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Hopper Family
The Hopper Family is in the midst of preparations to begin a year-long missions commitment in January. They are wrapping up their jobs, selling their home, and working on, I would guess, a zillion other things that have to be done before they go.
3 comments:
Update on the Hoppers:
Dear Friends and Family,
After a great deal of prayer, we have
made a commitment to serve with
Mercy Ships for the next two years
beginning on October 24, 2008.
Woody will serve as an Optometrist and
Robin as the Personal Assistant to the
Public Relations Director.
Mercy Ships operates the largest non-governmental hospital ship--delivering Hope and Healing to the World's forgotten poor, through a variety of surgical procedures, delivered on board their state of the art hospital ship. The Africa Mercy is the length of nearly two football fields. She has six state of the art operating theaters on board, and is currently deployed in Monrovia, Liberia. More than 7,000 surgeries a year are performed aboard the Africa Mercy.
We are writing you today to invite you to become a partner in our journey to serve with Mercy Ships to reach those in need of physical and spiritual healing. In order to serve the people of West Africa, we have many needs.
First and foremost, we need prayer partners. We truly believe prayer is the fuel that will drive our ministry with Mercy Ships. If you are willing to make a commitment to pray for our needs during our travels, please email Vicky.Warren@missioncalled.org.
Next, we need eMail news and eMail letters from home to keep us current on happenings within our community of family and friends. Our email address is TheHoppers@MissionCalled.org. Also, at times we may have a need for the shipment of physical goods which we will keep current in our newsletter. If you are interested in receiving our Newsletters, please eMail Vicky.Warren@MissionCalled.org with your contact information.
Finally, we must raise 100% of our financial support. Our budget is $20,000 annually or approximately $1700 monthly. A breakdown of our budget can be seen by clicking on our Blog If you feel called to make a financial contribution to this ministry, please click on this link Mercy Ships and it will take you to our donation page. Please denote all donations to Woody and Robin Hopper.
We are excited to see what God has planned for us and with this excitement comes some fear. Your prayers are needed as we put our house on the market, pack our house up, say goodbye to family and friends, and complete our fundraising. We are certain God has called us to this work and trust He will provide for all our needs. Although you each will be missed, you will be close to our hearts and in our prayers during our travels.
May God Bless You Abundantly,
Woody and Robin Hopper
Wonderful article in the AVPress about the Hoppers this week.
Giving back, from Lancaster to Liberia
Valley doctor volunteers on hospital ship
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Saturday, November 8, 2008.
By JAMES RUFUS KOREN
Valley Press Staff Writer
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LANCASTER - In August 2003, optometrist Woodrow "Woody" Hopper got sober and started a journey that has landed him and his wife aboard a hospital ship off the west coast of Africa.
The Hoppers, Woody and Robin, left Lancaster in late October, bound for Monrovia, Liberia. For the past few weeks, they've been working aboard the Africa Mercy, a 500-foot hospital ship that provides free medical care.
"We want to be involved in giving of ourselves to the world's physical, spiritual and emotional needs," Woody Hopper wrote in a letter to a local Kiwanis group. "The needs are great and we have been asked to go and get involved in the solution."
When he started his sobriety, Hopper said he turned his attention to God and to his family.
He and Robin became active in Desert Winds Community Church and soon were doing charity and relief work in Louisiana, Texas, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Mexico, Panama and El Salvador.
Last summer, the Hoppers attended an introductory course about Mercy Ships, a Texas-based nonprofit organization that operates a fleet of hospital ships. Mercy Ships focus on four main health care concerns: dental care; blindness caused by cataracts; reconstructive surgery for cleft palates, burn victims and those with deforming tumors; and obstetric fistula, a childbirth-caused injury that makes women incontinent.
"We did not complete our paperwork and get accepted to Mercy Ships until February 2008," the Hoppers wrote in an e-mail to the Antelope Valley Press. "Original plans were to start with Mercy Ships in January 2009, but our start date was changed to October 2008. … This made our preparation time speed up quite a bit. We were off to our one-month training course, called Gateway, in Texas as of Sept. 19 … and left for Liberia on Oct. 23 …"
The Hoppers gave away their vehicles, put most of their belongings into storage and found someone to live in their Lancaster home.
They're now living in a 240-square-foot cabin aboard the Africa Mercy.
"We have a small Starbucks Cafe, general store, Internet cafe, library, snack bar, laundry facilities, large dining room, private school for volunteers' children," the Hoppers wrote. "Our cabin … is very comfortable.
"It has Internet connection in our room with a small desk, couch, closets and very nice storage space."
Woody Hopper's duties take him off the ship most days, while Robin Hopper works on board.
"Woody is working with the eye team out in the field," the Hoppers wrote in an e-mail to the Valley Press. "The team visits clinics in the villages and provides eye screenings" for possible cataracts surgery.
Robin Hopper, meanwhile, works in the ship's reception area and eventually will work for the ship's public relations department.
The Africa Mercy is stationed in Liberia for now, but will also take the Hoppers to Benin and Guinea, also on Africa's Atlantic coast.
"Our leaving to meet the Africa Mercy will be, on one hand, the culmination of a 5-year process," Woody Hopper wrote in his letter to the Kiwanis, "and on the other hand, the beginning of a full-time adventure serving the world's forgotten poor."
jkoren@avpress.com
© 2008 Antelope Valley Press, Palmdale, California (661) 273-2700
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