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Gary Parker

Gary recently wrote a letter to a former Post 90 buddy from Pacific Palisades who was kind enough to share it with me [Peter].

I removed the personal parts that related to the two old friends and kept the bits where Gary talks about his family and his work.

Check out this page for a streaming video of the fine work Gary is involved in with Mercy Ships is west Africa.

Gary and Susan Parker

[NOTE: this photo is several years old]

Susan and I have been married for 15 years now, and have two children. Carys, our daughter is 11, and Wesley, our son is 8. I met Susan on the ship [Mercy Ships] on which I have lived and worked for the past 20 years, and it has been the only home our children have known. I am so glad to have Susan as my partner for life, and for my kids. We have the normal challenges and trials that life brings, but it is a rich and wonderful life together.

After finishing my surgical training at UCLA, I spent 5 years in North Wales, UK, working in the national socialized medical service. I then spent the next twenty working on board the M/V Anastasis, part of Mercy Ships. Most of these years have been spent in the nations of West Africa, with the most recent five years or so being focused on war torn Sierra Leone and Liberia. We are just starting to figure out how to do a web site, and thus far only have a couple of links attached to it. Hope to do better, but here is the address: doingmercy.com

My folks are in their late 80's, and have moved from the Palisades to a retirement community in Santa Barbara. They are frail, but firing on all cylinders mentally, which is wonderful.

I don't know when the last time you have been in the Palisades, but to me, it is a very different place than where I remember...growing up. It always was a well-off community, but still was a fairly normal community. Now, unless you somehow inherited a house, you have to be people of considerable means to buy into the community. Or, perhaps it is just the reverse culture shock I always seem to go through when I come "home" from my life in the world's poorest nations.

All the best,

Gary