(Jon typing) 

We have been in Madagascar for four weeks now. It rains a lot in Toamasina - 300 days a year. Overall people are friendly despite a lot of people living in grinding poverty. Roads are full of holes and it takes 12 hours to drive 350kms to the capital Antananarivo.  

The Finance Director job is slowly taking shape. Mercy Ships helps the local economy by providing local people work as 'Day Crew' on the ship. We currently have about 60 locals come aboard each day but when the ship surgeries are in full swing that will rise to approx. 240.  These 'day crew' get paid a stipend via mobile phone wallets and the time tracking is via emailed Excel spreadsheets. Even before the surgeries start Mercy Ships is helping locals through training and funding these 'day crew'.

Its been a learning process as I built processes and learnt to navigate the mobile wallet software (a new vendor this time) and their web portal which only supports French or Malagasy!  Every banking interaction/form is in French!

I was able to visit a local Christian ministry supporting 50 kids attend school, getting a meal each day, learning life skills and French/English. It is run by an ex Mercy Ships day crew worker. After visiting the centre (see photos below) we also later visited the home of two of the children. Ex Mercy Ships crew play an ongoing role in supporting this ministry. It was confronting to see an orphaned brother and sister living in a wooden shack (a garden shed in Australia).