At the end of February, I will leave Sierra Leone and step away from Mercy Ships after four years of service.
It’s strange to write that sentence. For so long, this life has simply been my life, the rhythms, the people, the work, the dust, the sea, the constant stretch of living far from everything familiar. I arrived with a backpack, a calling, and a lot of quiet confidence about who I thought I was and what I thought I could carry. I’m leaving with far fewer assumptions, and a much deeper understanding of both my strength and my limits.

These years have been full in the truest sense of the word. Full of purpose and pressure, hope and heartbreak, laughter and exhaustion, friendships that feel like family and goodbyes that never get easier. They have been holy and hard in ways I couldn’t have imagined when I first stepped off the plane.

Working with Mercy Ships hasn’t just been a job. It’s been a deeply human experience, complex, emotional, messy, and meaningful. I’m proud of the work I’ve done. Not because it was perfect, it wasn’t. But because it was real. And I know I’ve planted something good.

I’m leaving with a mix of relief, sorrow, and gratitude. Relief because rest is needed. Sorrow because part of my heart will stay here. And gratitude because this season, hard as it was, has shaped me in ways I’ll be unpacking for a long time.

On a personal level, Sierra Leone has changed me. It has taught me my limits, and that those limits don’t make me weak, they make me human. It has taught me how deeply I feel things, and how both costly and beautiful that can be. It has shown me that I am braver than I thought, but also far more tired than I ever expected to be. And it has given me a version of home that no longer fits on a map, a web of people scattered across continents, carrying pieces of my story with them.

Professionally, I have been stretched in every direction. I’ve learned what leadership looks like when the answers are unclear and the stakes are high. I’ve learned that sustainable change is slower and more relational than any project timeline suggests. I’ve learned that good intentions are fragile unless they are rooted in listening, humility, and trust. I’m deeply proud of the nurse mentorship work, the partnerships built, and the local colleagues who taught me more than any training ever could. The work will continue, and that gives me a deep sense of peace.

Spiritually, these years have stripped me of easy answers. I’ve learned that faith is less about certainty and more about trust. That God is present not only in the breakthroughs, but in the long, quiet faithfulness of ordinary days. That obedience doesn’t always feel heroic, sometimes it simply looks like staying when it would be easier to leave. And that God’s plans don’t require my full understanding to be good.

And now, this chapter is closing.

So, whats next?… Adventures in Australia!

Before I go, I’ll spend a few weeks visiting some of the beautiful friends this journey has given me, people who have held me up when the work was heavy and the days were long. Then I go to Australia. It has always been a dream of mine, and right now it feels like exactly the right place to land. A place to process, to breathe, to rest, to recover from the weight of the last four years. Once settled there, I’ll return to hospital work for a while. My passion for global health and development remains, but I’m tired. I need a season of steadiness before I can clearly see what comes next.

For the first time in my adult life, I don’t have a five-year plan. Or even a one-year plan.
That feels strange. Uncomfortable. And oddly freeing.
I’m choosing to trust that God still holds the map, even when I don’t.

I leave Sierra Leone with more humility, more compassion, more questions, and a deeper understanding of what it means to love people well. This chapter is ending, but the story it has written in me will remain.