STEP

One of the awesome parts of my new job is coordinating a program on board called STEP (short term exposure program). The program is just 10 weeks and gives young people an opporunity to be exposed to life on board the ship. We have new groups coming every 10 weeks and a new group arrived this past week. This is my first STEP group to coordinate, so I'm quite excited! There are 14 in the group and they are from many different counties. On Friday and Saturday, I coordinated an orientation for them and now they are starting their jobs on board. Over the next 10 weeks, they will work in a department on board, but also have the opportunity to participate in ministry and training. Just tonight my new boss said to me "You're like fish in water in this new job." Thank you Jesus for equipting me with the right skills and giftings for this new job!

Teenage Girls Event

On Friday evening, I had an awesome opportunity to MC an event for local teenage girls. What a joy! As many of you know, I mentored a teenage girl for many years back in Redwood City and also worked for a youth mentoring program for several years... all that to say, I very much love connecting with teen girls. The event was planned especially for girls coming from broken homes. What an evening! The program included a few dances performed by ship's crew, an incredibly awesome reggae band and a great message by a local female pastor. After the program, I was able to connect with an awesome young lady and had the opportunity to encourage her and pray for her. Thank you God for this incredible opportunity.

Goodbye St. Lucia, Hello Barbados!

We left St. Lucia yesterday evening and arrived in Barbados early this morning. Thankfully, it was a very short sail because it was quite rough throughout the night! :) We had a wonderful time in St. Lucia. John's parents were visiting for the majority of the port, so we had a good time exposing them to life on board the Logos Hope. They spend several days helping out in our book hold (where we store our thousands of books!) and helped John with some data-entry as well. We also were able to take them to several events that we offer to the public -- an international prayer night, a partnership dinner, and a youth event. They also had the chance to hear John share his testimony in church and attend several of our ship community events. We are so thankful that both parents have now visited us on the ship and have a better understanding of what the Logos Hope is all about!

Diving in St. Lucia

St. Lucia

St. Lucia has a population of 160,000 and is about 239 square miles in size. The capital is Castries (where the ship has been docked) and about a third of the country's population resides there. St. Lucia is a volcanic island and is more mountainous than many of the other Caribbean islands. The highest point on the island is Mt. Gimie (3,120 feet above sea level). Two other mountains, the Pitons, form the island's most famous landmark. We had the privilege of seeing them as we sailed into St. Lucia and then again when we went diving with John's dad! Saint Lucia is also one of the few islands in the world that boasts a drive-in volcano; but unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to experience that. Maybe next time! ;)

Ashfords Visiting!

John's parents, Wes and Joanne, arrived into St. Lucia Saturday afternoon and will be visiting us on the ship until next Monday. Today is Joanne's birthday, so we're hoping to have a great celebration today! The highlight of their visit so far was taking Wes diving on Monday! The last time he went diving was the day after John was born (almost 30 years!) in Los Angeles. Since so much time has lapsed since he dove last, he took a little refresher course on Sunday and then we went together on Monday. What fun! The water was sooo blue and clear and we saw TONS of fish! What fun!

Goodbye Trinidad, Hello St. Lucia!

We sailed away from Trinidad on Wednesday afternoon and arrived in St. Lucia yesterday evening. What a beautiful sail! The water was so blue and so clear! The highlight of the sail for me was seeing dolphins swim alongside the ship and John's highlight was seeing a beautiful rainbow across the whole sky. Thank God for his incredibly beautiful creation.

Trinidad was a fantastic port for us. During our five weeks in port, we had over 96,000 visitors come on board and sold over 320,000 books (an all-time record for OM Ships!). The Trinidadians as a whole love to read, so were anxious to get their hands on as many books as possible! In the book fair, we sold one Bible ever 1.25 minutes. The top sellers were The Five Love Languages, Better English, The Purpose Driven Life, and the World Atlas. Pretty amazing. We also had 64 events on board for locals with almost 5,000 people attending those events. We are so thankful to God for bringing so many visitors to the ship over the past five weeks. Our prayer is that every single one of those people took one step closer to Jesus.