I Just Want to Serve
Josh Remer had been a supporter of Mercy Ships for some time but never thought he would be able to serve on board. Then, one day he and his wife felt that their current jobs were coming to an end as God was doing something new within them. Leaving behind their jobs, Josh and his wife jumped at the opportunity to take this new freedom and volunteer with Mercy Ships. When filling out the application, Josh willingly checked the box marked “I just want to serve” — meaning he could be placed anywhere on the vessel — and his courage didn’t disappoint.
In this episode, Josh shares what it was like to go from being a donor to a volunteer. He talks about having the best job on the ship and one perk no other department experiences. He also shares about the gift of serving for three short months on board and the relationships that have permanently imprinted his heart. After listening to this interview, you just might want to quit your job and get on board too!
Looking for a way to join our mission of bringing hope and healing? Partner with us through a gift, volunteering with us, or by joining us in prayer.
New Mercies Podcast Transcript
Welcome to the New Mercies, a podcast by Mercy Ships, where we’ll take you behind the scenes and on board our incredible hospital ships that are transforming lives all over the world. We invite you to join us each week as we sit down with our crew, patients, volunteers, and partners to hear their stories of life-changing hope and healing.
Josh Remer had been a supporter of Mercy Ships, but never thought he would be able to serve on board. Then one day he and his wife felt that their current jobs were coming to an end as God was leading them to something new. So leaving behind their jobs, they jumped at the opportunity to take this new freedom and volunteer with Mercy Ships. When filling out the application, Josh willingly checked the box marked, “I just want to serve,” meaning he could be placed anywhere on the vessel. And his courage did not disappoint. Here’s my interview with Josh Reamer.
Raeanne Newquist:
Well, Josh, welcome to New Mercies. So excited to hear from you and your wife, we get to hear from her next week. So that’ll be a lot of fun. But you both recently served on the Africa Mercy. And I had been told that I needed to talk to you both because you had such a fabulous time, and some great stories to share. So we’re excited. Josh, why don’t you kick us off by telling us just how this adventure came about for you and your wife.
Josh Remer:
So my wife, Julie is a pediatric nurse here in Los Angeles where we live. And when I first met her eight and a half years ago, she was talking about Mercy Ships and going with Mercy Ships, volunteering. So I thought that was really neat. I had heard about Mercy Ships, I grew up in Mission family, my parents worked for a mission organization. And I’ve worked for another large NGO for the last eight years. And so I thought that was really cool that she would want to do something like that — volunteer a big chunk of time to go to Africa to volunteer on a hospital ship. And I donated to Mercy Ships over the years and followed Mercy Ships for many years. But then this last year, we realized that we were both sort of nearing the end of our jobs and the satisfaction with our current roles. And we were looking for something different to do, I had been applying for jobs for at a whole bunch of different places for over two years. And nothing really panned out. And we just felt this calling and continual sort of drawing toward Mercy Ships. So last January, we applied, and by September, we were on the ship, and we served for three months this fall in Dakar, Senegal.
Raeanne:
Well, Josh, what was that like for you to be a supporter of Mercy Ships — you get the newsletters, I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures of patients, what is that like then to actually see firsthand what your donations do?
Josh:
It’s really eye-opening, you might see the pictures in the brochure that show a before and after picture of a kid or an adult who’s had some life-changing surgery. But what you don’t get to see is the joy that those people have upon receiving this life-changing surgery. You might see pictures of it, but you don’t really get to see the real reality of the person. You don’t get to see that person walk off the ship and wave — someone who came to the ship a few days or weeks before with something that was really horrible or really disfiguring — now leave the ship one step closer to being made whole. Now they still have some recovery, but the joyfulness and the positive look on their face when they leave, even if you’re standing up on deck seven, waving to people 70 feet below you on the dock as they leave to go home, you can tell that there’s something changed about their lives.
Raeanne:
Yeah, it’s a real privilege to get to witness that firsthand. Josh, you mentioned that you grew up as a missionary kid, so missions was all around you growing up. At what point in your adult life did you say this is something that wasn’t just part of my childhood or something that my parents did, this is something that I want to do.
Josh:
That’s a good question. I grew up in a family of parents who worked for a mission organization, we were based in the United States. But really the work that my parents did was global focused on bringing the Bible to unreached people groups. And when you grow up with it, it’s really easy to just sort of see it’s the way of life and that’s how I’m living under my parents roof. They have been called to missions, but there’s a certain point when it has to become real for you too. So shortly after graduating from high school, I worked with a small organization in my hometown that worked with children who had HIV and AIDS. And that experience radically changed my life and my worldview. This was back in the early 2000s when the prognosis for HIV and AIDS children was not as good as it is now. It’s incredible, a lot has changed in the last 20 years. But some of these kids that I worked with, ended up passing away and that really shook me deeply and changed my perspective on the world. I knew about missions, I knew about all of that, but didn’t really make the correlation between what I can do to serve the world’s most vulnerable people and the calling we have as Christians and followers of Jesus, to really be the hands and feet of Jesus. And so that’s really where it hit for me.
