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!

 

Official handover

August 9, 2016 – After morning devotions in front of Ship’s Company, the Captain announced that Stephen & I were officially taking over the Purser/TA office! People cheered for us as we walked up to the front and joked that we should call it the “MEW Office” now 🙂  It’s so special that Stephen & I get to work in the same office – we are the first married couple to work in the same office in Logos Hope history!

Please pray for Stephen. It’s midnight here and he has to be up in about 6.5 hours to prepare for departure clearance meeting from Gabon with the shipping agent. Hope everything goes smoothly tomorrow, and that the voyage to Cameroon is safe and smooth. Estimated time of departure is at 9:00am!