So that was Christmas

Christmas has been and gone on Logos Hope.

It is somewhat shorter than what we are used to. The Christmas holiday starts at 3pm on Christmas Eve and finishes at the end of Christmas Day. Most people were working on Boxing Day.

Of course, for those of us who come from countries and cultures where we normally have at least 4 days at Christmas, and often a week to 10 days off work, it is a bit of a shock.

Still we made the best of it and tried to enjoy Christmas as best we could.

One of our recent family traditions over the past few years has been to watch the film "Polar Express" on Christmas Eve. So we showed the film in our theatre in the afternoon but Heather had to help set up for Dinner so missed it.

The main Christmas meal was on Christmas Eve. The leaders all serve, so I had a rushed dinner along with a group of 15 others, and then we served the whole community while they enjoyed a Salmon starter, turkey and mashed potato for main course and a kind of mouse cake for desert.

Then we had a carol service followed by some refreshments.

On Christmas morning, the children slept in later than we expected - it was after 8.30 when they came through to open their presents. We had been concerned that this year we would not have

much for them, but we were so happy when they got very excited about their presents and Liam declared that this year his presents were even better than last year.

On Logos Hope, one of the highlights of Christmas Day is the Brunch - a feast of breakfast delights served most of the morning and a great way to start the day.

At noon we had our Christmas Day service which was very special as the children performed their Nativity play with Liam as a wise man and Kara as a sheep. They both did very well.

Then the highlight of Christmas Day for me was Liam singing solo the first verse of the carol "Once in Royal David's City" At the same age, I had given the same performance for my schools carol service in Peterborough Cathedral some 35 years ago. As you can see below, Liam was brilliant.

With all our family at home enjoying a white Christmas and telling us all about the snow, we had to go swimming in the sea on Christmas Day. So we all swam round to the bow and got a picture to remember this very unusual Christmas.

Curacao is a beautiful island and we have been blessed with an incredible berth where we can swim and snorkel right off the quayside. The crystal clear waters are like an aquarium full of exotic tropical fish just metres away from the ship. What a fantastic place to spend Christmas and New Year.

Happy Christmas

So it's Christmas Eve at last. Here we are in Curacao in a beautiful berth with crystal clear Caribbean waters around us where we can swim and snorkel right off the quayside.
Yet everyday we get messages from home about the white Christmas in Scotland and we wish we were at home. Our first Christmas away from home and we miss all the snow.
So we are making the best of it.
We had a Brits Christmas party last night with 26 people in our cabin, mince pies and games, finally watching some Wallace and Grommit to finish the evening.
We have our main Christmas meal this evening, after watching Polar Express in the Theatre. I am introducing one of our Christmas traditions to the ships company. This evening we have a carol service.
Tomorrow we have a huge brunch then a church service before open cabins and in the evening a BBQ up on deck. I am sure we will fit in a festive swim at some point.

So we wish you all a fantastic Christmas time and a great New Year. We will be in touch again soon.

We love Guyana

I am writing at sea as we sail from Guyana to Curacao where we will be for Christmas. Looking back over the past couple of weeks in Guyana, we as a family have had an amazing time and have really enjoyed our visit to this incredible South American country.

Heather spent a week on a team that ran a medical and dental clinic each day on the other side of Georgetown, the capital. The team slept onboard the ship but went out each day and provided the dental treatment and health check-ups but also prayed with every patient and ministered to all those that came.




Because of her experience with the first team, Heather joined the second medical/dental team that went to a town an hours drive away, to help set everything up. On Sunday,she took Liam and Kara along as well for the experience.






They loved meeting all the children there and had a great time while Heather worked - again providing medical and dental treatment to those that came to the outreach - located at a YWAM base in Parika. They only stayed one night because the kids got virtually no sleep due to all the noises over night - dogs, cockerels etc.



On Wednesday, Heather went back to Parika with Liam for another day and in the evening, they both went on a crocodile hunt! This may sound like a fairly dangerous activity - going up the river in a small boat, looking for crocodiles, but actually the ones in the large rivers are very small and can even be picked up when caught.



While Heather and the kids were in Parika, I headed off for my own "challenge team."
10 of us went 50 miles up the river Essequibo from Parika to a small place called Goshen, a collection of houses set between the jungle and the river with no roads or cars. We stayed in the Goshen Baptist church working with Pastor Singh. Over the week we completely decorated the inside of the church building and replaced the roof on another building. We spent the first day just building the scaffolding to get up to the rafters, using all sorts of bits of wood.






Every afternoon, the local youngsters came and played football on the playing field behind the church and basketball in front. Some of us joined in with the games. Every night we put on a programme for the kids from 7 - 9pm. As the week went by the numbers grew from around 20 to over 65 kids and teenagers. Later in the week we split them up between the younger children and the teenagers so we could communicate more on their levels.






On Friday we got a day off the practical work and went on a guided hike through the jungle which was amazing. It was incredible to go swimming in the creeks and get a boat ride through the narrow creeks where we had to duck under branches as we passed.



Saturday we went to another church building up the river that was planted by Pastor Singh a few years ago.

There we worked with a good number of the Goshen church members to paint the building inside and out. Seems like a great idea for a Sunday School Outing - paint your church!!



