Harlingen, Netherlands

Harlingen is a small town in the north of Netherlands with a population of 15,450. The town has a very, very long history of fishing and shipping; in fact, Harlingen received city rights in 1234! An interesting fact is the town of Harlingen, Texas in the United States is named after this city because many of the original settlers of this Texas town came from Harlingen! We are very excited to explore this quaint town!


What a beautiful harbor town!

Answer to the Test Question

This Graphic by Chris Harrison, from the Carnegie Mellon University, displays 63,779 cross-references between the Bible's 1,189 chapters; showing the interconnected nature of Scripture.
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We're in the Netherlands!

We arrived yesterday morning into the city of Harlingen in the Netherlands! What a wonderful reception we received from the Dutch! As we sailed in, there were many people standing on the quay side (the dock) waving and anxious to welcome us into their country. As soon as we were cleared to receive visitors, many people eagerly came right on the ship to see what the Logos Hope was all about. Similar to Hawaiians greeting guests with leis, many Dutch people brought tulips onto the ship to welcome us. We have a beautiful bouquet of fresh red tulips in our cabin! What a blessing!

Last night, we had the opportunity, along with two other crew members, to enjoy the hospitality of a local Dutch couple. Many crew members were invited into local homes last night to learn more about the city and Dutch culture and to pray together. We were invited into a wonderful couples' home and it was such a delight! Their daughter served on one of the OM Ships back in the 80's and they've been connected to OM ever since. They are now both retired, but the husband spends a majority of his free time fundraising for OM Ships! Amazing. What a spectacular first day in the Netherlands. We are so excited to see how God will use our ship during our time in Harlingen.

Our time in Sweden

Thank God for an amazing weekend in Sweden! We had 1,300+ people visit the ship over the weekend in Gothenburg! We had several on board and onshore events and gave almost 400 ship tours! On Sunday, John manned the Logos Hope partner stand (for recruitng, fundraising, connecting, etc.) and I manned the ship's tour desk. We had a great time interacting with many, many Swedes! What wonderful, friendly people! Now we're at sea heading to the Netherlands. The ship has been pretty rocky, but thank God neither of us have been sea sick! :)

Gothenburg, Sweden

We've been doing a bit of research about our new port town. Unfortunately, we'll only be in Sweden for the weekend, so won't have too much time to explore, but we were still curious about learning about this interesting city! Gothenburg is Sweden's second biggest city and it's the most important trading and industrial city in Sweden. The city is located on the West coast of Sweden (Stockholm is on the East coast). The population is approximately 500k. The city is Scandinavia's biggest port, with 10,000 ships and three million ferry passengers arriving each year. Gothenburg was founded in 1621 by King Gustav II Adolf.

We had a truly amazing experience sailing in this morning. We've never been this far north, so it was quite amazing to see big pieces of ice floating in the water as we sailed in! As we sailed in, we passed hundreds of small islands covered in snow. I thought we had sailed into the North Pole! I half expected Santa Claus to pop up! :) We're as far north as Juneau, Alaska! Amazing. We are so thankful that God has brought us on this journey. What a blessing to be able to be a part of Logos Hope's Maiden Voyage.

Departure Video

Check out a video just made of us departing Koge, Denmark yesterday!

Sailing Schedule

Now that we've set sail, our itinerary has been confirmed for the next several months. Take a look!

Port Arrival Date Departure Date Gothenburg Sweden Feb 20th, 2009 Feb 23rd, 2009 Harlingen Netherlands Feb 25th, 2009 Mar 10th, 2009 Scheveningen Netherlands Mar 11th, 2009 Mar 30th, 2009 Edinburgh Scotland - UK Apr 1st, 2009 Apr 14th, 2009 unconfirmed port Faroe Islands Apr 16th, 2009 Apr 27th, 2009 Belfast Northern Ireland - UK Apr 29th, 2009 May 12th, 2009 Dublin Ireland May 13th, 2009 May 26th, 2009 Cardiff Wales - UK May 27th, 2009 Jun 9th, 2009 London England - UK Jun 11th, 2009 Jun 29th, 2009 Cork Ireland Jul 1st, 2009 Jul 14th, 2009 Kingstown Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Jul 30th, 2009 Aug 18th, 2009

The Maiden Voyage of the Logos Hope!!

