Greetings from South Korea,

In this news letter I will share some of the experiences that we have had since we left Alaska. On the way to deliver the relief supplies to North Korea, the political situation began to escalate. Our contact in North Korea called us as we were sailing, and advised us the situation was not safe for us to arrive there. Immediately we had to come up with an alternate plan. The organization that had donated the relief supplies and the rice called us after hearing what had happened and told us about thier mission in China and how most of the people fleeing from North Korea where living in this part of China. It was an interesting time sailing in the Yellow Sea not knowing exactly where we were going to go, but one thing was clear and that was we were to keep going! As we sailed past North Korea the crew lined up along the side of the ship facing North Korea and we prayed for the situation and the people there.

Shortly afterwards we received a confirmation about arriving in Dalian China and being able to unload the supplies. In this picture Charles Stephens is unloading the rice from our cargo hold with two dock workers. (in China)

While we were in China, The deck department worked around the clock to get the relief supplies unloaded. We also made some friends with a local ministry there and checked out an area for possible future outreaches. We had a lot of restrictions on us in China, It made a lot of us appreciate the freedom we have. After we unloaded the relief supplies we headed for Inch'on South Korea to begin a high scale public relations tour.

The purpose of the Korean PR tour is to show the people of Korea what a Mercy Ship is and what we do. The people in this region of the world had never seen any thing like what we do. It is our desire to see another ship in this region of the world, serving the countries in East Asia. It is Korea style to honor and treat your guests and because of this the entire crew has been to several buffet style dinners and been on many sight seeing tours around Korea. We found many things in Korea to be very similar to what we know in the United States, big city with McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Baskin Robbins and 7-11's on every block, and not to forget the Wal-Mart! And then there was the Asian culture, which is what we have come to call Korean Style! One example of Korean style is the seafood restaurants. If you expect to get a good old fashioned fish and chips dinner you are in the wrong place, seafood here consists of squid, octopus, eel, and several other types of ocean creatures.

Pusan, South Korea is known for being the largest shipping port in Asia, and it is our last stop for the Korea public relations tour. Pusan is the second largest city in Korea and sits at the south east part of the country. The ship was open four days a week for tours. People were coming from all over town to see the ship.

The Caribbean Mercy will set sail for the Philippines at the end of our public relations tour in South Korea. We will work alongside the Island Mercy in Pulapandan for two weeks. The crew is anticipating a wonderful time of cooperative ministry with our sister ship as we reach out to the poor and needy. The island of Pulapandan is densely populated with about 300,000 people living in the region. We anticipate being able to do eye surgeries on board, and orthopedic surgeries in a local hospital. It is not very often a port gets the benefit of two ships on an outreach. We are also hoping to bring a new working relationship with our sister ship. Many people on our ship who have been around for more than five years have had the opportunity to serve on the Island Mercy when it was called the Good Samaritan and worked in South America, but for the past five years the Island Mercy has been based out of New Zealand and Australia with a focus on South Pacific Islands.

On Another note, Pastor E. B. Beasley and his wife Lorrie from First United Methodist Church in Carthage, Texas joined the Caribbean Mercy for two weeks in Yosu and served in the Engineering and Housekeeping departments. Pastor Beasley also shared at devotions and our Community Meeting.

Upon arrival in each port we are greeted by city officials, usually the mayor. The media is always present to cover the event as we are welcomed into a city.

We had a group from a local church volunteer to come and cook the entire crew a traditional Korean style diner, served right in our own dining room. I found myself wondering what some of the items were. This works both ways as the following day the Korean crew members were all looking at the egg salad and wondering what it was!

Along side the ship we have several tents, under the first tent is a registration booth for visitors. The second tent has two large sections, one is a meeting area where a video is shown about Mercy Ships and the second part is a display pavilion with pictures and stories of previous outreaches. The third tent is a gift shop with books t' shirts and other miscellaneous items.

On the Technical Side, The International Office in Texas is in the process of upgrading the email system. Staff at the IO and on the Caribbean Mercy are putting in many longs hours to work out the bugs in the new system. The upgrade will serve two purposes. One will be our implementation of the Partnership Data base, a world wide data base in many different languages, and an e-mail platform with the latest protocols to go along with it. One of the biggest problems we are having is that no one has ever done this before on global and multilingual scale. The second reason is that it is the final stage of our Year 2000 (Y2K) compatibility upgrade. Due to the problems we experienced we were not been able to reliably receive email for the month of September. If you have been trying to contact us and have not had a response, please be aware that your email may not have been delivered.