Sailing!

I cannot believe that it has been almost 2 months since I blogged last! I don't even know where to start. So much has happened! I guess I will start with one of the biggest things: We sailed on the OM ship, The Logos Hope. It is a a ship that is part of the organization we volunteer with called Operation Mobilization. The ship was in Belfast and sailed to Dublin where it stayed for 10 days and then off to the next port. The goal of the ship is to bring the Good News of saving grace of Jesus Christ by bringing knowledge, help and hope to the people of the world. They do this through many ways.

The Logos Hope has the worlds largest floating bookstore which attracts people on board. Imagine living in a country where clean water is scarce and then coming on board a ship that offers almost any type of book you could imagine from gardening, cooking, music, art to Bibles and other Christian related resources. While on board the people can take a tour of the ship, browse through the bookstore, stop at a kids activity center, an art display, cafe with live music at times, and an information booth and people available to speak to you in the cafe to share what OM is doing in their country and also to share the hope that is offered the Christ alone.

The entire crew is made up of volunteers just like us that have to raise their own support, from the captain, to the cooks, to the school teachers for the kids living on the ship, to the people working on deck or hospitality, or mechanics. That alone will get people thinking, "Why would you do this?" which is an open door for sharing why we do what we do.

In addition to the bookstore and tour, there are teams that go into the port before the ship gets there to find out what the needs are of the community where the ship will be porting. Then the teams on board can then prepare whether the needs are medical based, and a medical team can be sent out, social based providing kids clubs as a way to share the Gospel and provide a drug-free, alchohol free place for kids to hang out or many other avenues.

We got to stay a couple of days. Griffin had a blast and knew every part of the ship after the first day). The kids did great sailing. It was okay through most of the night until about 5 am, the ship was rolling very badly front to back and side to side. I thank God Ruthie was in a play pen and both kids were sleeping well. I thought we would all fall out of bed. We were on deck 8 out of 9 so it swayed a lot where we were! Needless to say my stomach did not handle being out at sea. The ship is 145 yards long. The day that we were to come into port in Dublin we had to wait. We were supposed to dock at 10 am and did not do so until ~9pm. Ugh! There was part of a bridge that needed to be pulled into port to add onto what was being built, and the Logos Hope was too big for the bridge to get by so we had to wait for that to go first. At 1 pm we finally put down anchor off the coast and that helped some. When they mentioned they were pulling up anchor I just teared for a short moment. I wanted to kiss the ground when we got there.

A lot of the crew does get sea sick so I had a new appreciation for what they sacrifice in order to fulfill the call God has placed on their lives. People say to us a lot, "How do you do it? How do you pick up and leave all you are familiar with to come to a foreign land?". Now I understand the question more because I am asking, "How do you suffer sea sickness every 2 weeks in order to do what you do?" The only answer is for any of us, obedience to what God has called us to share and do. In all this being said, the Logos Hope is setting sail to the Carribean (a 2 week journey) on July 14th. The crew is very apprehensive about this because it is such a long journey. The ship is a former car carrier that has been transformed into a passenger ship. Therefore it sets higher in the water and rocks more than a normal cruise ship might. The crew is also understaffed and therefore needs prayer for rejuvenation. They need approximately 100 more people. Those are 3 major prayer requests.

I was grateful to catch up with friends I had met through our OM orientation and training. We actually had grits, bacon and eggs and toast with molasses (could not find or make biscuits in time) with a fellow American on the ship. Giving us all a little taste of the south.

While on board in Belfast, the need was voiced for a way to put the Gospel in the hand of everyone that visited the ship. Within 24 hours God used Ludie to put together a tract to hand out. If you only knew how God has changed this man from thinking going to visit people that visited the church was rude to writing a tract in order to share our only Hope, you would be amazed. I know several of you reading this have seen the transformation God has made in his life.

Ludie got to speak to several people on the ship from a man that claimed he was atheist and later in conversation opened up that he was mad at God, and could not imagine how God would let such awful things happen to him. Ludie also shared with a couple that felt they needed to start going to church or get back to God somehow. They were visiting in Dublin and saw the ship. They thought it was a ship museum and came on board. Ludie also got to share with a drug addict and his wife. There is so much more to these stories and even more stories to tell you.

As you can see, lots of exciting things have happened, and more to tell you. I have been long winded so I will stop at that for the night.