On Sunday we had a brunch and final service onboard with the Chief Executive of OM Ships, Bernd Gulker, joining us for the memorable occasion.
The final weekend we were open to the public was a bit crazy with nearly 20000 visitors coming Friday to Monday, despite lots of rain.
The final weekend we were open to the public was a bit crazy with nearly 20000 visitors coming Friday to Monday, despite lots of rain.
The bookfair was very short of books by the end. It was great to see so many books going out - over 220,000 in this port! This has been a record port in terms of book sales even though the visit was a week shorter than the last.
We all worked long and hard to ensure that we had as many books as possible up on deck for the final days. But by the end it all looked pretty bare.
The "Deal Bag Room" 10 days ago
and on Saturday night!
Then Monday night, it was all over. The last visitor left and the packing up had to begin.
On Tuesday we packed up all the books from the shelves and tables in the bookfair as well as the remaining books in the hold.
We also unloaded many pallets of stores such as cleaning materials and food, deck equipment, spare tools and engine parts etc. We filled 1 x 40ft container with books and 1 x 40ft container with other items. Much of the day was spent trying to keep things dry between the heavy showers.
After a long hot shower and a good meal, I almost felt normal again. Tuesday night is movie night here with the local cinema offering 2 films for the equivalent of a Euro so the book ex team all headed off to the pictures.
Wednesday we spent a lot of the day getting many more of the items we wanted to keep for Logos Hope off the ship as well as the rest of the books and making up pallets. By the end of the day, all the books were on the quayside and another 40ft container was loaded, heading for Denmark.
Last night I took out the small team of ladies who have been doing all the work in the finance office here, a challenging job with so much book sales every day. We went to a lovely restaurant on the 8th floor of a hotel. We had some amazing Oriental food and enjoyed the sunset.
It has been great to have a group of young Americans helping us this week who are over in Trinidad on a missions trip. These 16 youngsters have made a big difference and almost doubled the size of the team doing all this hard work.
Today we had to get all the wooden book cabinets off the ship to send to our offices in the States. I also had to sort out all the computers and pack up the ones we are sending to Logos Hope and try and do back ups on some of the others.
By 4pm, most of us were wiped out and we just have a few pallets left to go in one final container tomorrow.
With so much weight being taken off the ship the last few days, we were bobbing around like a cork today as the sea was quite choppy.
So now it is a case of sorting out the paperwork and doing a few final jobs then having a relaxing weekend (hopefully) before flying back on Monday.
Today we heard that the group in Cyprus who were interested in buying the ship have pulled out so now we think it likely the ship will be scrapped. Ideally it would be good if someone bought it "as is, where is" so we can just hand it over here and walk away.
I was just reflecting today how different we as a family would probably feel about our ship experience if we had spent the last year in ports like this, seeing large numbers of people coming to the ship and experiencing all the ministry that the ship can do. The work we are doing on Logos Hope is very important, but it is nothing like this. I am very glad I came and had this opportunity to be involved, be part of Logos 2 ministry for the first and last time in my life and make some new friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment