Taking in each moment

This is Market Circle… After a 30 minute tro-tro (mini-bus) ride for only 1.70 GHS (which is a little less than 50 cents USD!) from the Naval Base where Logos Hope is berthed, we arrived at a lively center filled with people walking in every direction, selling produce, fabric, fruit, and snacks in Takoradi, Ghana. It really is a sight to see. We only have one more week in Ghana until we leave the main continent of Africa to the Cape Verde islands, so we are trying to soak in the smells, sights, and people.

Hustle & bustle of Market Circle. Our favorite is seeing the little babies on the Mama’s backs

Grandma sitting on the side of the road selling huge fish

It’s common to see people selling things on their heads – even backpacks!

We adventured out with a few friends – David from Brasil/US, Tom from the UK, and Gaby from Peru/US.

The market is literally in the form of a circle – and the inside of it is like a maze. It was fun exploring a bit and seeing true Africa.

This past Saturday, Stephen and I went to support a Logos Hope Football (soccer) tournament. It was Stephen’s first time ever playing soccer and he was the goalkeeper! 7 local teams + Logos Hope team gathered at Gyandu Stadium at 8am for a full day of competition. Not only were we there to play soccer, but we wanted to connect with the locals there – so me and 2 other girls went to do street evangelism in the local neighborhood. We started handing out tracts and I was able to pray for a mom and shared the gospel with a young girl, named Vanessa.

This is Vanessa (next to me) and Juanita. They live across the street from a mosque in a muslim neighborhood. Vanessa accepted the Lord into her life!

Stephen making connections with the young boys and other players at the tournament.

All the people present at the tournament were men – so I decided to face paint and connect with the kids, which happened to be all boys!

This guy was wearing a San Jose Earthquakes jersey!!! So cool.

This boy loved hanging around Stephen, even though he didn’t talk much. Stephen was helping him practice his reading using a gospel tract.

It was a long day being out in the sun and heat, but it’s days and encounters like we had during this day that will stay with us for the rest of our lives.

And today we journeyed out to Cape Coast – which was almost a 2 hour tro-tro ride. Whew! Praise God that we actually made it there and back. We went to visit the Slave Castle, which was built in the 1650’s and was used by the British to house slaves that were sold to the US, Caribbean, and South America.

Although it may look beautiful from the outside, this was a place where people were tortured, raped, mistreated, held in dungeons with barely any access to air and sunlight. Many lives were lost.

This is one of the dungeon rooms where male slaves were held for 2 weeks – 6 months before being sold. The only light they ever saw came from those small openings.

Women were held here. Whenever the governor wanted to have sex, the servant would go choose a woman and they would bathe her, then bring her back here when the governor was done with her. If a female slave was found out to be pregnant and on their way overseas to the Americas, they would be thrown overboard to die. They would have to live in their own filth and monthly menstruation without any cleaning. As the tour guide spoke about the conditions for the women, my heart really broke for them and the suffering & injustice they had to endure.

 

At the end of the tour, we were reminded that though slavery was abolished many years ago, modern day slavery continues through child labor and human trafficking. Let us not forget the pain and suffering that continues to happen throughout this world.

Friend Ship…

We’ve arrived in our second port of Ghana on October 5, 2016, which is the last true “African” country until we sail to the Cape Verde islands on the 25th. We are in Sekondi-Takoradi! We haven’t seen much else besides the quayside from Deck 7, but we hear that it’s beautiful and filled with greenery. The sail here was one of the roughest ones even though it was only overnight. We had to anchor to try and get fuel, which never came and a lot of people have been experiencing sea sickness and stomach problems… us included. But thankfully, after 3 days of rest, fluids, and prayers – we are on the mend and almost back to feeling like our usual selves.

4 containers arrived when we were in Tema (Praise the Lord because if they came any later we would have run out of food), and one package was addressed to us! Getting packages always brings a smile to our face and a reminder that we have so many people at home supporting us. Thank you Hui’s for you know the way to our hearts – I could barely contain my excitement when seeing 2 bags of TAPATIO Doritos chips!!!

Thank you Dave & Carol also for the peach ring & orange slices gummies, Bom Chicka Pop popcorn, Pringles (yummy flavor!), and adorable Friend Ship card… where did you find that? it’s so perfect!

We love and miss you guys. Thanks for sending us a bit of home and restocking our cupboards. We’ve already devoured one of the tapatio bags – and will savor the second bag. We miss our bbq’s, pizza parties, burger cravings, and game nights together. Sending you our love and looking forward to our reunion in a year (or earlier if you come visit in the Caribbean…hint hint)!

Not the newbies anymore

Today we welcomed 100 new crew members into our community!! They are a good group – lots of new energy, new ideas, new passions, and they come from some new countries that aren’t yet represented on the ship. They arrived this morning and we greeted them with the traditional flag tunnel!!

I still remember how excited Stephen and I were when we first arrived in Dar Es Salaam and set foot on Logos Hope. I still can’t believe that 7 months have passed and we are no longer the newbies.

Stephen and I both signed up to be a big brother and big sister…

This is my lil sis, Amanda! She is from Singapore, is 27 years old, and was a history teacher back home. She loves Asian food, chocolate, and dried mangoes! She is super friendly, smiley, and easy to talk to.

Stephen’s lil bro, Ant, is from the UK and has served with OM Ships in the past. I didn’t get a chance to talk to him much yet, but he seems calm, chatty, and very nice! We love people from the UK 🙂

As part of our responsibilities as a big brother/sister, we prepared their cabins with clean sheets, welcome signs, and a small gift. It was so exciting meeting them for the first time and getting to know them. We brought them around the ship to help them get familiar with where things are. And tonight, our PST was in charge of welcoming the new PST with none other than a party!! Stephen participated in a few skits, here is one of them  — where he is modelling some clothes from the free clothing exchange place on board called “Charlie”. He got a bunch of chuckles and laughs 🙂

It was a great night full of laughter, singing songs, dancing, and chatting to get to meet one another. It was also really special as the oldies formed a prayer tunnel and the new PST walked under our hands as we prayed for them.

With this new group, I am reminded of God’s faithfulness and how great He is – working in each of our lives…globally. We all come from different backgrounds, but the one thing that binds us all together is that we are here because of Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross for us. We are really looking forward to getting to know these new guys!

The madness of the queue

6,216! That’s the number of people that came to visit the Logos Hope today. Today was a public holiday and lots of people were excited to come on board. We watched from above on Deck 7 and saw people getting more impatient by the minute & started cutting the lines. It was going to be madness, but thankfully crew members went outside to help with crowd control, gave out water,  & share the gospel. Today was the first time we’ve ever seen lines like this….so fun to see!

Our deck team had to intervene due to “bulging”

Meeting Ghanaians

Today we had the opportunity to go down to the book fair and meet some visitors! We decided to dress up in our uniforms haha. Some people think Stephen’s the Captain 😉

 

Stephen met this really sweet family and gave them a tour of the ship. They were so well behaved and friendly. They invited us to visit their church one of these Sundays.

I painted the younger daughter’s face with a butterfly.

Stephen met twin brothers! They are 12 years-old and their favorite sport is basketball. One of them said he liked Stephen’s hair (which I cut for the first time a few days ago!) 🙂 Stephen asked them “what is the thing that binds us all together?” and they said…”God”! He encouraged them to be nice to their younger brother and include him in activities.

I met Michael, who is a port volunteer and helping out in the iCafe – which is a place where people buy drinks and ice cream. On the right is his younger sister Kate. She works for a university 5 hours away and only has 1 day off a month! She used it to come visit Logos Hope.

I was able to take Kate around the ship for a tour and explain the heart of our ministry. It also gave me an opportunity to hear more about her life and talk about the gospel.

They stayed for dinner and here we are before saying our goodbyes. Hope to get to know Michael more in the coming weeks.

 

Blessed beyond measure

 

It’s been nearly 8 months since Stephen and I moved out of our condo in Emeryville, CA, sold my first car, left our jobs, and said goodbye to many of the comforts of living in the United States of America. Often times, family and friends would write and ask us what we missed from home and what they could send us. When asked, we never really knew what to say because we have all our basic needs met here on the ship. Secretly, I always want to say “Tapatio Chips!!!..Sriracha!!” but feel like it’s too ridiculous & wasteful to ship a bag of chips & bottle of hot sauce from the US to Africa.

About a month ago, both of our smartphones stopped working. Being disconnected from our phones made it hard to communicate and coordinate activities with other people on the ship and more difficult to stay in touch with friends and family at home. So, I asked my sister Debbie and a close friend if they had any old phones on hand or knew of any good deals on phones. A week later, Debbie told me that her and my brother-in-law would be able to send us two iPhone 5c’s! Wow. We were so excited and thankful. Lucky for us that someone from the US was coming to Tema, Ghana just two weeks later to help train the new volunteers joining the ship at the end of this month. So she graciously agreed to hand-carry the phones for us!

Well – she just arrived to Tema, and the package arrived on the Logos Hope, as well as two more packages sent from Stephen’s sister & parents. A container also arrived from Florence, South Carolina, which is where all the books for the book fair come from, which also had two packages for us! These were so unexpected and we couldn’t wait to open them!

Our first surprise was the package from Debbie & Andy. The phones were not iPhone 5c’s….they were an iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus, both with 128GB of memory!!!! What!!? So unbelievable!!!! These phones are nicer than what we had at home. They also came with beautiful soft cases, chargers, and a pair of headphones. Thank you Debbie & Andy for spoiling us with these amazing phones, the cute shirt, and precious painting done by Addy!!!

Next we started opening up the packages, and honestly could not believe our eyes of the overwhelming amount of snacks and goodies from home. I am amazed at how well our friends & family know us & the things we love to eat, even better than we do! Here is a pic of it all..

Tapatio Chips!! Sriracha!! And so much more!!!

