Part 5 – Giving Hope and Healing — in Spreadsheets

If you’ve been following along in this series, we’ve talked about my first steps into the hospital, the value of building good habits, caring for the Finance team, and learning to leave space in conversation. All of those threads lead here: giving hope and healing through spreadsheets.

Mercy Ships’ tagline is “bringing hope and healing to the world’s forgotten poor.” We mostly think of surgeries — a child with bowed legs walking straight for the first time, a person blind from cataracts seeing their family again, a patient with a massive tumor finally lifting their head without shame. That’s the heart of what Mercy Ships does. Healing, restoring hope, giving dignity.

But this post is about something different and nerdier: how God used a finance/software operations guy to help bring hope and healing not through scalpels or pharmaceuticals, but through spreadsheets and process optimization.

The Doorway In

When Jackie and I joined, my role as Finance Director made it possible for our family to serve onboard. My “job” was numbers, not patients: budgets, bills, day crew stipends, crew bank operations, cash forecasts. Jackie worked on Deck 4 with patients in Rehab. She had patient stories; I had account reconciliations on deck 8. And that was fine — Finance keeps the ship running.

That changed when I started working with the Pre‑Op team in August 2025. They had a massive spreadsheet problem: 71 tabs, one tab per patient cohort. Every reschedule meant cutting and pasting data between tabs. It was inefficient, and long days — 10 to 12 hours — were the norm.

Taming 71 Tabs

We consolidated everything into one structured sheet, added error checks, built filters and reports, and created a single place to manage patient flow instead of a spaghetti mess of copy‑paste.

• Admin assistant: saved ~30 minutes every day on reporting.
• Driver coordination: ~4 weeks of work down to ~1 week.
• Immediate detection of 80+ duplicate errors.
• Patient lookups: ~2 minutes down to <30 seconds.

Now, printing for other teams is a filter, not a manual paste. Rescheduling patients means picking from visible open slots because for the first time. you can see all available slots for the full field service. Planning for buses from up‑country uses projections, not guesswork. And more teams can finally see the same data: one source of truth. 

Lest it sound amazing, it’s not — there is still a lot of manual work, too many spreadsheets, and many opportunities to do more. This is not a story about “how great it now is” but a story of small incremental changes and the journey of getting there.

Why It Matters

Yes, it’s nerdy. But it’s also about people: an admin assistant goes home 30 minutes earlier; a coordinator plans instead of reacts; managers answer with confidence. When help is needed, it is less on feelings — “We’re underwater and have too much” — and starts running on data: “Here’s our caseload, here’s our capacity, here’s what’s next.”

That clarity changes leadership decisions, reduces the cognitive tax, and builds trust. It gives patients a better experience because the hospital isn’t scrambling behind the scenes.

God’s Irony

Here’s the part that makes me smile: God brought this finance/software operations person halfway around the world to help a hospital team in Africa by… fixing improving processes. Not performing surgery. Not running rehab. Spreadsheets. And yet they reduced stress, saved time, caught errors, built trust, and created margin. That margin creates rest, energy, sustainability.

From “We’re Underwater” to “Here’s the Data”

Before: “We have too much and the field service just began. We can’t imagine later when there are even more patients.” After: “Here’s how many patients we have. Here’s our capacity. Here’s what’s coming. Here are the obstacles that need to be resolved.” That shift turns frustration into information — something leaders and teams can act on.

Closing the Series

From open eyes and listening ears, to good habits, to caring for the team, to leaving space, to spreadsheets — this journey is teaching me that no act of service is too small. Spreadsheets or surgeries, what matters is that we are a team and we act like one. We are one and are all here for the mission. And in this season, God found a way to use the work of the Finance team to serve the mission of Mercy Ships.

Part 4 – Learning to Leave Space in Conversation

One of the biggest lessons I’ve had to learn on the Global Mercy is the value of leaving space in conversations. I come from California. I talk fast. I move fast. And in many settings that works. But on a ship with more than 40 cultures represented, moving fast in conversation can be…unhelpful.

Wednesday Morning Meetings

Every Wednesday morning, the Finance team meets. We check in. We go around the table. We ask, “What’s on your plate this week? What do you need help with? What’s coming up we should all know about?” Sometimes the room goes quiet. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Fifteen. Long enough for me — the fast‑talking Californian — to start squirming in my chair.