Raeanne:
While on board the Africa Mercy, what was your role? And what did you get to do?
Josh:
Probably one of the best roles on the ship!
Raeanne:
Okay, I’ve never heard that before. No one has ever said that!
Josh:
It is a difficult role. So my wife is a nurse, a pediatric nurse and so they really wanted her. And in the application process, there’s a box that you can check that says something like, “I will serve wherever most needed,” and I checked that box. So I’ve done a lot of different jobs and careers over my lifetime so far and so I checked that box. And before we got to the ship, they told me that I was going to be working in the dining room on the Africa Mercy, and I had some previous food service experience, and I had a food handlers license. So I was like, Okay, let’s do this. And so I served in the dining room on one of the dining room teams on the Africa Mercy.
Raeanne:
Now I can concur that that is probably one of the best jobs because you get to see and interact with everyone.
Josh:
Yes, if you are an extroverted person, this is the job for you.
Raeanne:
And are you super extroverted?
Josh:
No, but it was a really good life-stretching experience for me. I will say that it is a really great position if you like to have fresh bread. This is a little Insider’s tip — there’s a baker on board the ship. This is probably the best part of life on board, the fresh bread baked daily by Harry the baker on board the Africa Mercy. There’s nothing better than a fresh loaf of bread coming out of the oven. And you just happened to be standing there.
Raeanne:
My husband was in chaplaincy when we were on board. And so the bakers would bake these beautiful breads for communion. And, you know, not only did they taste fantastic, but they were absolutely beautiful. And so oftentimes, some breads were baked just for the display. And so as chaplains sometimes we got to take those loaves home to our families. And that was another little perk of the job, right.
Josh:
Oh, that’s great.
Raeanne:
So tell us aside from the bread. What was a highlight for you in your job?
Josh:
Many days, I would get over 20,000 steps a day in that job on a small ship in a dining room the size of a maybe a tennis court, that’s about the size of the dining room. The best part of the job for me was working with the day crew who are local staff, local employees from Senegal, who come on board the ship every day, and do important roles like dining room, housekeeping, and translating on board the ship. So I worked on a team that was mostly day crew in the dining room and that was an absolutely incredible experience. Probably my favorite part of my job is going up, leaving my cabin, going on my 30 second commute upstairs to the dining room, and spending time with these guys every day, pretty much all day long.
Raeanne:
Can you tell us about maybe one of the day crew workers that impacted you?
Josh:
I will say this about the day crew workers, they are all very smart. Many of them know three or more languages, they might not even be translated or they might be in a different role. And they can seamlessly go through these languages. So they would be speaking French and then English and then Wolof and then Pular, and like having these multi leveled conversations amongst each other. So the talent of these people is incredible. The one that stands out to me is a man from the other side of the Gambia. And so we would have every other weekend off, and his family and his wife live in Senegal, but on the other side of the Gambia, so he would go home every other weekend to see them. He would take a bus, because he didn’t have a passport so he had to travel around the Gambia to his village, and then back on a four day weekend. Super conscientious, super thoughtful, very helpful, and kind, man. And it was just such a pleasure to get to work with him.
Raeanne:
What are some of the cultural things that you learned from working with the day crew? Cultural differences from your life in Los Angeles?
Josh:
This is a good example. You and I know how hamburgers are assembled, right? So on board the ship we had a couple of times when it was American night, and that’s usually on the fourth of each month. The American Crew members usually have cookies after dinner. But one of those nights it was American food night, and we had hamburgers. So there was hamburgers and french fries, and the normal serving of rice, rice is always available every meal, but that’s beside the point. So it was hamburger night and me being the only American on food service staff, I thought I knew which way we should put the food in the serving line in the buffet line so that people could get their hamburger bun, and then get some lettuce on it and then put the burger down and get their toppings later. Well that night we happen to be out of both mayonnaise and ketchup, so the Europeans didn’t have anything to put on their French fries, neither did the Americans. And I was out voted by my Senegalese team in which order that we should put the buns the burgers and the toppings. It was torturing me the whole night that we were giving people their hamburger, and then french fries, and then an unsliced bun, and then their toppings and then they had to go put their condiments on it. Oh my goodness, huge cultural difference, but I was completely out voted! Taco night was the same thing. So it gives them all of this stuff that goes in the taco and then give them the taco shell. So just culturally very different. I love it in terms of food expectations.