At 1500 hours, the Logos Hope will disembark from it's berth in Koge, Denmark to set sail for the first port of active ministry in Gothenburg, Sweden. We are beyond excited! More to come as soon as possible! Keep us in your prayers.

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Passenger Certification Received!

As we've mentioned before, we've been working very hard to convert our ship from a cargo ship to a passenger ship. Many crew members have been working many, many long hours in the past months to try and get everything done to receive this certificate so we can set sail. We are VERY happy to announce that last Thursday afternoon, we received the Passenger Ship Safety Certificate (PSSC)!! This means that very soon, the Logos Hope will be ready to sail!! There are still a few issues to be resolved before the ship sails, but we are definitely getting very, very close! Praise God! We had an AMAZING celebration on board Saturday to celebrate receiving the PSSC. Enjoy the pictures!


Celebrating with our good friends Aaron (USA) and Jael (Netherlands).


Enjoying the celebration with good friend Heather (Scotland).


Cheers! Enjoying a toast with some good ol' non-alcoholic champagne! ;)

Valentine's Day!

We hope each of you had a wonderful time celebrating Valentine's Day yesterday. We had a fabulous Valentine's Day in Denmark! Hard to believe this was our 5th Valentine's Day together. We had sunny weather for a change, so that was sure lovely! We spent the afternoon taking a nice long walk and then went to our favorite little cafe. What a treat! Then in the evening, there was a Valentine's dinner for all the couples on board. What a special day.

Enjoying the sunshine!!

New Children!

With the new crew coming a few weeks back, we have new ship family children! Let us introduce you to our two new children. Emily is 17 and from Australia and Heverton is 23 and from Brazil. We are so thrilled to have two new kids! :)

Our ship family had fun making smoothies this week with our new children! Two of our ship family members had never made smoothies (or even heard of them!), so it was a real treat for them. Enjoy the cute pictures.


"Mom" with Emily


"Mom" with Heverton


Andrea serving up the yummy smoothies!


Cheers!

John's New Job !!!

Today I began a new job in the Partner Development department. I will be focusing on fundraising and sponsorship. I am really excited and am looking forward to telling you all more about it soon!

The Elevator Pitch

My (John) mom sent me an e-mail last week asking for a short description of the ship's ministry: An "Elevator Pitch". I thought that the answer carries relevance for all who are tracking with us.

The Logos Hope ship has an international crew of 350 people from 40 nations. Together, we have three areas of focus: Knowledge, Help, and Hope.

Knowledge in the form of books and seminars - a 6,000 title book fair, and seminars ranging from business to discipleship training.

Help in the form of community development and outreach - construction projects from houses to playgrounds, and community events like trash pickup teams and visiting hospitals and orphanages.

Hope in the form of practical and relational evangelism: living Christ's loving kindness to the in-firmed, imprisoned, homeless, drug addicted, orphaned, widowed, rich, poor, employed, bored, troubled, scared, timid, nominal, and lost.

Soon we will be traveling from port to port, stopping for two to three weeks in each port. The past six months have been a unique time while the ship has been outfitted for the above ministry.

I think that covers what the ship does.... and to answer the question "What do John, Jennifer and the rest of the ship's company actually do each day?" Here you go... Everyone has a 40 hr/wk job that contributes to running the ship ministry. There are six divisions on board the ship:

1) Marine operations: Deck - mooring, chipping rust and painting, watch keeping, and driving the ship; Engine - mechanical engineers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and welders.

2) Hotel & Catering: cleaning the inside of the ship, cooking 1600 meals/day baking bread, cake, cookies, and catering events.

3) Corporate Services: finances, room bookings, van bookings, airline tickets, administration, purser, and A/V.

4) Public ministries: event planning, ministry opportunity planning, and line up- teams sent two to three months ahead of the ship to a port to connect and facilitate births, customs, and other partnership.

5) Personnel: Training, health care, school, personnel, and community development.

6)Partner ministries: Guest relations, communications, public relations, and development/fund raising.

I now work in the partner development/ fundraising department of the partner ministries division. Jennifer works in the guest relations department of the same division.