But when I hold back and let the silence sit there, something happens. Someone speaks. Sometimes it’s a small thing, sometimes it’s big — but it’s something we would have missed if I had rushed to fill the space. I can’t tell you how many times I thought task, issue, or accounting entry was resolved, only to hear in that pause that there was something left to do.

Silence Is an Open Door

Those awkward pauses aren’t empty. They’re an invitation. Space for someone to gather their thoughts, build courage, or decide, “this is worth bringing up.” In American culture, silence can feel inefficient, wasted time that could have been spent being “effective.” In many other cultures, it’s normal; it shows respect and careful thought.

Direct and Indirect

I’ve also had to learn the difference between direct and indirect communication. Some people (often from the Global North) will tell you plainly: “Here’s the problem. This isn’t good enough. Here’s what needs to change.” Others will hint or wrap feedback in a story to avoid embarrassment and keep harmony.

On this ship, you get both every day. If you only listen for one style, you miss half the conversation. I’ve missed indirect feedback because I was tuned to “direct,” and I’ve been perceived as harsh when I thought I was just being clear.

Learning to Toggle

So I’m learning to toggle: direct when clarity is crucial and the relationship allows; indirect when it is more well-received by the recipient. And to receive both with humility. Leaving space still feels awkward, but it works. A nine‑second pause can surface an issue that would derail us later. Giving time lets people process and speak in their own way.

Silence isn’t failure. It’s an invitation. And on a ship with 40+ cultures, it might be the most important leadership tool that I can still learn.

Patient Story

 As I have said before, I am not allowed to take pictures when in the hospital. There are countless moments I wish I could photograph to capture a smile, a first step, a dance party, you name it. But it's not only a patient privacy thing (like any hospital) but our communications team has to approve all photos before they are posted to the world. Thankfully, they come around often and I can get some of those special moments captured. The communications team followed one of my patients last field service closely and recently released her photos. I saved the ones I am in as well as a few that help tell her story. Enjoy!

Baindu came from a small town in Sierra Leone a few hours away from Freetown (the capitol where the ship is docked). Everyone under the age of 18 needs to bring a caregiver with them and for her it was her "Grannie". While it may obvious that one leg was bowed, both actually were and would need surgery. 

Before her surgery was done I met a quiet, reserved Baindu. Her eyes were questioning, but she was compliant with all photos and measurements that needed to be done. I measured her knees, hips, ankles, everything! We looked at her posture, how long she could stand on each foot, how she went up and down stairs and talked about her goals for the future. We prayed together for her surgery the next day. 

After surgery, we started with in bed exercises, standing and then walking with a walker. It was amazing to watch how well she could walk with straight "penguin legs" in two casts! 

After this she was able to walk without a walker and complete higher level balance exercises while still in casts. 

Eventually the bones were healed enough, the casts were removed and we could see those beautiful straight legs! Baindu and Grannie were able to go home back to there village, Baindu go to school, and be accepted back into the community! 

Please don't only see the beautiful straight legs she had in the "after" photos, but the smile and confidence she has going into the future. I can't help but these two photos side by side and see that difference as well. 

Thank you again for your love and support. I feel so privileged to not only use my gifts of physical therapy here but to share love and hope with each patient I encounter. 

Part 3 – Caring for Your Team

One of the things I was asked to do when I came on board was to help “gel” the Finance team. That meant different things: gentleness and a listening ear for our ship Finance team instead of telling others what to do, strengthening collaboration with our shore‑based colleagues, and improving our relationships with other teams on the ship. A year ago, some of those relationships weren’t as collaborative or servant‑leader oriented as they could be.

I came in with the opportunity — and honestly, the privilege — to lead as a caring, kind, loving, and gentle manager. That doesn’t mean there weren’t things that needed to be healed or changed. There were. But I also knew that one of my main responsibilities was to build people up. And I had the opportunity (and challenge) to slow down, listen, and care. For a fast-paced person, that can be hard.

Building Up and Encouraging

As a leader, one of the greatest joys is to encourage your team — it is fun, enjoyable, and a joy. To tell them “you’re doing a good job.” To help them with questions, or sometimes to not answer their questions, but instead respond with, “How would you solve that?” or “What do you think we should do?” Or sometimes even, “That sounds tough. What would you like to do about it and could you come back with a proposal?”

