This weekend we have opened the ship to say thank you to the people of Kiel with our Hopefest.
The main visitor deck (4) is being opened up for the first time to host a whole range of different country and ship department displays.
Most of the ships community have worked long into the night the past few days preparing to show what our countries are like. Having a competition for the best stand has certainly got the creative juices flowing.
The Brits actually built a full size red telephone box and a highland cow which provided our game - throwing bean bags through holes in the cow with a prize of a scone with jam and cream.
The kids really enjoyed getting involved as well. Liam deserted his Scottish roots to help the Caribbean stand - dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow.
As well as all the different displays, there was a regular program of drama's, dances, songs and
even magic.
Then this evening we had a mini international night event. It had been planned for the quayside but due to rain - our first in 4 weeks - we moved it inside and also held it on deck 4.
For all the ship's community, this has been a great opportunity to pour their energy into an event which is the reason that most of us came to the ship. To have hundreds of people coming onboard to hear the good news of Jesus.
To see all the photo's from Hopefest - check out http://picasaweb.google.com/stehevpackwood/HopefestComesToKiel
Tomorrow afternoon we open the doors again for 3 hours when we hope many more will come onboard for another round of the hopefest.
The rain today came as a bit of a surprise after so much good weather recently. Heather always gives me stick about talking about the weather, but it does have a big effect on so much that we do.
Last week, we enjoyed a long weekend as the German's celebrated Pentecost with a Monday holiday. We had great weather and had some time on the beach on Saturday, followed by a bbq at local German friends house. Then we rushed back to get onboard the ship for another quick evening sailup the river back to our old berth.
The German's like their festivals and over the holiday weekend, they held a big festival along the waterfront near the ship. So on Monday, we spent many hours there, enjoying all the different stalls, displays and games, as well as handing out hundreds of flyers for Hopefest.
This week it was also great to have some visitors from Edinburgh and Scotland. The chairman of the organising committee for our visit to Edinburgh, Peter Grainger - pastor of Charlotte Chapel, one of his assistant pastors, and the Scottish OM rep, Sharon Rose, all came out for a 2 day visit. This gave them a chance to learn more about the ship and find out about our vision for the Edinburgh visit.
This coming week is our last full week before returning to Edinburgh and the ship going into drydock. We are all excited to be coming home but there is a lot of work needs doing onboard before we leave.
