...The Story of Rebecca Noland...

One of the greatest advantages working with Mercy Ships is that you get to meet so many people from different countries with different backgrounds, experiences and witnesses. In this way, Mercy Ships are truly representing the 2000 year old model of Jesus Christ where all this experiences and talents are used to Glorify God in West Africa.

This is the story Rebecca Noland(26) known as Becca, born in California and grew up in Arizona. Her calling to Mercy Ships began in a “lady’s room.” while she attended university.

While being in university she heard about Mercy Ships but wasn’t ready to attend because it seemed so far away. A few years later her friend from church told her that she signed up for Mercy Ships, and Rebecca felt like God was calling her through that friend. On a day after church in the lady’s room there were three girls she didn’t know turned out they all have been in Africa and one of them already spent a year on Mercy Ships then she knew that was her final confirmation from God that she needed to go to Mercy Ships.

Her initial commitment was to join short term for 6 months, so she thought. That commitment turned out to be 18 months already.

Becca is planning on going home at the end of this outreach and she is prayerfully considering coming back in the Togo field service 2012.

She loves living on the ship because of the close community but it is very different from her life at home. The biggest difference she says, that she’s more independent at home and has more freedom in her schedule.

Having friends on the ship from different countries she says: "that is a great thing because you get to know their cultures learning new languages and get to try their special foods such as Belgian chocolate and South African milk tart." But there are also hard parts. Not always understanding each other when certain phrases have different meanings in your country and different cultures have different ways of doing things.

One of her greatest miracles while being on the ship she says: “It would be the miracle with God’s timing and protection over little Josephine, I was working as a charge nurse the night that her breathing tube got blocked and God brought me and another nurse who was specialized with those types of patients into the ICU at just the right time. All the things that took place with Josephine while she was here that night and also how we a specialist fly out from Kenya all that showed me how present God was in all of it and He still does miracles everyday.”

During our interview these words of her moved me: “When I was little I always wanted to become a vet, but the more I thought about it I realized I would rather work with people because they have souls. After I became a registered nurse (RN) I told people that it must have been my destiny because it is also my initials Rebecca Noland (RN).”

Interviewed by Michelle Marx