two pagers and leads the Emergency Medical Team so there’s always the chance of after-hours & weekend work.

“Do you work everywhere?” is the question I am asked the most.  No, not everywhere.  Four days a week I am helping with hospital administration- updating the daily roster of patients and care givers at the hope center, adding waitlisted patients to our appropriate lists, updating the database, helping in the pharmacy by counting pills or entering data.  The other day I spend as an assistant for the HR department.  I work on special projects as requested by the manager- sending our staff reviews that come due, follow up on missing paperwork, generate reports of how many nationalities are on board, calculating length of stay for crew members, etc.  This week I have also been filling in with the sales department as they have an injured crew member, so you could have also found me at the ship shop or in the snack bar ringing up your purchases, or restocking the shelves. 

Our evenings are just as full: One evening we host a small group in our cabin.  Two to three times a week I try to get over to Cheshire Home to visit with the kids or help them get ready and transport them to church. Wednesday nights we purpose to have FAMILY NIGHT and just spend with the four of us (five, now that cousin Emily is here!). Thursday evenings we have community meeting – an all-crew gathering with worship, prayer and teaching. 

In our off time, we try to visit the patients in the hope center, get to the beach, cheer on our soccer team, work on learning French via Rosetta Stone, socialize, clean, launder, exercise, correspond, and connect.