Family as God intended
Living in this intense, multi-cultural community is a vibrant place to be, but also comes with its unique challenges. Its like living in the church social gatherings endlessly.
One of our biggest blessings on board is our ship family. We are 16 people from 11 different countries and if you stopped by for dinner at our table on a Thursday evening, you are sure to be in for a treat. We are loud and boisterous and funny, and function surprisingly well as a family. We love fiercely and often challenge and grow each other.
Sometimes I find myself thinking about the practicalities of heaven and how things might be there one day. My questions have changed from What will it look like? and Who will all be there? to How will we all understand each other? and How will we avoid cultural conflicts?
My heart finds a glimpse of heaven when we spend time together as a ship family. When we have conversations in many different languages, and translating jokes and sayings for one another. When we discuss how things are done back home, and we each bring the best of our cultures to the table. We learn together how to let God transform the unredeemed parts that are inside each of us and we come together as one body of Christ.
Spending time investing and loving my ship kids has been one of my primary ministries on board, and it is the one thing I would never want to change or give up.
Prayer Point: Please pray for our ship family and some of our “children” that will be leaving to go home soon, that we will continue to be united in Christ.
Praise Point: Thank God for His creativity and love of diversity.
Becoming a little FATter
If you spend any amount of time in OM or around OMers you are bound to hear someone talking about being FAT. Flexible, Adaptable and Teachable. This year has been full of the need to be each of those things over and over again.
I was incredibly excited, privileged and somewhat nervous about coming to the Logos Hope to take over the role of Bookfair and Hope Experience Manager. I couldn’t wait to meet and get to know the 68 member team that I would be responsible to lead, encourage, grow and challenge. I was meant to have a Bookfair leadership team of about 16 people that I would coach closely and invest intentionally in as we strived to share knowledge, help and hope in our bookfair and on our ministry deck.
But the coronavirus pandemic brought many limitations and unexpected needs. Most of the Bookfair team was sent to other departments, leaving only about 8 people to keep things going over the past months. As time passed, key people moved onto other ministry roles onshore and the need arose for someone to step into the roles of Personnel Manager and Personnel Services Director. And there I was, a Bookfair Manager with an education in Psychology and no bookfair to open. I accepted the roles and stepped into a completely different world than I was expecting to be in.
The role of Personnel in a community like the Logos Hope is a very interesting and unique responsibility. Although the primary purpose is to administrate and manage crew members’ time onboard – things like department allocations and changes, orientation when arriving, cabin allocations and disputes, and trying to get people home in the middle of pandemic – it is full of so many other complexities. Woven into the meetings, emails and administrative tasks is conflict resolution, pastoral care, coaching conversations or being a listening ear and a shoulder to lean on. It is a miracle that our community of 250 people from over 55 countries, ages 18 months to over 60 years, from all sorts of background is actually able to function well.
I learnt so much during this time. I learnt what kind of everyday miracles a small team can accomplish when they are committed to letting themselves be used by God. I learnt that God has given me the ability to encourage and calm people when they are in the midst of frustration and fear, and confidently bring clarity in situations of uncertainty. I learnt that I lead best alongside people rather than from above, letting my gifts and abilities engage fully with those I’m working with to achieve the goal we are working towards.
I am incredibly grateful for the time I had in Personnel and how it challenged, shaped and grew me. I can definitely say that I am FATter and I look forward to how this experience will help me for the work that God has for me in the future.
Prayer Point: Please pray for the current Personnel Team – Matheus (Brazil). Nomkhosi (South Africa), Madeleine (Denmark) and Sara (Brazil) – as they deal with all the complexities of loving and serving ship’s company.
Praise Point: Thank God for the amazing team I got to work with during my time in Personnel. Pictured about: Nomkhosi (South Africa), Chantell (Jamaica), Maryodette (Brazil) and Daria (Russia). Also, Madeleine and Sara who are part of the new team.
Leading and Learning
When John stepped into the Personnel Department as manager, we did not expect him to also take on the role of Personnel Services Director. Due to unforeseen circumstances (read COVID) the director replacement person was unable to travel to the ship for months. Taking on the director role, also meant serving on the Leadership Team on board.
While we knew the role on the Leadership Team was only going to be temporary, the impact it has had on us as a family will be lasting. We have learnt so much together about the kind of couple and family God has designed us to be, and clearly seen what we are NOT meant to be either.
Being part of the Leadership was physically and mentally very taxing on John, with many, many hours spent in meetings, putting out the metaphorical fires and planning how to shepherd the community well. While he was a very successful member of the team, with many great insights and amazing problem solving skills, ultimately we came to the realization that long term we are all more effective as a family in ministry when the home/work life balance is a bit more non-traditional.