Hope that's helpful! :)

STEP Program

We wanted to let all of our friends and partners know about an awesome program on board called STEP (Short Term Exposure Program), where crew members can join the ship for just three months! The Logos Hope's next STEP opportunity is currently open for registration if any of you are interested! This STEP will begin on March 17 and run through June 2. STEP gives a unique experience for people to experience life on board and has been a great way for people to decide whether they want to join for the two year Global Action program (the program we're apart of!). STEP is open to people over 18 and will give them the opportunity to work alongside crew members and receive practical and spiritual input. Watch these two great videos about Lydia and Jacob to learn more about STEP! (Click on their names to pull up the video). Lydia is one of our ship children so make sure to watch her video! :) Visit www.logoshope.org/step for more info about STEP.

More Great Opportunities this Weekend

I (Jennifer) had the opportunity to lead two trainings again this weekend on hospitality! What a great opportunity. I'm really enjoying the chance to train and interact with so many crew members on board. John and I also lead a "trash pickup" team this weekend. Since we're hoping to soon be leaving Denmark, many crew members are dedicated to making Koge an even better, nicer place then it was when we arrived. Many teams went out this weekend to pick up trash around town and "beautify" the city before we leave.


Jennifer leading her training!

Morning Devotions

Each morning, our entire crew gets together from 7:30 - 8:00am for a time of sharing and devotion. We recently just finished an excellent series on Religions of the World. We studied Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormonism, Islam, Jehovah's Witness and Roman Catholicism. We both had studied all of these world religions in high school, but since that was over ten years ago, it was great to have a refresher course. Truly fascinating. We're now doing series on Heroes of the Bible. So far, we've studied Abraham, Mary, Daniel, Peter and Joshua. We're really enjoying studying each of these characters in depth.

Leading my First Ship Tour!

Everyday, we have several people that come on board the ship desiring to learn more about the Logos Hope and take a tour of the ship. I've (Jennifer) helped out with several tours in the past, but today I had my first chance to actually lead the tour! What fun! I think I'm a natural! ;) ha ha! We are so incredibly thankful for all the new opportunities we've had in the past five months. Tour guide Jennifer, here I come!

Great Weekend!

Since the Logos Hope will most likely be sailing in the very near future, we decided we better get up to Copenhagen this weekend (possibly for the last time!). We have really come to love this city. In many ways, it reminds us quite a bit of San Francisco (minus the hills!). There is lots of diversity and culture, with loads of locally owned cafes, restaurants, and shops. The city is also filled with incredible museums and historical sites. On Saturday, we headed up to the city and spend most of the day at the Danish National Museum. What a place! The majority of the museum featured the history of the country, but there were many other displays from countries around the world. What an awesome time. All the signs and descriptions where in both English and Danish, so we were thankful for that! While in the city, we also sampled the world famous Danish open faced sandwiches called "Smørrebrød." We've heard great things about these tasty sandwiches, so were thrilled to finally get our hands on some. Wow, what a treat! YUMMY!

After spending the day in the city, we enjoyed a great jazz concert on board the ship. A local jazz band had visited the ship and was so impressed, they offered to put on a free concert for crew members and locals. How cool! John and I both LOVE jazz, so it was a real treat.

We also had the opportunity to attend a local Danish church this morning. Unfortunately, a translator wasn't available, but we still very much enjoyed being able to join local Danes in worshiping the Lord this morning. Praise God that we're finally feeling better and had a wonderful weekend of rest, relaxation and fun!

Leading Trainings!

We've been the recipient of many incredible trainings over the past five months, so it was a real honor when I (Jennifer) was finally asked to LEAD a training! As many of you know, in my last job at Friends for Youth, I led quite a few trainings, so I have been eager to spread my wings on board and help start leading trainings. I had my first opportunity to lead a training this past Friday for the new crew on board. I led a training on "hospitality" (on the topic in general and also specifically in regards to the Logos Hope). I think it went really well! What fun to be able to connect with the new crew and introduce them to the very important topic of showing hospitality to all of the guests and visitors that come on board the ship. I also led another training on "hosting" both this Saturday and Sunday. I led this training for current crew on board. Each overnight guest that stays on the ship is assigned a "host" to make them feel welcome, show them around the ship, connect them to the ship's ministry, etc. The purpose of the training was to prepare all of our crew members to become excellent hosts! What a blessing to be able to be able to give back to the ship's community this weekend. Praise God for this opportunity.