September 2006 - A day in the life of a Mercy Ships toddler

6-7 am
Wake up bright and loud, scamper down the ladder from your top bunk bed, pitter patter your footsteps through the kitchen/hall and jump on papa or mama or both. Keep up a monologue and add occasional shouts in the ears of parents hiding under the duvet.

7-8 am
Before 7:30 am you go for breakfast with papa or mama to the Pacific Dining Room where you meet lots of people and play cute and make a mess with cereals and milk. Wednesday mornings are pancake days and Sundays scrambled eggs and bacon, all of which you love. Otherwise it’s breakfast in the cabin which is less fun because you have to sit still and eat properly and can’t comment to anyone else about your food. Tuesday mornings you get to go for morning devotions and worship in the International Lounge (you like the guitar and drums), some Thursday mornings you join the Deck department african worship. But you don’t sit still long enough and usually you end up in your cabin before it’s over.

8 or 9 am till 12 pm
Preschool!! Actually it’s nursery for you but Miss Gini allows you to stay longer with the preschoolers so you get to join in their activities too. There are five to six of you under fours (the babies don’t come everyday) all from different countries and you sometimes pick up words from your friends in another language. You kiss mama goodbye as she goes to work. You cook or build tower blocks or make a train circuit and choo-choo the wooden trains around, then spend one hour outdoors playing in the sandbox on the slide and swings with the cars and motorbikes and running in and out of the big playhouse. Then it’s indoors again for story time, reading with Miss Gini or the librarian, learning to write, paint, colour, count, glue etc and put dry noodles into a paper bag to make a volcano sound (and you decorate the paper bag to look like a volcano too). You wish preschool is open during the weekends but no mama says Miss Gini needs a rest.

12-1 pm
Lunchtime! Papa or mama picks you up, you eat in the Aft/Family Dining Room in your own table but often someone else joins in so it’s always interesting, sometimes you complain because mama makes you eat stuff you don’t like (you don’t see why you can’t just live on plain rice or pasta, but you do like broccoli you call it ‘crocodile’, and papa mama has to hide the mango or watermelon or apple or you’d eat it first then be too full for anything else). You get distracted sometimes by all the attention around, and if you throw a temper you have to go and eat upstairs in your cabin. But if you behave and finish your food in good time, you get to go to the Aft Deck to play on the climbing frame and slide with the other 30 children on board. Sometimes people from other ships wave to you or you hear the ship horns going as they dock or depart, and you like to watch the container lifters and forklifts and lorries on the dock.

1-3 pm
Yawn, nap time…you try to negotiate yourself out of this, but after a few stories in your bed with mama you’re off to dreamland before you can say another ‘no dodo’. Sometimes if a monsieur is fixing something nearby you wake up from the noise, or if a fire drill is on and the alarm goes off, but mama has a talkie-walkie (two-way radio) switched on in your room and hears you when you cry or when you wakeup and start chatting to your bunny and tiger.

3-5 pm
You are full of energy again and roam the ship looking for playmates. Or you stop them in the corridor outside your cabin (‘Come! Come! Come play in tien-tien’s cabin!’). You love the Med Lounge, where you can play with the little soldiers in the Risk game box, and where you can get invited to a ping-pong game with the older children (you stand on the ping-pong table to serve or recover the ball under the table for Josh). Sometimes you annoy the girls playing with their dollies, and sometimes you are impatient for Chenell and Cara to finish their homework before playing with you. Sometimes adults off shifts let you watch photos on their laptop computers. Sometimes there are birthday tea parties, or you go to Pool Deck to splash around the swimming pool, or you play in someone’s cabin whilst mama has tea with their mama. Sometimes you catch papa returning to the cabin for cash for a Fan Ice (yummy Ghanaian vanilla ice cream) at the snack bar and you get to share his (Papa says you eat more than your half). You can also play with the piano drums guitar in the music room in B Deck, or visit the ward and play with the younger patients. And sometimes, you are happy to stay and play or read on your own, in your room till dinnertime.

5-7 pm
Hmmm, it depends…some days you eat with both mama and papa and then get to watch Bob the Builder or Fireman Sam or Veggietales from the video library in your room. Some days mama goes for gym or Pilates so you eat with papa, some days papa goes for football or jogging so you eat with mama. Some days you get to ‘sit sit car’ and go out for dinner for someone’s birthday or farewell, some days you stay with a babysitter whilst mama and papa go out. Friday nights you often get to play on Aft Deck till it gets too dark.

7-9 pm
Thursday nights there is the Community Meeting, other nights there may be concerts or talent shows or games, and you get to go if you’re not too tired. If you had woken up early and had a very full day then by 7:30 pm papa mama says to you ‘I see black eyes!’ (dark rings under your eyes) and it’s the beginning of the end. Other days you are still full of steam till 9 pm and papa mama despair and you say ‘I see black eyes!’ to them. In all cases you have a bucket shower (where you splash around and wash one of your cars at the same time), then stories, then milk, then cuddle your duvet up to your chin, then goodnight kisses, then ‘dodo’ (sleep). If tomorrow is the weekend you dream of hotel pools, beaches, the african market where mama visits the tailor and buys fresh vegetables and fruits, the supermarket where you get to sit in the shopping trolley, Sunday services, full days with papa and mama. Tomorrow is a new day.

Epilogue: Is there a place in missions for toddlers? The answer is a resounding yes. As it is for babies, teenagers, seniors, singles, married couples, families, extroverts, introverts, leaders, followers, bankers, administrators, doctors, engineers, cooks, plumbers :)… On the ship young children bring the gift of enthusiasm and laughter, and inspire tenderness and self-giving. We are much blessed by their presence.