Far Side of the World

Hello from afar!

I have now made it past the three week stage of ship life! A lot has happened this past week. Last Sunday I went with some of the crew to the Corinth church. I already told you this, but I forgot to say that we had lunch with them as they hold a free lunch for refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Albania! It was really neat to share a meal with them and I wanted to tell you because I thought that we was a really neat ministry that the church does here.

This past week has been mostly boat maintenance. A LOT of scraping paint of the deck (that I did spill so I guess I shouldn't complain...but it was the wind Not my bad painting skills), greasing stays, and general up keep. The ship is looking prettier now than she has in a long time!....OH YA! Really exciting! So we are sailing up to Kiev, past the black sea, but the problem is is that we are too tall for some of the bridges that we need to pass under....so we lowered the top masts (for and aft)! This was a crazy guessing game since we haven't actually done this before. Which is why we are doing it now so that when we will need to we will know what to do. On the mizzen mast (aft) I got to climb to the crow's nest to hammer out the pin that holds the top mast in place! It was incredible! I could feel every single vibration as the mast lowered! So neat!

I have been asked to paint our prayer room in the ship, called the sconsin. So I was able to start that today with the help of Randi and Ben! It was so good to paint for God for work! We are painting the ceiling--which has left us with crooked necks. I shall post photos when I am able to. It is a picture of a sunrise and stars. I am so excited to be using my gifts and heading something up. Hopefully I will be able to do more in the future.

On the down side, my computer has stopped working for some reason. It just wont turn on. It tries--but just a black screen. This means that Writing blog entries is more difficult, computer work is more difficult and I can't up load photos. I am not stressed out about this, mind you. God has given me the tool of a lap top and if he wants, he can fix it so that I can use it again. I am praying for a healing for my lap top or someone who knows how to fix them.

Last night we had a youth group from Corinth over to the ship. We gave them a tour, talked to them about being young and living for God, and shared stories about how God has saved us in very real and physical ways (bad storms and even pirates). It was a great evening of opening up our lives to these young people and encouraging them in their walk with the Lord. Although it would be nice to be able to talk to them with out always needing translators.

This week has been fairly difficult for me. I am not one to enjoy being the "new person", not knowing where things go or where stuff is, breaking into the group, and getting into a routine. I have also had a lot of nightmares--which isn't pleasant. There is a very unstable feeling to living on a ship. Just as a boat bobs and rolls and rocks in the water, nothing in the community is stable either. New staff come in, old staff leave. We leave known waters for the unknown. Nothing is ever the same. This has been fairly hard for me (I have made two good friends who have left in the past two weeks--one being my roommate). But God is using this to show me that ya, life isn't stable--even if we pretend that it is. HE is the only thing constant here on earth. He will never leave. Never ignore me. Never hurt me. God is good! And he is using this situation to strengthen my trust in Him.
....Wow that's a lot of writing. So those are my deep thoughts recently.

I hope that you are doing well at home! I love you all very dearly and pray that you are watching for the ways that God is moving. Cause so often we miss out on the stuff he does because we simply wern't looking for it.

Live for Him!