Those kinds of questions communicate something important: you are smart, you are capable, and you don’t need to wait for permission from me or anyone else to do the right thing — as long as you’re acting in line with the mission and values of Mercy Ships. That includes being customer‑centric, caring for crew, day crew, and patients, and building collaborative bridges across departments.

However…us Accountants aren’t always known for customer centricity or collaboration — the stereotype is that we hide behind spreadsheets. But here on the ship, that looks different.

Encourage and Challenge

Part of caring for the team is also challenging them. Not with the overused “do more with less” line. I don’t believe in that. I mean the kind of challenge that says, “I believe in you. You can be more efficient, more structured, more creative. You can rethink processes to save time, reduce errors, improve quality, and inform others better.” You can apply more of your own skillset and thought process.

One example: day crew stipends. For years, we paid about 300 day crew every two weeks using spreadsheets. It took 10–12 hours, and when we paid them, there was no pay statement. Day crew don’t have email addresses, and they work all sorts of shifts (day, night, weekend, etc.). Most of the time, they just wanted to know: “Was I paid correctly, and is it in my mobile wallet?”

We didn’t empower managers to answer these questions, and Finance was always reactionary. So we restructured the process, cut payroll time to 3–4 hours, and added automated stipend statements emailed to each manager, including who worked, how many shifts, how much they were paid, and savings choices.

Suddenly managers were empowered. They could answer questions. They could celebrate savings with their day crew. And they didn’t get blindsided.

From Tasks to Deliverables

We also worked on a small but important shift: from tasks to deliverables. A task is “pay the bill.” A deliverable is “pay the bill and tell the requester it’s paid.” That simple confirmation builds trust across departments and prevents a lot of guessing and frustration. That “small” change built so much trust not just across our onboard Finance team, but across the ship and the organization. Again, small, iterative steps.

Accountability as Care

Accountability isn’t punishment — it’s care. We all forget things. We all drop balls. Accountability says, “I care enough about this work, and I care enough about you, to help make sure it lands.” Sometimes that’s a difficult conversation. Over time, those conversations build dignity and trust. By saying “I’m holding you accountable to this” we’re saying “I believe in you and know you’re capable.” To ignore it and do it yourself takes away their dignity.

The result isn’t just better processes. It’s a healthier, more joyful team — one that cares for and prays for one another, and one that’s better equipped to serve the hospital and the mission of Mercy Ships. It is more fun, too.

Part 2 – The Value of Good Habits and Simplifying to Allow Opportunity

When I first walked into the Finance Office on the Global Mercy, it didn’t take long to realize that some of our processes were clunky. Actually, “clunky” might be too kind. Many of them were slow, frustrating, and flat‑out inefficient.

Paying bills can take days with the back and forth. Running day crew payroll ate up more than a day. Handling deductions or insurance fees could stretch on and on. Every cycle, we’d spend hours bogged down in the same steps, repeating the same frustrations.

Being around finance systems for a long time, both in nonprofits and in tech companies, one thing I’ve been taught is that inefficiency eats away at more than just time. It eats away at morale. It makes people feel like they’re spinning their wheels. And when you’re a volunteer — when you’ve left your home, your career, and your family to serve on a hospital ship in West Africa — you don’t want to feel like your energy is being wasted.

So early on in our first year here, we made it our goal to simplify.

Why Good Habits Matter

Before getting into the technical fixes, I need to explain why I cared so much about habits. Because this wasn’t just about saving hours on a spreadsheet. It was about changing the culture of our team.

If you’ve ever been part of an overworked team, you know the default mode: heads down, just get through today, don’t think about tomorrow. When you’re that busy, you don’t stop to ask, “Could this be done better?”

That’s why good habits matter. Good habits create margin. And margin gives you space to breathe. Space to think. Space to notice when others need help. Without that margin, we never could have said yes when the hospital came knocking.

Cutting Down the Big Time Sinks

Take day crew payroll. Every two weeks, we pay about 300 day crew — Sierra Leoneans who work alongside us in everything from hospital wards to deck operations to the galley. Before, the stipend process took 10–12 hours. Each cycle. We’d sit in the office for a full day, sometimes two, checking and rechecking spreadsheets, transferring information, typing things in by hand.

Afew a few months of retooling, we cut that process down to three or four hours. Same work. Fewer headaches. Fewer errors and challenges, too.