Thank you Laura & Jeff for the chocolate Annie’s bunny grahams!!, gummies, dark chocolate bark with milk chocolate gems, strawberry licorice, fleur de sel caramels, triscuits, and multi-pack chocolate, nut & dried fruit trail mix!

 

Thank you Steve & Minners for the sweet drawing from Alexis, the thai lime & chili almonds, korean bbq pork jerky, nutella, seaweed, swedish fish, pineapple cakes, instant Vietnamese coffee packets, lip balm, huge costco sized almond butter, chili spiced dried mango, peruvian inco corn, chocolate covered sea salt butterscotch caramels, trident gum, lotion, almond joy, and huge twix… and what….TWO SRIRACHAS!! This is how we felt…

Thank you Maj & Paj for the 3 bags of wasabi peas (I already finished one heehee), Chinese crackers, and korean bbq pork jerky!

And last but not least, Mewies – thank you for the sweet drawings, the cute photo reminding us of Hawaii, your prayers, and letter from Auntie Gina & Uncle A.

We feel incredibly loved and blessed beyond measure. God is using each of you to minister and bless us. Thank you for sending us so much love through these care packages and enabling us to stay in touch with people near and far. God continues to remind us that He provides beyond what we could ever ask for. “And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others.” — 2 Corinthians 9:8.

We love you and will be sharing updates with you about Tema, Ghana soon!

Cameroon Photos – Week 1

So we’ve been in Cameroon for one week now, and will be here until August 30, before sailing to Tema, Ghana in West Africa. It’s been a pleasant stay, but have only been off the ship officially just once on our off day, in addition to a couple of times running in the port (twice for me, but Kathy’s been very consistent running with people from the ship!). Below are just a few photos from the past week:

Off day in Douala, Cameroon eating at a Chinese restaurant (yes, a Chinese restaurant in Cameroon!) with fellow Chinese from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China, and friends from England, Wales, Moldova, and Zimbabwe. Oh how we miss Chinese food — it was deelish! Kathy & I ordered our own food – mapo tofu and eggplant — 2 dishes Kathy used to cook at home!

After lunch, we ran into these lovely Cameroonian ladies who were standing on the corner waiting to sell the food they are balancing on their head. I’m not sure how they are able to balance without the food dropping or hurting their head!

We had the pleasure of meeting Pastor Hughes, an Ambassador for the ship, and his lovely wife and 4 kids. He’s been our best local friend in Cameroon that we’ve met, even buying K & I a Cameroon chocolate bar. We hope to attend his church on Sunday!

Kathy with Pastor Hughes’ wife and lovely daughter. The wife also works for the church as an administrator and in finance.

 

Open Cabin Sunday

We hosted open cabin for the first time today! Every Sunday, different married couples & families on the ship open up their cabin and invite Ship’s Company to come for a time of fellowship after Sunday church service.  It was so cool seeing who came – good friends, ship family members, as well as people who don’t know us well. It was fun to hang out with each other for a bit, talk, laugh and play catch phrase! We will definitely be hosting more in the future, and hope to get to know more of Ship’s Company through this time 🙂

Countries represented (some not pictured): Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, South Africa, Brazil, USA, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, and Papua New Guinea

 

Hello Cameroon!

We arrived in Douala, Cameroon!! We loved this sight of the Cameroon flag next to the USA flag 🙂

It was a beautiful smooth sail from Gabon, and we had many whale sightings. As we sailed into the berth around 11:30am, we were greeted by a lively group of Cameroonians dancing and singing.

Soon after we arrived, it was time to help clear the ship and meet with Port Health, Port Security, Immigration, and Customs officials. It was a long day, but praise God that the ship is cleared and crew members will be able to go onshore to participate in many help ministries and outreaches.

In the evening, we met up with our Ship Family to have dinner together and then went to Country Orientation, heard some farewell testimonies, and joined prayer night. We are really looking forward to seeing what God is going to do in this port and to get to know the people here! Today is the Official Opening of the Book Fair – please pray for large numbers to come in this port and that many would be able to experience His love.

Exploring Gabon

On our off day this week, the ship arranged a bus for 30 of us to go out of the port area and see Gabon. Lucky for us we signed up for the first bus, which was only 30 minutes late in picking us up. Generally speaking, people here are never on time … 5 minutes could mean 30 minutes.

We took a 1 hour bus ride to reach the city center. Along the way, we saw lots of vendors selling produce and other things on the sides of the street. The streets were packed with people on a Monday afternoon! It reminded us a lot of Dar Es Salaam with people walking place to place and how the shops were set up.

The picture below is of an old Catholic church. The wooden poles had beautiful carvings of them, which were all carved by a blind man.

We went to a local grocery store and bought some croissants and bread to eat for lunch. All the street signs are in French and very few people speak English. An interesting thing we noticed is that they drive on the right side of the road, just like we do in the US! But in all the other countries we’ve been in, they drive on the left side of the road.

Before heading back to the ship, we stopped by a beach and dipped our toes into the water. Some people even jumped in. This is our friend Femke from Aruba! We used to work together on the same shift (Hopestars) in the Book Fair.

Glad we were able to get off the ship and see a bit of Gabon!