A week of very hard news

The Logos Hope is currently in St Lucia for our annual week of rest & spiritual refreshment or Sabbath Week as we call it.
We have been looking forward to this week for a long time - a chance to relax a bit, have some quality Bible teaching and recharge our batteries.
However, it has proved to be a difficult week with 2 pieces of news particularly hitting very hard.
On Tuesday, we heard the news that STL - the largest Christian retailer and distributor in the UK, where I worked for 7 years, was effectively bankrupt and had been put up for sale. A year ago they installed a new computer system that proved to be a disaster and have seen much of their business collapse. The global economic downturn has just made the situation worse and they have now run out of money. We still have a number of good friends who work there.

Then on Wednesday came the news that our sister ship the Doulos, my home for 5 years, will not be able to sail after 31st December this year. The Doulos is in drydock and has been undergoing a special 5 yearly survey to get the certificates required to keep sailing. However the work required to get the certificates has proved way to much and would require some €10m and 6 months of work, so the decision had to be taken to end the ministry of the ship.

This news has profound impact upon us on Logos Hope and we will have to see what it will mean in the coming weeks and months.
We would appreciate your prayers for everyone at STL and on the Doulos at this time, as well as for us in the Logos Hope leadership as we see how to respond.

Here in St Lucia, we have faced challenges this week in getting water, as the town ran dry, but after a couple of days without showers and laundry, we managed to organise regular deliveries by trucks.
We are looking forward to a ship outing to the beach tomorrow, and then on Sunday it is Heather's birthday. We plan to go to climb the Gros Piton - one of the famous peaks here in St Lucia, with our ships family.
Then on Monday we sail to Guyana - our first ever visit to South America, where around 180 of us will be involved in teams onland - more to follow on that.

just a small ship in a big pond

One thing that I have come to realise this past week is that we are just a small ship in God's big ocean. Time and again we have found ourselves in situations where we just have no control over our circumstances or the decisions that other people are making.

Here in Barbados, the Cruise Ships are king and they rule the waves and the port. After them come the container ships, the grain ships and other cargo ships. Then somewhere, a long way down the list, comes Logos Hope.

We may be God's navy but here in Barbados this week, it has been hard to understand why some things have been happening the way they have.

So we spent 8 days at anchor and then the past 2 days moving around different berths, trying to juggle loading water, fuel, book containers, technical container, off load sewage etc.

We still can't get into the berth where the public will be able to come onboard the ship. We have even tried to take books off the ship to sell onshore, but have not been able to do that either.

We are all having to learn lessons about trusting God and what we can and can't do in our own strength.

One good piece of news was that yesterday we were able to come into a berth and get off the ship. This meant many of us were able to take a day off and go to the beach.

We went with our friends, the Muller family, to a bay where we hoped to be able to see turtles.

I was told to look for the tourist boats, who feed the turtles. Sure enough 3 of the came into the bay and there were around 100 people in the water looking for turtles.

We swam out to the boats and soon actually got to see and swim with 3 turtles. It was an amazing experience, despite all the other people around. Sadly Heather and Kara weren't there but for Liam and I it was a great experience.

So now we hope and pray that tomorrow we can load our books, vans and everything else and at some point in the next couple of days be able to go back to the flour mill berth and open to the public. On Monday we sail for St Lucia for a week.

bobbing around off Barbados

This entry is written somewhere off the coast of Barbados. The ship is currently sailing 12 miles out from shore in order to dump all our waste water, sewage and food waste. We will then pick up about 50 tons of salt water to convert into fresh water.
I know you are probably wondering, why on earth are we doing this. So I will tell you.

After arriving in Barbados on Wednesday 28th October, we first went to a commercial berth, where we loaded 3 containers of books and off loaded our ship vans. This berth is in the main cruise terminal port and there is very tight security due to all the cruise ships arriving daily.
We then sailed around to another berth at a flour mill where the public are allowed onboard. However, this is a very small berth where we can only put out a couple of our gangways and are unable to unload vehicles or load the books.
We opened to the public before the weekend and had a great response with a good number of visitors and encouraging book sales.

