Support Our Crew

We Are Here!!

Our family is now in Madagascar, living and serving aboard the Africa Mercy!

After years of thinking about what this might look like, the five of us are actually here. Matt is serving as Captain, our three children attend school onboard, and Julie is caring for our family while also volunteering and finding ways to serve within the community around the ship.

Why Mercy Ships?

Mercy Ships uses hospital ships to bring free surgical care to people who have little or no access to the surgery they need. Here in Madagascar, patients and their caregivers travel from across the country for surgeries that can remove large tumors, repair cleft lips and palates, restore sight, correct orthopedic conditions, and treat severe burns.

Living aboard means we are seeing this mission up close.

Patients share the many of same areas we walk each day. Families stay nearby at Mercy Ship's landbased Hope Center facility as they prepare for surgery and recover. Our children are growing up, during these special years, alongside people from all over the world who have come here to serve.

Recently, while volunteering at the Hope Center, Julie spent part of a morning carrying a Malagasy baby while his mother participated in a sewing workshop. He was about eight to ten months old and had come to Mercy Ships to have his cleft lip repaired. Julie carried him around the yard, humming and comforting him much as she would one of our own children thinking what a journey this little one must have already been through just to make it to this place.

Later, we saw the same mother and baby outside the ship. His cleft lip had been repaired, with only a few small stitches remaining.

He won’t remember that morning, or probably any of his time here. But the surgery he received will go home with him and be part of the rest of his life.

That is the kind of thing we are now privileged to see firsthand. Lives are changed here, every-single-day.

25 Years in the Making

There is another part of being here that feels especially significant to our family.

Matt first learned about Mercy Ships while he was a student at Maine Maritime Academy more than 25 years ago. He kept the information, thinking that perhaps someday he would serve aboard one of its ships.

Someday took a long time.

In between came a maritime career, marriage, three children, and many years of Matt going to sea while the rest of us stayed home.

Looking back from where we are now, God’s timing is easier to see.

The maritime career that seemed to take Matt in another direction was also giving him the experience he would eventually need. Twenty-five years of going to sea, leading crews, operating ships and carrying the responsibilities that come with being a mariner prepared him for the responsibility he now carries as Captain of the Africa Mercy.

And when the opportunity finally came, it came at a time when we could do something we never imagined 25 years ago.

We could go together.

For most of our family life, Matt going to sea has meant separation. This year, going to sea means our family gets to be together. We share a family cabin. The kids go to school on the same deck we live on. We eat meals together and are experiencing this place, its people, its challenges and its joys alongside one another.

We don’t know all that God has planned for this year, but we can look back now and see that the road here was much longer than the trip to Madagascar.

Help Us Stay and Serve

Our year with Mercy Ships is volunteer service. Like other long-term volunteer crew, we are responsible for raising the support needed to cover the costs of being here and maintaining the commitments we still have at home.

For those who have asked how they can be part of what our family is doing, financial support directly helps make it possible for the five of us to spend this year serving aboard the Africa Mercy. Whether it is a one-time gift or ongoing support during our year here, every contribution helps.

We would also be grateful for your prayers.

Pray for the patients and families who make long and sometimes difficult journeys to reach the ship. Pray for the hundreds of people who have left their own homes to serve here. And please pray for our family: for Matt as he carries the responsibilities of Captain, for our children as they grow through this very different year, and for Julie as she cares for our family and continues to find where she can best serve.

Twenty-five years ago, Mercy Ships was a possibility on a piece of paper Matt decided to keep.

Today, it is where our family lives.

Throughout the year, we'll be regularly sharing life aboard the Africa Mercy, our time ashore, and our family's experiences in the countries we visit on instagram @bakis.onboard. We will also be starting a monthly newsletter, so please keep an eye out for that was well.

We are grateful for everyone who has helped us get here, and for those who will help us continue the journey.

Blessings,

Captain Matthew, Julie, Teddy, Genevieve and Isabelle

NOTICE:
Anonymous giving ONLY applies to public lists such as the Donations Giving wall. If you give on this crewmember’s personalized page, they will be notified of the gift. If you would like to give with complete anonymity, please contact Donor Services at 903-939-7080 or donor.svc.manager@mercyships.org.

NOTICE:

Please be advised that only US taxpayers will receive a tax receipt for the gifts made through this site.