Roebuck Kids Blog

Hey guys, welcome to the Roebuck kid’s Mercy Ships blog. This is Penelope!

We heard about Mercy Ships and that Dad had applied to be a volunteer about 10 months ago. We were supposed to keep it a secret until around Thanksgiving. However… I may have misunderstood something Mom told me and told some friends way before in April… Regardless, most people didn’t hear about it until then. When Maverick told his homeschool class about it, we kids had to leave almost right after to go on a trip with Dad, and left all the social fallout to Mom. She had a hard time, but we had a great time at Disneyland! Up to that point, Dad had been going through the application process. We were fairly sure that we were going to go Mercy Ships. But as we were walking to the next ride in Disneyland, Dad got the official offer letter!

Getting ready to go is actually pretty complicated. Our living space is going to be a lot smaller than our house, and we’re going to fly there. So we only are going to bring a few things, and we have a lot of stuff. We’re going to throw away, give away, sell, or store most of our things. And that is a long process, deciding the what, when and where of everything we own. It’s rather fun for me, but quite labor-intensive. So far I’ve been sorting through bins, keeping 8 precent, throwing away 20 precent and getting rid of the rest. Well, right now “get rid of” means put it in the garage. We hope to have a garage sale. In the meantime, good luck getting to the car!

Something that we’ve all been excited about is the security on the ship: The knife-throwing Nepalese Gurkhas. They are basically ninjas renowned for throwing their curved knifes with deadly accuracy. And while we all find this interesting, Maverick aspires to be a Gurkha protégé. For valid reasons. We heard this story about the Gurkhas: A man commanding them explained that, in attacking, they would jump out of an airplane. He then asked for volunteers. Only about half of the Gurkhas present stepped forward. A Gurkha leader then spoke up and interceded for his comrades, explaining that they didn’t realize that he meant jump out of the plane with parachutes. After clarifying, all of them volunteered. This gives you an example of how cool these guys are.

We’re super excited and thankful to God for all the provisions he’s made for us. There are so many things that have happened that we didn’t understand at the time, that now seem to be paving the way for us to go on the ship.

Until next time,

Penelope and the Roebuck kid crew.