Looking back over the week, it was amazing how we were able to connect with so many of the kids and young people, mainly Amerindians. We also were greatly blessed by the fellowship and hospitality of the church members.
Washing in the river, being woken by a cockerel or the screeching of parrots, having snakes,frogs and tarantulas share our living area, travelling everywhere by boat - what a memorable experience.

Overall, Guayana was very different from what we expected. 180 of the crew went out on 21 teams and everyone was greatly encouraged by their experiences.

So now it is just a week to Christmas. As the UK has it's first snow of the winter, we are heading to a little bay where we will be able to swim off the quayside. What a contrast to last Christmas.
I will try and get in another blog before Christmas but in case I don't I wish you all a very happy Christmas.

Guyana, South America

Guyana was always going to be different. For Heather and I, this is our first time in South America, and for Logos Hope, this is our first experience of a 3rd world country.

As we sailed up the dirty brown river that runs past the capital, Georgetown, we could see that there were many deprived areas very close to where we would be berthed.

Having been in India, Africa and many other poor countries, we are no strangers to poverty. I have been surprised that although Georgetown is dirty and has some very poor areas, overall it is not nearly as bad as we expected. The People are very friendly and most of those coming to the ship appear to be well educated and well dressed.

We had expected big crowds here based on previous visits, but it appears that being berthed out of town has significantly cut back the number of people coming to the ship. To try and encourage people to come, I put up some big banners out at the port gate and on the main road past the port.

Another special thing about Guyana is that we are sending out lots of teams into the country to work with local churches and organisations. Many of these are "help" teams - bringing practical help to the people. Heather has spent the past 4 days going out on a medical / dental team each day, bringing care and assistance to those who struggle to get good medical or dental care. They also have shared the gospel with those that come.

On Monday morning, I leave for a week's team 100km inland, up the Essequibo river. We will help with building extensions on 2 churches during the day time and have youth meetings in the evenings. Heather is also looking into the possibility of going out on another medical team next week as there is a need for someone who has already had experience in setting up a clinic.

My calendar says that it is only 3 weeks to Christmas but it is really difficult to get your head round that if you are used to the cold and dark of a Scottish winter with lights and decorations everywhere and the frantic shopping, parties, dinners and carol services. Life is very different here both on the ship and in Guyana. We are trying hard to embrace Christmas with decorations and lights in our cabin and Christmas music playing, but it just isn't working yet.

Heather's birthday

Welcome to our 150th Blog post - another milestone.

Sunday was Heather's birthday and we wanted to do something different to celebrate. Last year we were in Denmark and we spent the day at Tivoli World's Christmas festival in Copenhagen with snow on the ground and freezing cold. Obviously this year would be very different.














St Lucia is famous for its Pitons, twin peaks that rise majestically out of the sea. So along with our ship family and a group of others we drove to climb the Gros Piton. As well as Heather, one of our ship sons, Rob, celebrates his birthday on the same day. Although both the Gros Piton and Petit Piton are similar heights, Gros Piton is much larger and more accessible.


















It was a challenging climb in the heat, despite being shaded by trees the whole way up. Unlike Scottish or Welsh mountains where the path snakes its way up a gradual incline, the second half of this trail was nearly straight up.























We had several guides, that we are required to take to show us the way. After 1 hour and 40 mins, we reached the first summit. Liam and Kara were about the first ones up, despite the concerns some had about whether they would even make it. After 10mins enjoying the view and some lunch, we headed through what can only be described as jungle, on the top of the Piton, to the other look out point with its amazing view of the Petit Piton.





































The climb down was as hard as the way up as it was slippy and very uneven. Several of our group sustained twisted ankles. Kara got very tired part way down and one of our guides actually put Kara on her back and ran down the rest of the way with her. These guides are incredible, doing this climb several times a day - one of them had done it over 2000 times.






















After the climb, we drove down the hill in between the 2 Pitons to one of the most incredible beach locations in the world. There is a hotel there which must rank as having some of the best views on earth. We were able to spend a few hours there, soaking our weary limbs in the sea and enjoying a nice drink before heading back to the ship. It was dark by the time we left and the drive back out on pitch black, windy roads up very steep gradients was not something I would want to do very often.


















Early the next morning, we left St Lucia at the end of our Sabbath week and headed for Guyana. We had a fairly bumpy 2 day voyage before arriving here in our first ever South American port.
We'll tell you about Guyana very soon.

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.

St Lucia - time to take a breath

After the crazy business of Trinidad, it has been good to catch our breath this week.
We sailed from Port of Spain on Wednesday afternoon, and after sitting at anchor for a few hours to take on fuel, got underway for St Lucia.

On Thursday, we were at sea during the daytime for the first time since we crossed the Atlantic and enjoyed fantastic weather and dolphins. We passed St Vincent around lunchtime and within a couple of hours could already see the mountains of St Lucia. It is a very beautiful island and the berth is probably the nicest we have visited so far in the Caribbean.

The visit has started off quite slowly, with less visitors than we are used to this first weekend, but we expect it to get much busier in the coming days.
It is sad that we have not been joined here by our good friend Mark Knight, who had always planned to visit in St Lucia but continues to mourn the loss of his 18 year old son Mike. Please pray for Mark and Kathy and the rest of the family as these are difficult days for them. Read Mark's blog at http://www.mkknight.com/

The kids are loving the bigger cabin and often have their friends in to play now. It is great to see how much fun they all have in the bigger room.