Name: Keith Robert Brinkman
Local African Names: Kofi (male child born on Friday) in Ghana; Kofa, Jah, & Sahr in Liberia; Sahr (firstborn son in the Kono tribe) Keith in Sierra Leone; Keita in Guinea and Senegal; Lahimatoa (firstborn son) in Madagascar, and sometimes Robert in the French-speaking nations.
In Spanish-speaking countries, I often use my middle name and add an ‘o’ to it ‘Roberto’ as the ‘th’ in Keith is hard to pronounce.
Birthday: September 16
Marital Status: Single
Organization: Mercy Ships
Brochure: Celebrating 30 Years of Service 2019
Mercy Ships was birthed in Youth With A Mission (YWAM), and when I joined in 1989, we were all one large organization. Yet today Mercy Ships is a separate organization.
From 1989 to 1994, I served as an accountant at the US National Office – also known as the Port Office, Home Office, International Office, and now International Operations Center. While there, I traveled and served a short time both on the Anastasis and Good Samaritan. From 1994 – 2005, I served as the financial officer and part of the senior management team on the Caribbean Mercy in which I was responsible for the financial affairs and a department of five crew members – serving primarily in Central America and the Caribbean. With the decision to no longer use the Caribbean Mercy in 2005 after 11 years, I transferred to the International Operations Center in Texas. While there, I served on our Strategic Planning Team and on the Disaster Response Team with Mercy Teams for those along the Gulf in 2005 and 2006. Since 2006, I have been serving in Africa, the first year on the Anastasis and then on the Africa Mercy when she came to Africa in 2007 in Monrovia, Liberia. My role is as Programs Administration Manager in the Executive Department – responsible to the managing director for programs – hospital, medical capacity building/training, capacity building support programs projects, mercy ministries, advance, assessment, and evaluation – primarily with our project plans, budgets, actual expenses, travel, metrics/statistics, reports, liaison for the Advance Team and other responsibilities. In late 2019, I applied to serve on the International Programs team based at the International Support Center in Texas where I started back in 1989. I served as the Programs Quality Assurance Manager – primarily with our statistical reporting and narrative reports – to be centralized with International Programs as we plan to have both the Africa Mercy and the Global Mercy serving in Africa. In October 2020, I applied for and was accepted to be the Mercy Ships Country Director for Liberia. I served in Liberia for 33 months, and then because no ship deployment was happening in Liberia for the time being and Mercy Ships focusing on countries where the ships will visit, we closed down Mercy Ships Liberia. I continue to serve full-time with Mercy Ships – Africa Service Center on Country Engagement Teams, currently in the role of Port Liaison and assigned to Madagascar in August 2023. The Africa Mercy will arrive in Toamasina, Madagascar early 2024.
I continue to have a desire to serve and be a part of bringing hope and healing.
Global Mercy Fact Sheet