Raeanne:
That is so much fun. Well, you survived. And sometimes you learn that I guess these things just don’t really matter.
Josh:
Exactly. Yeah. It really doesn’t matter.
Raeanne:
What is something that surprised you working on a ship?
Josh:
I don’t know if it surprised me, but something that really stood out to me is that specifically working on a hospital ship like the Africa Mercy or any other Mercy Ships ship is that every single person on that ship has a role. And without that person doing that job, everything can grind to a halt. There’s plumbers and electricians who are on call 24/7 and if there’s a problem with the plumbing, they will come down to your room and fix your toilet. If, as happened in food services, the bread slicer doesn’t work, it’s a problem because the ship goes through, I don’t know, 30 loaves of bread a day or something like that, I don’t know exactly. And so we would have to slice each loaf by hand, which is extremely tiring. And that electrician was able to get there in 20 minutes, have the bread slicer fixed, and back working, so everybody could have sandwiches for their meal.
There was a woman on board, Detty, who helped in housekeeping team. And she had volunteered for a period of time, and her job was cleaning doorknobs so we wouldn’t spread COVID throughout the ship. If COVID goes throughout the ship, and everybody gets sick, we might have to stop doing surgeries and letting people come into the hospital. And she would go around and wipe doorknobs all day long. And she had volunteered, she was a physician and just wanted to do a job on the ship. Even though she wasn’t able to get a physician role, she was a different type of doctor, but really wanted to serve on board the ship. And so she agreed to be in the housekeeping team. I love it. And those people who are doing something that you might think is not as important as the surgeon on board, really are there to support the surgeons and patients on board. And if one of those things happens, a surgeon gets sick, they are not able to provide surgery to those patients, or if somehow the surgical schedule gets delayed, some patients might not be seen. And I think everyone on board realizes how important their role is and really pitches in to be that for the people that we serve.
Raeanne:
Yeah, it’s kind of rare to work in an environment where everyone is essential. Josh, is there any story that you wanted to tell?
Josh:
One time we got into this discussion, me and my Muslim coworkers in the dining room, about whether it was ethical to have multiple wives. This is something that would never ever happen in the U.S. or in a western culture. And that was what was beautiful working with these guys in the dining room, we were able to have some really great conversations about faith, and life and God and what we believed, and we’re able to pray with each other. At the end of each shift, we would pray together, and we would go around the circle, each person would pray on a different day. So sometimes we’d have guys who were Senegalese Muslim men who would be praying, and the next day would be me. And the next day would be Christian Senegalese guy or one of the African crew members that we have. We had one man from Ghana, and one from Cameroon on my team, and one from Nigeria. And the different traditions of prayer and Christian faith, as well as that team that we had with our Muslim coworkers, who are from Senegal was just absolutely beautiful. We got to pray with them, spend time with them, visit them at home, things like that were just so beautiful and incredible.
Raeanne:
And I think that’s such a rare gift to have to be able to sit and have open dialogue about faith that’s different from your own, but yet to come respecting one another, wanting to learn from one another, and getting to express your faith together in prayer. That’s not something we often do in the United States. And it’s it’s sad.
Josh:
It’s true. Yeah. And also that they all were there to serve the same people as Julie and I were there to serve. Yeah, they were there to serve their own country, people who were afflicted by these diseases, and work on board the ship for an OK wage, a fair wage, but they really saw the importance of the work of the ship, hands on. And so I think that was really neat to be with people, even day crew who really saw the impact of what the ship was doing and what we were doing on the ship.
Raeanne:
Josh, how did you see lives being changed while you were on board?
Josh:
One of the ways that’s easy to see lives being changed, is just walking to and from the ship as you’re going into town to get supplies or something like that. You walk past the outpatient waiting area that’s just outside the ship. So we’d walk down the gangway and go across this sort of parking lot area and into the port. And there’s a tent there where people are waiting for their follow up surgeries or waiting to be admitted to the hospital for the first time. And you might see someone who’s waiting to be admitted to the hospital one day, and the next week, they might be coming back for an outpatient appointment or a checkup or something like that on the surgery that was done. And you can see their countenance change, you can see a difference from when they were uncertain and nervous to them being changed and new. And that’s just a really neat thing.
I have a memory that will never leave me. During the time we were on the ship, there was a family that all had the webbed toes and hands. They were on board and getting their surgery when we were there. So my wife truly cared for them. Every day, patients go up to deck seven for outdoor time. And one day I was walking up the stairs from our room going upstairs to the pool on deck eight. And as I was coming up the stairs, there I saw this large group of children in these boots that had been specially constructed by the ship’s carpenter made so that these kids who had just had these foot surgeries could walk. And they were all coming down the stairs clomping down the stairs and these boots that had been made by the carpenter, so they could go up to deck seven. And I just saw this huge group of these children, this family of children coming down the stairs, in these awkward boots, so excited, one was carrying another kid, and they were laughing and talking to each other. And that’s an image in my head that I will never forget. It’s something that you would never run into in your normal day to day life. Yeah, bunch of children who had just gotten a surgery that’s going to change their lives.
