By Dorothy Foster
Correspondent
CLEVELAND, Tenn. — For the first 11 years of her life, Larissa Curtis never lived in a house.
Her home was a series of ships. Her parents work for Mercy Ships, a Christian organization whose hospital vessels travel the world providing medical care for people with the areas of eye and dental, leprosy, burns, prosthetics and cleft palates.
Miss Curtis, a senior at Lee University, remembers how the locals welcomed the healers when the ships docked.
People lined the streets, waving excitedly, ecstatic to be receiving care, Miss Curtis said.
In port, the health workers set up surgical stations aboard ship, separating the various medical care areas with tent canvas.
When she was old enough, Miss Curtis said, she helped by testing people’s vision.
“It was amazing to see these people so grateful at receiving their glasses, even if they were secondhand, used ones,” she said, “even if they were second-hand, used ones.”
Some of her most vivid memories are from Central American nations.
“I was astonished at the houses that didn’t look like houses, and the skinny dogs,” she said. In Nicaragua she experienced her first ride in the back of a truck and her first taste of lobster. In Guatemala she received a dress and an identically attired doll.
Along with the other children on the Mercy Ships, she performed as King’s Kids, doing skits and puppet shows in various countries.
In all those years, she never conquered seasickness.
“It would often get so bad, my mother would have to get a car when we reached port and drive me to the next one,” she said.
Despite this complication, Miss Curtis loved being aboard these ships. And she loved helping others.
Upon graduation from Lee, Miss Curtis will move to New Zealand, where she was born and where she holds dual citizenship.
She’ll spend six months studying with Youth With a Mission, a Christian missionary group. According to its Web site, YWAM has nearly 16,000 missionaries in 150 countries.
Miss Curtis isn’t sure where she’ll be sent for mission work, but she says it doesn’t matter.
She’ll be on dry land.