The Latham Family

Simon, Amelie, Zara, Heloise and Sophie Latham are serving on board The Global Mercy with Mercy Ships.

The Global Mercy (GLM), world’s largest non-governmental hospital ship, has been docked at the Queen Elizabeth II Quay in Freetown for 5 months now. They are providing free specialised surgeries to Sierra Leoneans and targeted training for healthcare professionals. The life-changing surgeries delivered include tumour removal, cleft lip and palate correction, cataract removal, orthopaedics and reconstructive plastics. 744 surgeries have been performed on 709 patients since the surgeries started last September.

The end of the year was busy and Simon at the crew clinic had to manage a Covid outbreak, as well as some emergencies at the Hope Centre. He had some assistance from the wonderful Dr Shekina from Sweden over the Christmas period, she has now gone back home. Simon had a number of patients admitted for emergency care over the last few weeks from the Hope Centre. The Hope Centre is a health facility at about 10-minute drive from the ship, into Freetown, that Mercy Ships redeveloped. It is set up to care for patients before and after their operations. Simon leads the Emergency Medical Team which helps care for patients in critical health conditions. This team arrives after being contacted on their pagers to stabilise the patients and take them to the ship's Intensive Care Unit, where their care continues.

As a family, life on the ship is busy! The girls all attend the on-board Academy to continue their academic studies. Whilst on board, they are enjoying making friends and taking part in the weekly running club. Amelie is serving as the PE Teacher at the Academy. They have all noticed that life can be continually busy on the ship and so are working to ensure that they regularly spend some down time as a family and are not always on the go!

The family have asked us to pray for a couple of specific areas this month. The Bible encourages us to be faithful in prayer and so as we pray through each point, perhaps we could find an item in our home which would remind us to pray regularly. It could be a post it note by the kettle or each time we reach for our phone...

Simon – as Simon spends time looking at the structure and heavy workload of his role on board, he has asked us to pray for wisdom as he looks to design the role to be sustainable both within his time on board and also beyond.
Amelie – juggling work, being a mum, wife and friend is challenging for anyone. Let’s pray for Amelie that she would find a balance which allows her to give time to each role that she has whilst ensuring that time with Christ is her focus.
Zara – the eldest of the three girls, Zara has asked us to pray for a friend her age to come on board. There are currently only four secondary school aged children on the ship and none of them are her age.
Heloise – like her sister, Heloise would love us to pray for friendships on board. For a meaningful, strong friendship which provides her with fun, laughter and security.
Sophie – the youngest of the three, Sophie is now having to get used to a new school teacher has her previous one has left the ship. Please pray for her to build a good relationship with the new teacher.

For more information about about our other mission partners go to the Mission Partners page