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Dear Paula,
I'm a piping petrochemical engineer in Houston who's used to going where I want and doing what I please; yet I feel that the Lord is speaking to me about working with the Anastasis. I know that major culture shock is coming down the pipes. Can you give me any tips?
—Dorothy Logans

Dear Dorothy,
You're the first piping petrochemical engineer I've ever corresponded with. The most important thing is to be convinced that the Lord is directing you here. If you're sure he is, that's all that really matters, for his directing is always an excellent thing. So pray, Dorothy, take a deep breath, and dare to believe.
—Paula Kirby, Media Liaison

The piping petrochemical engineer followed the advice of 13-year Anastasis veteran missionary Paula Kirby: 48-year-old Dorothy prayed fervently, took a deep breath, and dared to believe God wanted her to be a missionary. Within weeks, Dorothy was busily dismantling the pillars of the hard-earned existence she had built, choosing instead a life on a missionary ship.

One friend took her furniture, another her clothes, and a third, her car. An uncle died, leaving money that helped finance this radical move. Many looked on in disbelief as the avowed careerist casually gave away all she owned. It took Dorothy a few brief months to strip her life to its bare bones. Finally, dispossessed of career, home, and worldly goods, she booked a flight to Germany to join the Anastasis, flagship of the Mercy Ships ministry, the maritime arm of Youth with a Mission (YWAM).

After the five months of training required for all long-term applicants to Mercy Ships at a YWAM Discipleship Training School (DTS), Dorothy served on outreaches in Albania, Sierre Leone, Europe, and Senegal. But it was in Sierre Leone that Dorothy began to sense God's transformation of her heart. Teams from the Anastasis were working in Kroo Bay, near Freetown, a community of 4,000 people. As they shared the gospel, the missionaries built latrines, taught the inhabitants of Kroo Bay about hygiene and disease, and tried to wean them from the occult, prostitution, and drugs.

One day Dorothy stood on a hill and looked down at this community. All she could see was a landscape littered with smoke, mud shacks, open sewage, debris, and despair. While she knew positive changes were happening in other parts of Sierra Leone, as she looked at this community, she became angry with God. How on earth could he forget these people? How could human beings be expected to live like this?

Over the next few days, she received her answers. God had not forgotten these people, because the Anastasis had come to Kroo Bay, bringing hundreds of Christians from all over the world who were daily ministering in his name. And most amazing of all, she, Dorothy, was there. God had somehow taken an independent woman on a successful career track and turned her into an evangelist in Africa. Her life had been transformed from one of single-minded ambition and earthly purpose to one of apparent aimlessness, as she drifted from one country to another to serve the needy. And it was in Kroo Bay that she realized there was no turning back.

On any given outreach of the Anastasis, there are about 400 people like Dorothy aboard, men and women who left what they were doing in the mainstream of society to serve as volunteer crew on the 12,700-ton, 522-foot vessel. The world's largest nongovernmental hospital ship, the Anastasis has three fully equipped operating rooms, a dental clinic, a laboratory, and x-ray units to perform the thousands of corrective surgeries the ministry provides. While there are many doctors, nurses, and dentists aboard, medical professionals are just a portion of the work force. There are also carpenters, cleaners, cooks, engineers, teachers, communications staff, housekeepers, and kitchen personnel, among others.

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November 13 1995, Vol. 39, No. 13