While moms are expected to care for their children and the broader community, I struggle with the lack of discipline that comes from not being part of a department with set work hours on board. At home, I was the parent working longer hours and John was very involved with the day to day caretaking of the children and home, and here we had to assume a more traditional division of work.
God has been working so much in my life, and I have been surprised by the purpose I have found in being the homemaker, the always available mom for my ship kids (and some others who have been “adopted”), and the mentor that has the ability to drop everything to hold your hand while you cry. I am grateful for the time John had to influence the direction of the ship’s community, where he could grow and develop as a leader, but also for the invaluable lessons it has taught us about ourselves and the way we function best.
Ultimately, we as a family have come to the understanding that this is a good balance for this season, but that in future ministry settings, we definitely need to find something that plays better to both our strengths as individuals, but also as a couple.
Prayer Point: Please pray for the leadership team on board who are working very hard to serve the ships community in the best way possible.
Praise Point: Praise God that we had the opportunity to learn valuable lessons about ourselves and the way we want to engage with future ministry opportunities.
Unexpected Place
If everything had gone according to plan, the Logos Hope would currently be about 10 months into the ministry tour through Europe. We were meant to host conferences, and fundraisers, alumni events and inter-organisational ministry projects across a continent that has become, in many ways, complacent in their relationship with God.
Instead we spent 128 days locked down in Kingston, Jamaica, unable to leave the ship. We sailed to Curacao for 1-2 weeks of surveys and certification to continue sailing, which turned into 2.5 months of waiting for the next port to be confirmed. We moved on to Grand Abaco, Bahamas, expecting to dock in a brand new harbour, but instead wrestled with being at anchor for 3 months (trust us…its not as fun as it sounds!).
And then 2021 came along with the big expectation that things were going to be different. We arrived in Kingstown, St Vincent and the Grenadines at a time where there were no local COVID-19 cases. We prepared everything to open the Bookfair onshore, even to the point of craning several pallets of books onto the quayside. But it wasn’t to be. Local COVID-19 cases spiked (and the volcano started erupting, but we were never in danger) and we ended up selling to 2 local bookstores and a hand full of church members.
Not knowing where we will be next or what opportunities we will actually be able to take ahold of has been a familiar frustration over this past year. Something I have had to work hard on, along with most of ship’s company, is to trust God. To trust Him that he knows where and when the ship will go to next, but also to trust Him to be using each and every conversation, interaction and ministry opportunity in the ports we go to, no matter how small or insignificant we think they are. We have been reminded over and over again that God doesn’t need us to accomplish His work in the world, it is not by our might or power or clever planning that lives will be changed, but by Him using our obedience.
We are currently (back) in Curacao, and expect to remain here until the end of May. Our primary purpose for being here is to complete our annual maintenance (also called Dry Dock), and be certified to sail again for another year. During this time we are hoping to see a number of different ministries taking place, including opening the Bookfair onshore for the duration of our time here.
Prayer Point: The we would continue to be obedient in both the little and the big things that God leads us to do each day.
Praise Point: Praise God for all the unseen ways in which people’s lives have been impacted and transformed when crew members live out their obedience and trust in Him well.
Waiting, Hoping, Trusting
This is The Remnant – Emmanuel, Anna Livia, Heber, Alena, Isaac, Ana Paula, Hannah, and Jamie – and they are amazing! As I mentioned previously, I was meant to come onboard and lead a team of about 68 people. As the reality of COVID became more lasting, most of the team was sent to serve in other departments. This left The Remnant to keep things going in the Bookfair. We completed a stock take, did A LOT of sorting through systems and product location problems and generally paid attention to things that hadn’t received any for about 10 years.
They have been an incredible example to me of diligent waiting, hoping and trusting. They have persevered through months of thankless tasks and slim hopes of opening again. With good humour and many reminders that I “better come back”, they have endured my attention being almost totally consumed by my ‘other family’, Personnel. They have shown me much more clearly than I understood before why God called us to the Logos Hope and me to the Bookfair – to purposefully invest in the lives of young people on their journey to figuring out what it means for them to live wholeheartedly for Christ and His commandment to reach every people group on earth with the Good News.
Some of them have gone home without seeing the Bookfair open to the public again. Those of us who are still onboard are still waiting, hoping and trusting that Curacao will be our chance to share knowledge, help and hope ‘properly’ again. But whether that happens or not, I know that we will continue to journey together knowing that God is working in, through and for us for His kingdom purposes, both now and in the future that He is leading each of us into.
Prayer Point: Please pray that permission will be granted for us to open the Bookfair – in Curacao and in the future ports that we will visit in the coming months.
Praise Point: Thank God for the books we have been able to sell and donate during the previous ports and for the impact that those books are having in the lives of people who received them.
The Benns 