The flour mill berth is not very well protected from the sea, and on Saturday, a storm somewhere out in the Atlantic started to send larger waves to Barbados and the ship started to really move around in the berth. As the weekend went by, the situation got worse, to the point where the cables attached at the bow and stern became so tight, they damaged the ship with their movement.

Early Monday morning, the captain took the decision that it was not safe to remain at the berth and the ship was taken out to anchor. On Monday, the ship was rolling up to 11 degrees each way while at anchor.

Gradually the weather improved and by Wednesday the seas were calmer, however, a grain ship had arrived and they then proceded into our berth at the flour mill.
This was a situation we had expected, but we didn't think it would happen after we had already spent 3 days at anchor.

The grain ship needs 6 days to unload it's cargo so we are not able to get back into our berth until Wednesday morning. We had hoped to be able to go into one of the other berths in the commercial port over the weekend, but were told there was no space.

So the ship has now been sat at anchor off the coast of this beautiful island for 6 days. We now have to go out to sea to get rid of some stuff that has built up and get more water because we are about to run out.

It is obviously very frustrating when you come to an island for 18 days, hoping to be able to minister to the people and have the bookfair open each day, and then end up at anchor for 9 days.
We just hope and pray there are no further delays in getting in to port.
Thankfully, because the seas are now calmer, we were able to launch a lifeboat today to shuttle people to and from shore, so teams were able to go out and do ministry ashore, as well as some people having their day off.
Sunday we will send teams out to churches on the boats.

On Tuesday, we plan to go back to the commercial berth to load more book containers, water and fuel. Then we expect a very busy last 5 days when we reopen on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, we are trying to make the best of our time out at anchor. Tonight we are having a movie night up on deck - Titanic would you believe?!

Of course being at sea means only the satellite internet connection so no pictures today I'm afraid.

An action packed week in St Lucia

This past week has been full of activity for us as a family and for the ship in St Lucia.
The number of people coming to the ship has actually been lower than we expected but we have still seen lots of great fruit from our visit.



A team from the UK made up of rap and hip hop music artists have visited the ship this week as a result of our time in London. They have been involved in many events onboard and onshore, using their music to connect with the youth of St Lucia.





Friday nights youth event in the Theatre saw a number of them perform alongside local bands to a packed house. It was also exciting to see the theatre fully functioning after all the cameras and video equipment were finally installed in the past few weeks.

The programme was a real challenge to the young people and around 20 made decisions of faith at the end.
On Saturday night the team took to an outside stage on the quayside to perform to the crowds waiting to get on the ship along with other local performers.




We also had an open cafe in our Logos Lounge, inviting those leaving the visitors deck to come and relax in a cafe atmosphere with live music, just like Room 65 at our home church Carrubbers. Over 1100 people came in to the open cafe in 5 hours.

Last week was a school holiday and Heather and the kids had some great days out at the beach. One day they met a family that live on a small yacht and have spent 5 years sailing around the Caribbean. They came and visited the ship on Thursday and had a tour all around, then on Friday afternoon we all went back to the beach to meet up with them and visit their boat.





It is hard to believe that a whole family, and 2 cats, can live on such a small boat for years without any real purpose. We live in a relatively small cabin but have so much space compared to them. Felt a bit sorry for the kids who have no real friends but at least they had good fun with Liam and Kara for a few days.



St Lucia is home to the sailing ship that was used as "The Black Pearl" in the Pirates of the Caribbean films. So it was very exciting to see it close up this week as it sailed around the bay next to the ship and later in the week when we were on the yacht. I had thought we could maybe go for a sail onboard but at $110 per person for the day, it wasn't going to happen.



St Lucia is really a beautiful island. We have seen some of it in the 11 days we have been here, but it is great that we are coming back in a few weeks to have the ship's Sabbath week down at the south of the island.