Or take insurance fee deductions for a subset of crew. What used to take two days now takes about five to six hours. That’s not just time saved — that’s a day of someone’s life every month, freed up to do something else.

Even journal entries were streamlined. We used to type every single one manually into our accounting system. Painful. But we already had the data in Excel. All we had to do was reformat it and import it. Suddenly, what took hours took minutes. This reduced the risk of errors, too.

Beyond Efficiency: Building Up the Team

But it wasn’t just about processes. It was about people.

Simplifying gave us the freedom to invest in the team. Instead of always being buried in tasks, we could think about growth. I could encourage them to take ownership of projects, to learn new skills, to pursue continuing education. Sometimes that meant giving them more responsibility. Other times it meant stepping out of the way and letting them run with it.

I wanted them to know Mercy Ships had their back — not just as accountants, but as people. That meant celebrating wins, encouraging them to take classes, and reminding them they didn’t always need my permission to make improvements.

How Simplifying Creates Opportunity

Here’s the bigger picture: without those improvements, we never could have helped the hospital the way we did this year. Those “small” improvements during our first year created the margin to help the Hospital to second year.

If I’d been underwater, buried in paperwork and 12‑hour day crew stipend days, I wouldn’t have had the time or energy to notice their struggles, much less offer to help. And if our team hadn’t built a track record of success — real, measurable improvements — no one would have trusted us to jump into hospital processes.

But because we had margin, we could say yes. Because we had success stories, we could point to them and say, “Look, we’ve done it here. We can do it for you.”

That’s why good habits matter. Not because they look neat on a report, but because they create opportunity — opportunity to serve beyond your department, opportunity to step into someone else’s burden, opportunity to make a difference where it’s most needed.

The Irony of Spreadsheets in West Africa

Some of you might be thinking, “Why spreadsheets? Haven’t we moved beyond that?” In the U.S. or Europe, there are countless cloud systems that automate payroll, reporting, and scheduling. But in West Africa, things are different. Internet is slow and unreliable. Power can cut out. Cloud systems that look great in marketing brochures just don’t work here. Or they don’t serve the currencies or needs of the country.

Excel works offline. It’s shareable. It’s flexible. And everyone has at least some familiarity with it. It’s not perfect, but in this environment, it’s often the best tool we have. And when you learn how to really use it, it’s powerful.

So yes, a lot of our work has been in spreadsheets. It might sound nerdy. It might even sound boring. But those spreadsheets free up time, reduce stress, and help people go home earlier. And that matters.

Looking Back

At the beginning of the first yer, our team felt the workload and laundry list of tasks. Processes dragged. Everything was reactive. By the end of the year, we had space. We had margin. We had stories of success we could point to and say, “We made things better.”

That shift changed our trajectory. It gave us the ability to help the hospital. It gave us credibility when we offered ideas. And it reminded me of something I’d nearly forgotten: sometimes the most missionary thing you can do is simplify a process, so someone else has time to breathe.

New Jobs, Same Mission

 While I gave a brief explanation in my last blog post about teaching science this semester, I wanted to explain more. 

At the end of last school year, the science teacher on the ship had to go home unexpectedly due to family circumstances. In the Mercy Ships world, it is very hard to find a new teacher, get all the vaccines, training, etc and start in August. I had a quick conversation with the principal before we left and told him I had tutored science classes when I was in high school and college and would be willing to help however I could. About a week before we arrived back on the ship I got a message from him saying no science teacher had been found and was I serious about helping for a semester in the academy. He explained that the students would be enrolled in an online science class and I would be tutoring them through that, making sure they stayed on track, explain things further, update parents on progress, etc as I don't have a teaching credential and can't actually teach. After talking it all over with Jeff and praying about it, we decided it was a go! It is 3 mornings a week and leaves plenty of time for working in the hospital. We are 5 weeks in and so far so good. I'll be done in December and will return to physical therapy everyday again. 

View from my science classroom

Not only am I doing 2 different jobs on board, but now Jeff is too! He is still Finance Director and in charge of all of the budgeting, banking, etc on the ship, but he can now be found in the hospital as well! He has been helping different departments in the hospital be more efficient in how they use data, systems, spreadsheets, and all of that stuff I will never understand! Ha! He has been in more hospital meetings about how many beds are available, tracking patient information, and how we best use the resources we have. It's fun that I will see him in the hallways down in the hospital sometimes now too! 

