Our Church has been a great partner with this ship - over 8 semi-truck loads of supplies worth over a million dollars have been donated by the church. There are 26 LDS nurses and doctors on board now, 12 will be there for the whole 5 months, others come and go - 71 total will serve for no pay. They will give up 4-6 weeks of their private practice donating over 5,000 man hours - working 12 hour shifts. LDS Charities out of Salt Lake does the coordinating of the personal - Brother/Captain Fitch - US Navy Retired and a dentist - was the Group Leader for the members of the church that were on board - he and his wife were set apart Service Missionaries for the 5 months of the mission. One of the problems in the Latin American countries is the language barrier - there were 5 translators on board and the military asked Salt Lake if they could provide more - How many? "could use another 5" - we can provide more than 50 at each port!!! yeah for missionaries!! The LDS medical personal have light blue shirts on and a patch that said LDS Charities...it was fun to meet and talk with them. They must have let families tour the ship before deploying - this cute note was on one of the boards we saw. Here is one of the large admitting areas that we were allowed to see...also the Pediatric unit - large bunk on top for the child's escort (parent) and child on the bottom - Navy cribs look more like a cage to me!
This experience looks like it was amazing. What an opportunity! go Navy and go LDS church! and all the other volunteers too. There are so many good people in the world.
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