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.
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