Raeanne:
Wow. And that’s all from one family?
Josh:
Yeah. I don’t remember how many children there were in that family.
Raeanne:
Wow. But yeah, that’s amazing. Very cool. It is pretty cool to see lives being changed in every aspect of ship life, you know, not just the patients, but in the crew members as well. Josh, how was your life impacted in the three months that you served onboard?
Josh:
I think probably the way my life was impacted the most through this time of service on board the ship was that I think before going and volunteering on the Africa Mercy, when you are in a role, a job or career that you love, with people that you love working with, at an organization you love working at, it’s really hard to make a change, even when you feel God is calling you to do that. And I think our time serving on board the Africa Mercy really changed our perspective on what is important.
Throughout the process of our volunteering onboard the ship, God showed His hand and directed our paths and made the path clear for us to do it. Everything from providing someone to rent our house while we were gone, which was just an incredible blessing. And we had friends and family who were supporting us and praying for us that whole time. And it was really the hand of God that made that happen. And I think it’s really easy to be in a job and be comfortable and safe. But sometimes God is calling us out of that to step into something that’s more difficult, but is really rewarding and fulfilling.
So the other thing I think was really beautiful about living and working on the ship with hundreds of people who have really similar perspective and reason for being there was just the community life onboard the ship. Every night, there is something to do when we weren’t on lockdown for COVID outbreaks. There were movie nights. Julie was part of a handbell choir, there were running groups that would go out, people would go to the beach, there are people who go scuba diving are fishing. And one of our most favorite memories of life onboard the ship is there were a number of guys from South Africa who would take a fishing line, and they would go to the market and they would buy little shrimps for bait. And we would go off the stern of the ship with these fishing lines with hooks bought at the market, and use nuts and bolts tied to the strings for weights, and would fish off the stern of the ship in the evenings.
And it didn’t happen every night, maybe two or three times a week. But it was just such a fun experience to do. But yeah, there’s so many things on board the ship that just build community, sometimes there would be performances by the kids who go to the school in the academy on board. Sometimes when my wife Julie would be working, I would have a day off and I would almost every single time find someone to go in town or around the ship. If you are bored, and you don’t know what to do, and you don’t work that day, you can just stand up by the reception desk, someone is going somewhere to do something and you can always tag along. You can always tag along if there’s room in the car. So yeah, that’s great.
Raeanne:
That’s great. You guys mentioned that you already hung out with some people that you met on the ship.
Josh:
Oh, yeah. One of the guys who was on the ship with us, actually was in the States over the holidays. And he and I went on a motorcycle ride together. And then one of our friends, KJ, who was also a nurse on board the same time as us was nearby when we were driving through Phoenix, and she had taken a position there and we were able to get dinner with her. And so yeah, and we’ve already been in touch with others. And then also Julie, my wife learned about Mercy Ships from was a woman who had been on board the ship in early 2000s. And she and her husband happened to be going to the ship at the same time we were so even before we had left for the ship, we met them had dinner with them and then when we got to the ship, it was like we had built in friends that we already knew.
Raeanne:
The Mercy Ships family is so much fun. It’s special that relationships last forever.
There’s something that I think when you’re onboard the ship, you have a shared experience. And that sort of bonds you with that shared experience. Josh, do you think you’ll go back?
Josh:
We would love to go back. And I would actually encourage people who are thinking about serving on Mercy Ships to do a three-month volunteer position, even if it’s working in the dining room, because it’s the best job on the ship! I would encourage people to pray and seek God to consider doing something even if it’s short term because it was really life changing. We would love to go back we don’t know when or how it might just be a short-term thing. But we loved absolutely loved our experience and enjoyed it. We’ve built friendships with people that we served with on board the ship that we’ll have forever. We built lifelong friendships there. And we’ve seen some of our friends from the ship since we got back. Yeah, I would say we would love to go back if that’s what God calls us to do.
Raeanne:
Well, I’m so grateful that you and your wife said yes. And I love that you checked the box that said wherever there’s a need, I am willing to serve. And God did great things through you and your wife on board. So Josh, thank you so much for sharing a little bit of Your Mercy Ships journey with us today.
Josh:
Yeah, of course. Thank you.
For more information about Mercy Ships, go to mercyships.org, and to keep up with the guests on New Mercies, follow us on Instagram at NewMerciesPodcast.