Anaheim family helps crew a hospital ship that offers life-changing surgeries off the coast of Africa
Justin and Jenni Brunenkant haven’t had a decent taco in more than a year, they have to wait three months for a new pair of shoes and, for fun, Jenni suits up in scuba gear and plunges into the murky, polluted waters to clean barnacles off a ship’s hull.
But the Anaheim couple and their four children love their lives aboard a hospital ship off the west coast of Africa and wouldn’t trade the experience for all the taco stands and two-day shipping in the world.
The Brunenkants are almost halfway through a two-year stint living and working on the Africa Mercy, a 16,500-ton, 500-foot-long ship with a population of more than 400, including families and children.
For 10 months a year, the Africa Mercy – run by international, faith-based nonprofit Mercy Ships – docks in a developing coastal country such as Guinea, Senegal or Sierra Leone to provide free surgeries to anyone in need. Volunteer doctors remove disfiguring tumors, straighten twisted limbs and restore impaired eyesight, and they train and mentor local doctors and other medical staff during the extended stay.
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With jobs that match their skills, Justin and Jenni Brunenkant are part of the shipboard village that enables the medical staff to do its life-changing work. He’s one of five electricians aboard that help keep the vessel running. She coordinates online classes for older kids in the on-board school and volunteers with the dive team that ensures the ship’s cooling water intake system is kept clear.
The younger Brunenkants – Christopher, 10, Sean, 7, Clara, 5, and Emma, 2 – go to the Africa Mercy’s school, take field trips ashore, visit with young patients on the ship and play on the bikes, zip line and jungle gym of the top-deck playground.
It’s a familiar routine of school, work and play that takes place on board a massive ship whose inhabitants come from 40 nations, including the United Kingdom, Holland, Germany and Australia, and from various walks of life – people seeking to become missionaries, students taking a gap year, doctors using their skills to help their fellow man.
The family may not be able to keep up with American politics or popular culture, but Jenni Brunenkant likened ship life to being in a small town: Everyone knows each others’ concerns and is willing to help when needed.
Working for the community’s benefit is something the Brunenkants hope to teach their kids.
“We wanted our kids to get involved in serving,” Justin Brunenkant said. “Our kids are learning to love other people.”
Life on board
Last spring, the family was living in Anaheim, where Justin Brunenkant worked as an electrician while Jenni Brunenkant, a former teacher, homeschooled the kids.
Justin Brunenkant had filled in as a youth pastor when his church needed one. While he liked the life of service, without a seminary degree he had little hope of making it a career.
But the couple found a related opportunity. Mercy Ships accepted their application and their home church in Irvine was willing to help sponsor the cost of their stay, so the Brunenkants plunged right in.
“They asked us to come in a month because they needed a chief electrician so badly,” Jenni Brunenkant said – so a few weeks later they were getting trained in Texas.
Living on board a large ship took a bit of adjustment.
The family’s cabin was bigger and nicer than they expected, but the Africa Mercy’s eight decks, each one a maze of hallways, was a little disorienting at first.
The Brunenkants live below the top deck and its playground. As Christopher Brunenkant discovered: “Actually it does kind of feel a little bit weird to be playing on top of your house.”
To observe holidays, expats from the same country join together to give fellow volunteers a taste of their home traditions. Christmas lasts a month, with numerous activities celebrating various customs. The Dutch passengers arranged a visit from “Sinterklaas,” who came on a lifeboat with presents for all the children.
Locals who live on shore also take jobs on the ship and befriend the volunteers.
The Brunenkants have few complaints, but they weren’t used to so many rules: No running. Younger kids must always be with an adult. A nighttime curfew requires everyone to be back on the ship by 11 p.m.
They take part in drills in case of a person overboard, fire, pirates or an order to abandon ship.
They wear spring or summer clothes most of the time to deal with 80-plus degree weather, humidity and monsoon-like rains.
Jenni Brunenkant was initially nervous because she doesn’t speak much French, which survives in many African countries as a remnant of colonial days. But the ship has translators, and sometimes they aren’t even needed.
The family has learned a few phrases in two of the local languages, Pular and Susu. When they greet native speakers, even if the pronunciation isn’t perfect, Jenni Brunenkant said, “They’re so excited and they’re so happy because we’re trying.”
Once a week, she leaves the ship and goes to town to buy papayas, plantains or fabric at a local market. Sunday church services are at the Hope Medical Center, the clinic in Conakry, Guinea. It is where patients are treated or screened for referral to the ship and where the hospital and care exceed what many people could find or afford in their city or village.
Some people come to the ship to fix a physical deformity they were ostracized for at home, such as a facial tumor or bowed legs that don’t allow them to walk properly.
On the Africa Mercy, such differences aren’t important.
“Just kind of showing someone you care and they matter means a lot,” Jenni Brunenkant said.
And everyone gets involved in the care. The Brunenkant kids bring toys and color with the younger patients, and the adults play Jenga or Uno or just sit with the older ones, chatting with them and holding their hand.
In Conakry, many of the residents make $1 to $2 a day, they don’t always get three meals and they hardly have any stuff, but they’re generous with guests, take in and care for sick relatives, and they have strong community bonds, Justin Brunenkant said.
There’s a phrase in the Susu language, that translates roughly as, “I am because you are,” he said.
In a way, the shipboard village on the Africa Mercy gets its strength from what each member contributes. Over 40 years since the nonprofit’s founding, Mercy Ships medical staff have performed close to 100,000 surgeries, and they couldn’t have done it without support from their crew.
New perspectives
The Africa Mercy will be anchored in Guinea until June, when it goes into drydock for two months of maintenance. The Brunenkants will head home to attend a wedding, visit the grandparents and hit their favorite taco shops until they rejoin the ship in the Canary Islands and embark for Senegal in August.
The family is signed onto the African Mercy through June 2020, though Justin and Jenni Brunenkant said they may extend the family’s commitment.
When they do return home for good, their address book will be bursting with names of new friends from all over the world.
Before boarding the Africa Mercy, the family lightened its material load, giving up their rented home and getting rid of about half of what they owned and the two family cars. Now they’ve got fewer choices (the ship has two kinds of deodorant: men’s and women’s), and an order of something they can’t get locally may take weeks to arrive.
But the Brunenkants have learned they don’t need as much stuff – or need stuff as much – as they thought they did.
Justin and Jenni Brunenkant used to worry about things like not just finding daycare, but picking the best one, he said. Now they meet people with more critical struggles, such as life-altering medical issues and little access to preventive care or safe, affordable surgery. It’s a new perspective on life the family will also be taking home with them.
“Instead of getting root canals and cavities filled,” Justin Brunenkant said, “they’re happy just to get a tooth pulled so it stops hurting.”
About Mercy Ships
The Brunenkant family of Anaheim is among of hundreds of volunteers that staff Mercy Ships’ hospital vessel every year.
Charitable mission: Founded in 1978, Mercy Ships provides free access to procedures such as cataract removal, facial reconstruction and orthopedic surgeries, and the ship’s professionals help train medical workers in the communities the ship serves.
The vessel: At 500 feet long and 16,500 tons, the Africa Mercy is the world’s largest non-governmental hospital ship, and it’s the nonprofit’s only ship in service; three older ships have been retired.
The crew: The Africa Mercy is staffed by about 400 people including doctors and other professionals, most of whom volunteer their time and pay their own way while serving on the ship.
Information: For more about Mercy ships, or to donate or find a volunteer opportunity, visit www.mercyships.org. Teachers, housekeepers, maintenance workers and other staff are needed in addition to medical, dental and maritime professionals.