We are now in Montego Bay, Jamaica and it has been a busy port in a variety of ways. Firstly, we have to shift our location several times a week to make way for cargo vessels and cruise ships coming and going. This means a lot of extra work for our deck department who have to disconnect and reconnect the gangways every time as well as manouever the ship back and forth. This is usually done after the ship closes to the public which means a lot of late nights working for these guys and girls.

This is also a busy port with regards to the numbers of people coming to the ship. So far we’ve had over 30 thousand visitors and somewhere in that number we counted our 500,000th visitors to the ship since we started sailed into ministry almost a year ago! With all these visitors, we’re going through a lot of books and so we have loaded several containers of books during the time here with more to come in Kingston during our second part of the Jamaica visit. Holly has enjoyed the opportunity of helping in the book fair through operating a check out register. This allows her to bring a smile to many people who are trying to get some great books at reasonable prices. She also has had some interesting characters to deal with along the way.

We have also been welcoming new people to the community as we’ve received a number of people from our other ship, Doulos, which is coming to the end of its service. They have been coming across in small groups over the last few weeks and we have more on their way. Today was also a special day as we received 69 new volunteers through our first changeover time for this year. They begin their two years of service on the ship and it is a bittersweet season as we’ve also said goodbye to many in the last couple of weeks who have reached the end of their commitment on the ship. So it is a time of much change as well.

We’ve also had a number of guests staying on board. One group was a Vision team from the Church at Sandhurst in Florence, SC who came to experience the ship for themselves. These teams are always a real encouragement for us as they come to really understand the scope of the ship ministry through participating in various aspects of it. These teams are some of the people that Holly gets to train and equip to share hope with our visitors and on shore and she really enjoys this part of her ministry. The session is always an encouragement for her, and the participants really appreciate what they learn. It’s always exciting to hear the stories of their experiences of putting what they learn into practice.

I have had my hands full keeping our communications efforts moving forward while being a bit short staffed. Our new photographer was one of those who joined today and she will take on that role in the next few days. It’s been a great help to have two or three others helping out as they can to get some photos of our time here and on some special projects. We’ve also been juggling the media relations role within the team but we’re hoping to get some more help in that area soon as well. I’ve also been filling in for my Director as he’s away and so that’s added a bit of work as well.

Earlier in the visit I had to send two of my team out to where the new group joining was being trained to make photos of each one and get some video footage. At that time, the ship vehicles hadn’t been cleared by cutoms and so we had to sort out our own transportation for the 3 hour drive each way! This was a bit of a stress for me as renting a car was fairly pricey and it would involve one of us driving and trying to find our way there. It was a Sunday morning and through the onboard service I was praying for a solution. At lunch I met a young guy who had visited for the service with another person and I casually asked if he knew how I could get to the place. Long story short, he offered to drive our guys there and back and spend the whole day out there with them and only asked for the price of his gas/petrol to be covered! So that was a great answer to prayer for me. I would appreciate your prayer for this young man as he is dealing with a few issues in his life.

But it is not just all work here. On Monday, our day off, we had the privilege of going to the Dunn’s River Falls near Ocho Rios and that was a real great day out. We went with a few friends and enjoyed climbing up the falls with a guide. Holly and I had done this when we were in Jamaica with Logos II in 1998 and while the whole experienced is much more developed now and tourist focused, it was a great time. Gabriel really wasn’t wanting to climb it but about halfway up he decided it wasn’t so bad and by the end he was glad he had done it. Zac and I later climbed up and then back down on our own and that was a lot of fun. At the bottom is the coast and a nice little beach and so we enjoyed a swim there before heading back to the ship. All in all it was a great day out and a nice break in between all of the busyness.