I was the fire watch man today again, for the same welder/engine guy. We’re working on building the new platform/deck for the new satillite internet connection dish thingy. It is really big and has to be really high up to get a good line of sight above the funnel and stuff. Fun.
I spent most of the afternoon chipping off paint so that the welding torch could work properly. This morning was bible study groups, drills and deckie devotions, and because of various things didn’t actually get a chance to work until after lunch.
I’m involved in a music cafe programme tonight! Sound check in half an hour! We’re doing a live percussion jam/jazz session that I started (whoo!!!) yesterday. I hope it goes well.
Today I swept the decks, helped loading cargo from a new container (food, books, etc), I love doing this. Ropes and the crane and all. Then after lunch I was helping an engine room welder with removing a large air-vent from above the book ex deck. This involved standing below making sure no sparks caused a fire, pushing and shoving on a large piece of metal trying to make it move, pumping something like a car-jack to try and lift this air-vent, jumping up and
down on top of it while he hit it with a hammer, attaching a block and tackle metal chain type affair to whatever random bits of deck or railing we could find, attaching the other end to the air vent, and pulling, and then stopping when the railing started to bend too much, and then finding another railing to try. Yeah. Fun day.
I’ve also been introduced to a really cool board/stratergy game called carcassone (possibly wrong spelling). It’s about building cities, roads and so on, and is for 3 to 5 players. Cool game, and wonderful for strange conversations about word meanings, work, and all kinds of odd topics. Very cool.
We arrived 3 days ago at the ship, and have been mostly doing training so far. I’m enjoying it. I’m working in the Deck department again, so will spend 40 hours a week as a deck-hand. Cleaning, scrubbing, painting, chipping rust, and making this ship look beautiful. Also today we had watch-keeper training. So 40 hours a month each of us will be on gang-way watch, crowd control, and keeping order. We are currently in the port town of Sharjah, in the UAE.
I bought half a kilo of cashew nuts yesterday! For about 1 CYP, I think. I’m still having problems with converting the numbers.
Today I finally saw the doctor, and got some anti fungal cream for my feet. The athletes foot problem has appeared again…
I love cashew nuts.
I hate athletes foot.
I love chocolate too. In the fireroundsmans training today, we learned: accept bribes of chocolate from curfew breakers, eat it, and then write their names down anyway.
Oh! Yeah, and I also got a nice new sun hat for around 80 cents as well yesterday.
Text message receieved Saturday night:
Just told us now our departments, I am a deckie! Whoo!
Another text message from the pre-ship training:
Survived practical water survival. Floating using trousers as lifejacket, for 2 mins, etc. Fun.
Text messages arrived:
Training is going well. Please pray for my Japanese brother who has much trouble with English.
V. tired. So many sessions. Culture adapting, safety, did practical firefighting today. Extinguishers and all. We are in amazing holiay resort. Lovely food. Huge chalets. Is good but all just want to get to the ship. We need to do this to get our seamen crew certificates though. 3 more written exams. Did 1, was not too hard. Need sleep. Good night.
Text messages received Saturday 11pm:
Arrived. One girl had accident w/ escalater and luggage. Sprained ankle, bruised ribs. German esclators take trolleys. her brakes were dead. Will be fine by end of week. otherwise safe.
man.. so busy. we leave here at 8am on saturday. The Logos2 people leave at 5am!!! flights. evil. so gotta pack and do last laundry and stuff tonight probably. tomorrow there is no early afternoon session, so i plan to do some more packing then.
hey, about the weight allowance, God is good, and we have a nice miracle. we can take 30 kg each! cool, eh? Mind you, we are supposed to take not quite so much hand luggage (mine was about 12 or something before, I think?) so what I will do, I think, is leave my sleeping bag to come with the next container (March), and perhaps a few things like that, and then put my old clarinet in my main luggage. That will help a lot.
We’ve been doing a lot about personality type and working as a group and all this week, using mainly the “4 temperaments” system. I scored highest (surprise, surprise) as “Harmoniser”. A lot of this is very well known to me, because of doing so much Myers-Briggs type stuff at home so many times. But it has been good, and many others are learning loads of stuff and realising a lot about team dynamics and all. Yeah.
We’re all beginning to get even more excited about leaving in a few days time. There are quite a few juggler type people (stilt-walkers, and all sorts!) so it will really be cool on the ship, and at pre-ship, with all the stuff.
It snowed! Germany is so beautiful, and snow makes everything look
lovely.
Conference is going well. It is amazing meeting all these people, and learning so much about what God is doing around the world. Meeting people from every continent going to every other continent.
Had a time today looking at all the different places where they need workers, seeing what they do, and met up with some people from a training centre in the UK who are praying for a drama person to come along and start doing full time drama ministry, teaching sessions with their students, but also putting together professional level productions, and taking them to schools and churches around the country.
It’s a place we visited in October, and I didn’t really feel very inspired by them then, as it seemed to be training all just by lectures, but speaking with the guys today, they said they are slowing trying to revise the system there and make it more interactive, not so lecture oriented, and really want to make the arts a priority. That could be interesting to do in a few years time, after the ship, maybe. I have their contact information, and will be praying about it. We shall see.
The group from Germany had a whole load of juggling equipment and stuff lying around too at this time, everyone was milling around, looking at different places like a market. Many people were playing with the juggling stuff, so I picked up a set of balls, and did a bit of practice, and then the German rep asked if I could be bribed not to go to the ship, and if they gave me lots of German chocolate, would I stay in Germany! Rather cool….
This evening we had a long session looking at the history of the organisation, seeing how it all began, and had phone-calls with some of the longest working people. Amazing.
God has used and is using so many people to do so many things, it is kind of mind-blowing.
Anyway, it is a very busy schedule, so I do not know if I will get time to post much during the conference. The first session starts at 8:45am, and the day ends at about 9:30pm. Although there are breaks, there is not enough time to get back to the hostel and back.
