pastor de dutchie

You might not even remember the song - "Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side" but I always think of it when I am in the Netherlands.

We are not in Holland but Friesland which is part of the Netherlands but not part of Holland. Almost as complicated as working out the United Kingdom.

Harlingen is a beautiful little fishing town with canels through the middle and big 3 mast fishing boats moored alongside the shops.

This week we have enjoyed our first full week in a ministry port. It was great to have one of the pastors from our church, David Anderson, come out and visit the ship. He spoke a few times and had a great opportunity to see the ship in action. It is always a joy to have friends visit and experience our life on board.

In the past week we have had around 3500 visitors and today, Saturday, another 1000.

We are told by OM here in the Netherlands that 80% of the Dutch visitors will come in the next port so we expect it to be busy. We are finding that there are still many things that we need to work through and get right. This week we have seen our International Cafe and the Tours being very busy but other areas of the deck quite quiet.

On Thursday, OM's founder, George Verwer came for a couple of days and it is always encouraging to hear him speak. Although he is now 70, he is still full of passion and enthusiasm for life and the ships. He came to speak at a special Thank You dinner held Friday night for many Dutch partners to say thank you for their generous gifts to the Logos Hope project. The Netherlands has given more money per capita to Logos Hope than any other country.

We hosted a table and as often happens, God gave us people we could connect to - a young couple who were a nurse and an ambulance driver. They really enjoyed a late night tour of the clinic.

Our excitement continues to build about sailing to Edinburgh. On Tuesday we sail to our second Dutch port, our last port before Edinburgh. Today we recorded a short video clip to be shown to the local organising committee this week. For all of you who are in Scotland, make sure you get down to the ship sometime between 2 - 13th April.