In other news, the kids are doing well. Now in 9th, 6th and 4th grades (WOW!) and enjoying the small class sizes and fun activities onboard. All of the kids loved the "Hospital Open House" where they could see firsthand what happens in the hospital. 

Once again, thank you for all of the love and support, notes in the mail to say "We miss you!" and texts just asking about our day. We appreciate it all more than we can say. 

J^2, L, S^2

Part 1 – Open Eyes and Listening Ears to Serve

When we arrived back onto the Global Mercy six weeks ago, I (Jeff) already knew the hospital teams were busy. People would say things like, “They’ve got too much,” or “That team is working until 8:00 at night.” I heard those comments last field service too.

But here’s what I didn’t know: why. Why were they staying so late? Why did it feel like the hospital was always underwater? And honestly, even if I did figure out the why, I wasn’t sure if I had anything to offer. After all, I’m the finance guy. My day job was on Deck 8 — spreadsheets, budgets, bank accounts, petty cash. Important, but not exactly what you picture when you think of “bringing hope and healing.” 

Still, if there was a way I could help, I wanted to.

It Started With Excel

So I tried something simple. I put out a message to the crew along the lines of:

The Finance Office is going to be open on Thursdays and Fridays this month to host Excel Office Hours. Stop by if you’ve got Excel questions. We won’t do the work for you, but if your spreadsheet isn’t working the way you want, or you’ve inherited one that is hard to understand, or you’re just stuck — we’ll help you think it through.

Honestly, I figured a handful of people might stop in with random questions. What I didn’t expect was that this would be a doorway into the hospital.

One day, a nursing manager showed up. She told me about a spreadsheet her team used and how it was slowing them down more than it was helping. I said, “Sure, I’d be happy to take a look.”

Now, I already knew her team was slammed. They were leaving late almost every night, trying to juggle too much. I’d also heard from others about some of the challenges they were facing. But this was the first time I was pulled directly into it.

Calling in Reinforcements

I’ll be honest: I’m not the best Excel person on the ship. Not even close. Thankfully, my team includes people who are much, much, much better than I am. So I pulled them in, and together we started working with the nurse manager.

It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t some shiny new cloud system. (By the way, cloud systems don’t always work well here anyway — internet and cell service can be spotty when you’re up country. Offline spreadsheets are often the most reliable tool in West Africa.) It was still Excel. Still rows and columns. Still formulas and cells. But these got the job done.

Small Wins That Weren’t Small

The changes we made don’t sound huge on paper.

• An admin assistant saving about 30 minutes a day on reporting.
• A system that flagged 80+ duplicate entries with one click.
• Restructuring sheets so it was easier to track patients coming in from up‑country.
• Cutting patient transportation planning from one month to one week.

It all sounds pretty nerdy. And, well, it is. But here’s the thing: it mattered.

Those 30 minutes meant one less task at the end of an already long day. Catching errors early meant fewer late‑night scrambles to fix mistakes. Restructuring meant less time trying to piece things together and more time focusing on patients.

And maybe most importantly, it showed the hospital volunteers that a completely different team noticed their struggle — and cared enough to do something about it. 

Why This Matters

If you’ve never been around hospital work on a Mercy Ship, it’s easy to think the mission is only about the big things: surgeries, training local doctors, equipping hospitals. And yes, that’s true. But those big things are built on thousands of small things.

For the hospital team, it’s the small things that pile up: reports, rosters, bed tracking, scheduling. When those processes are slow or messy, the stress builds. When they’re made just a little easier, the difference is felt immediately.

That’s why we’ve come to believe that even something as nerdy as an Excel formula can play a part in “hope and healing.” It frees up time. It lowers stress. It gets people back to what matters most (the patients).

Open Eyes, Listening Ears

I didn’t have a master plan for helping the hospital. I just noticed that people were stretched. I listened when they said, “We’ve got too much.” And then I offered what I had, even though it didn’t feel like much. It started with just one thing, then became another, then another.

Sometimes service looks like someone from Finance sitting with a tired nurse manager, opening a spreadsheet, and asking, “What if we tried this?” It might not look like much, but when you see the relief on their face, or when they realize they can leave work 30 minutes earlier, you understand: it’s not small at all.