February 2022 Update - Life on the M/V Logos Hope

This is about 3/4ths of the Logos Hope. It is 132.5 meters long and has 9 decks.

This has been an exciting month of new beginnings. I arrived in Ghana, Africa on January 31st. My first week was spent quarantining in a hotel with about 45 other new arrivals. It was actually a good week of getting to know each other. It was also really great to have some extra free time to spend with God. January was super crazy getting everything in order to leave and having a slow week to adjust and process with God was great.

On Sunday evening the 6th, I was finally able to board the M/V Logos Hope. It was a very wonderful welcome with everyone onboard waving flags from their nations and cheering for us as we boarded. There are currently over 300 people working onboard from 60 nations. It is a remarkable international group of people. Once onboard we joined with another group making our new training group 97 people. We then entered a week of ship orientation and training, along with more “get to know you” and team building activities.

The last 2 weeks of February I joined the Deck department and started working. For my first month I will be serving as a general deckhand. This will allow me to learn the processes of the deckhand’s jobs, as well as get to know the deckhands as I work beside them. It has been hard work and my body is adjusting to keeping up with the other deckhands who are mostly half my age. Haha. But it has been great, and I am really enjoying it. So far, my jobs have included things such as: grinding rust, scrubbing the decks, garbage management, painting, helping with safety drills, and some woodworking - creating a bench used to hang off the side of the ship to work from. One thing for sure this ship is way bigger than what I am used to working on. On average while working onboard I am walking around 6 miles and climbing 40 flights of stairs a day. My record for one day was 10.5 miles and 85 flights of stairs. Needless to say, by the end of the workday, I am pretty tired.

After my first month of working with the deckhands, I will switch to shadowing a different officer each month to learn their responsibilities. This is an amazing opportunity to learn and continue to grow my skills as I serve in ship ministries. But this isn’t just so I can learn, this is also about sharing the love of God with the lost. I am really loving this ministry (Operation Mobilization.) They are very passionate about God. Their love of Him shines through in every aspect of this ship and all they do. They have an entire deck dedicated to the Visitor Experience, where the public is invited to come onboard 6 days a week. This area includes a welcome area where they learn about the ship and its purposes, the world’s largest floating bookfair with over 5000 titles, the Journey of Life walkthrough, and a café. The Journey of Life is an interactive walk though illustrating failure, forgiveness, and reconciliation through the story of the prodigal son. The ship has been docked here in Tema, Ghana for just over 5 weeks and has seen 44,108 visitors come onboard. That is over 44,000 people who have experienced the love of God. We also have teams that work onshore 6 days a week sharing the love of God in evangelical and practical ways. To find out more about the ship and what they do you can visit: https://www.om.org/ships/logoshope. Here you can also take a video tour of different areas of the ship.

We are currently wrapping up our time here in Tema. Please keep us in your prayers as we sail in a few days to another port here in Ghana and then on to Liberia later in March.

Here are some pictures from my time already. Sorry, we have very limited WIFI onboard which doesn’t allow me to upload videos, so no video update this month. Hopefully, I will be able to get one out in the next couple of months.

Assisting with boarding during a lifeboat training drill.

Greasing a platform where the gangway attaches.

Fire safety training during our onboard training.

Part of the crowds waiting to board the ship with some of our crew entertaining them with worship.