Travelling again

After a number of weeks based at home, it's time to travel again.

Tomorrow morning I head off to the USA for 9 days to take part in OM Ships annual donor weekend. This is in North Carolina at Billy Graham's retreat centre called The Cove.

Every year OM Ships invite people who support the ship ministry and are excited about it to come together and get an update on what is happening and hear about the needs of the ministry.

So we are expecting 200 supporters to come together next weekend. I will be involved in helping to take care of the donors as part of a team called the Gold Team. I even get to host a group for a round of golf next Saturday. Now that will be fun!

So I leave Heather and the kids behind for 9 days and then 3 days after I get back, I am down to London to speak at a church in Bedford 2 weeks today.

The last few weeks have been busy with lots going on for us as a family. Liam is still playing football and they are both doing athletics. this week they started swimming again. Heather is doing lots of running as she trains for the Edinburgh Marathon and the dog always needs walking.

I will try and update our blog more regularly, i know it has fallen behind of late.

incredible changes in Middle East

Before Christmas I had the privilege of visiting Logos Hope in Beirut, Lebanon. The team and I had a fantastic time in that country and everything seemed calm and peaceful there as it was across the Middle East. A few weeks later, the wave of revolution that has spread across the region began in Tunisia. It went largely unnoticed that the government in Lebanon fell just a few weeks later.

Before the Logos Hope visited Lebanon, the ship had been in Egypt - where tens of thousands of Egyptians had visited the ship. Just a few months later, the president fell to a people's revolution.

In the weeks before going to Egypt, Logos Hope had been in Libya.

It is staggering to think that this country where over 100,000 Libyan's had visited the ship in Tripoli, Benghazi and another port, is now undergoing a bloody revolution.

Logos Hope is currently in Qatar and was due to go to Bahrain this week but has had to cancel that visit due to the unrest in that country.

I have been wondering what God's purpose was for having the ship in these countries and this region at this incredible time. I believe that maybe God was preparing His people in these countries for what was to come and challenging all who came to the ship to consider their futures.

A good friend of mine who had worked for me for 2 years onboard the Logos Hope was in Tripoli until yesterday. She had been working there as an English teacher and had a real heart for the Libyan people. Last week she was in contact every day giving dramatic accounts of what was taking place right outside her window in Tripoli.

At first she was determined to stay in the country, despite the dangers, because she didn't want her Libyan friends to think she was abandoning them. But eventually it became too dangerous and her friends, as well as her governments embassy, told her to leave.

She is broken hearted at having to leave the country and hopes she will be able to return soon.

It is a great reminder of the impact the ship can have on people's lives, both in the countries we visit and those who are part of the crew.

where is this year going?

I know. It's been over a month since I updated this blog. While we were on the ship I was quite good at updating it every week. Now I suddenly find that Christmas and New Year has been and gone, the thick snow that we thought would be hear all winter has disappeared and the end of January is already just around the corner. Woosh - just like that, my favourite time of year has been and gone.



















We had a fantastic Christmas holiday season, in our own home for the first time in 4 years.
Having snow just added to the excitement - I took the kids sledging on Christmas Eve.
My parents came up and joined us for Kara's birthday on the 22nd December, through to 27th. On Christmas Day itself, Heather's parents were here for the day as well. I love cooking the Christmas dinner and tried to make it extra special with a number of different recipes that I had discovered for this year.



















We also had several parties both before and after Christmas, another thing we have missed during our time away.
What a thrill also to have Kara singing solo in the Christmas morning service at church as well as both of them involved in several Christmas plays at school and church. Liam also sang in his school choir at the Edinburgh Usher Hall recently.
Being able to take quality time with the family for 2 whole weeks was a real blessing and after a lot of travelling in the few months up to Christmas, my constant presence was much appreciated by Heather and the kids.
It may have had a negative effect in some ways, because when I went away for a few days on my first full week back at work, Liam got quite upset at me not being there. I continue to try and find the ballance between time at home and time away. Liam is going through a difficult stage of life as he turns 11 and tackles issues such as swearing, anger, friendships and wanting the latest gadgets that his friends have.

So now we are looking ahead to a new year which is already shaping up to be a very busy one for us all. We really do need to book a holiday!

Christmas and Beirut

This is already the last post of the year - hard to believe how quickly time has gone the past few weeks.
My trip to Beirut seemed like a blink. The team arrived in Beirut on a Thursday night, with just one hiccup - a 30 min delay at immigration while our only American team member waited to be allowed in the country.
























It was a fantastic sight to see the ship again and was so great to be welcomed by many old friends onboard. Unfortunately, our visit co-incided with one of the worst storms to hit Beirut for a long time and an end to the recent run of hot dry weather. We had almost non stop rain from Friday afternoon to Monday afternoon. This dramatically reduced the number of visitors coming on board and meant we probably didn't see Beirut in the best light. However, the team were still very encouraged by their experiences both on and off the ship.








































Highlights included 4 of the team going to a local hospital to be a blessing to children through a programme that included stories, baloons and making origami animals, all the team getting to go out to different churches on Sunday with Logos Hope teams, and a number of us visiting a work among the ostracised Turkman children in a suburb of the city where a young American guy regularly feeds the street children.



















The visit to Beirut gave me the chance to catch up with a number of old friends as well as lead the team and help them understand more about the ministry of Logos Hope, but it was too short a time to really get together with many of those that I would like to have met up with.

Once home, there has been yet more disruption from the snow, but that is finally going and we have had a slow thaw since Christmas day. Thankfully despite heavy snow falling in my parents town last weekend, they were still able to come up to Edinburgh in time for Kara's birthday and to join us for Christmas.
We had a great weekend, with services at our church on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Both sets of parents were at our home for their Christmas dinner and we all had a wonderful time. It was so good to be back in our own home for Christmas and able to cook what I wanted to cook for dinner.
Heather and I both have a good break over the Christmas holiday and are able to spend quality time together as a family.

The Logos Hope has now left Lebanon and is heading through the Suez canal and on it's way out to the Gulf region.