“You have to be FAT –Flexible, Available, Teachable”
My first impression of the Logos Hope is of the size – not so much of the ship itself (though it is a pretty good sized vessel), but of the vision, the ministry, and the hand of God on the crew.
Since we have been working at the OM USA office, I have gotten used to the idea of working full time at a place where God is the center of everything we do. People there aren't perfect, and things don't always go smoothly, but there is an intentional effort to see God working in us and through us. Prayer is serious business, and miracles are something you come to expect on a regular basis.
On the ships though, everything is even more compressed, shaken together, with the fluff squeezed out. People are still people, and it doesn't take long to see the little signs that everyone there is still God's “work in progress”, but there is no doubt that this ministry exists based on the power of God.
Of course, there are still plenty of practical things to do! There's this huge ship to keep running, and floors to vacuum, and a crew of between 350 and 400 to feed and clean up for, and books to sell, and there's still a never ending battle against the corrosive effects of salt and water on wood and steel.
We arrived on Friday afternoon, with enough time to settle in to the cabins where we were staying, get some organizational details and to get a tour around the ship. When you get there, the ship feels like a maze of twisty passages, all looking the same, but after a few days, you start to get a feel for how to get from one place to another. One of the first hurdles was the sheer number of steps to go up and down! I found I had to be careful not to over-stress my knees. You eventually start to learn which stairs go to which areas in the ship, though if you don't have a porthole near by, it's still a challenge to figure out if you are headed forward or aft at any point in time.
Saturday was when our activities started in earnest. I had expected that we would be doing more activities together, but when we received our schedules, we discovered that we had quite different assignments, depending on our own skills and where we fit in. Remember: be flexible and available.
For our first full day (Saturday), some of the team was assigned to the “Visitor Experience Deck”, deck #4, which is the main book exhibit and visitor area. This area is designed for people coming through to buy books and to provide a place for the visitors and crew to interact. Some of the responsibilities there are practical, such as welcoming people and selling the books and making sure the flow of people keeps going in the right direction. Another job though was specifically to sit down with people as they are in the “International Café” and to start up conversations. This actually works quite well, since people have already gone through the book exhibit, and are usually happy to talk.
The I-Café is one of the most direct opportunities for interacting with visitors on the ship itself, but there are still plenty of other opportunities for getting out among the local people and interacting, either on the streets or in different ministries such as going to prisons or orphanages. Some of our team headed into the city with an “e-day” team. They visited in a park where some of the team set up a story-board to attract people and start them thinking. Others on the team then circulated around to hand out literature and start conversations.
To be continued...
