What does Brian do at Mercy Ships?

Since 1994, I have been volunteering with Mercy Ships as a teacher and school administrator. We have 24 families that live on our current ship, the Africa Mercy, and we will have another 28 families on are new ship, the Global Mercy (launching soon). With all those families, we need a school for the possible 180 Nursery to Grade 12 students.

I started my service with Mercy Ships in 1994 as an Elementary school teacher. I had 6 students for my first class and it was a great experience. I am still in contact with many other those first students.

After several years of teaching, I was asked to be the school principal and after much convincing, I said yes and was able to fill that role for two years before taking a two year break from the ships to work on my masters degree in Education at Wheaton College. When we returned to the ship after my time at Wheaton, I become the Assistant Principal and then eventually the Principal again, before being asked to come to the Mercy Ships headquarters in Texas to pursue school accreditation.

While in Texas, we adopted Addison and Alyssa, completed the school accreditation process and also became the School Director. In 2017, Warrie was asked to be the Managing Director of the Africa Mercy. I served as Principal for one year and then the Administrative Assistant for two years.

In June of 2020, we return to Texas and I started a new role in the school as the Data and Systems Manager.

As I have done many roles within our ship school, I often joke that I am trying to do all the different jobs If I can teacher Nursery and Preschool, then I might succeed!

I only signed up for one year, but it was be so fulfilling that I have stayed for 25+ years. If you are interested in teaching or serving as a family on one of our ships, please contact my at brian.blackburn@mercyships.org or visit our new school website at academy.mercyships.org