Saying Farewell

After an amazing two months of experiencing the Doulos, it was time for us short termers to say farewell. What makes the Doulos is the people and through their fellowship and care the crew became my home away from home. I will miss all of them very much. 

Everyone taught me so much. I watched the dedication of my shift leader as he consistently worked to serve his staff and visitors on board. I was humbled watching so many talented and bright individuals selflessly serve as they took on the lowest of the low tasks. I was inspired by the brilliant fervor of my cabin mates to do additional outreach in their free time.

These individual have a wealth that transcends this world. It is not found in status or material possessions but rather in the their deep relationship with Christ that manifests itself in loving words and deeds.

Above all else what my fellow crew taught is that if you want to make a difference in this world, just do it. 

The time is now.

International Night

What draws many visitors to the Doulos is its  diverse crew. There are over 50 different countries represented on the ship. In America, we take for granted the fact that we are a melting pot. Particularly in NYC its normal to see Blacks, Whites, Hispanics and Asians all living within the same neighborhood. But Asian countries are quite homogenous. For them its intriguing to see so many people from different backgrounds all living and working together in peace. 

At the end of most port visits, the Doulos puts on a show called International Night. The program consist of many musical and dance performances from various cultures around the world. Some of the performances included a American Swing Dancing, Philippine Tikiling Dance, Tae Kwon Do, African Gumboot dance, and Scottish Dances. I participated in a parade of nations, dressed up as a cowboy. I assured people that every american dresses that way back home and rides a horse to work. Yee Haw!

While the performance is a lot of fun, the hope is that it shows people how our faith enables us to embrace each others cultural differences to live and work in peace.

The Simple Things in Life

Today we went out to help with a Habitat for Humanity project located up in a mountain overlooking Kota Kinabalu. The ships van was like an offroad atv as we ascended up a narrow dirt path to the house. Along the way we stopped to help a couple guys push their pickup truck out of a ditch. 

Upon arrival we were warmly greeted by the family whose home we had come to help build. They had been living in church housing located just down the hill. Since July (many teams including a few from the Doulos) had come to help with the construction. 

We helped with clearing out the stones from the driveway area. Many of the rocks appeared to be quite small on the surface. But most of them were just the tip of the iceberg. As we dug we unearthed many large stones and had to smash them up with sledge hammers in order to remove them. It was really hard work but a lot of fun.

The family had four young sons all under the age of six. Despite their age these kids were tough. They picked up sledge hammers and helped us break apart large stones and haul them off. It was amazing to see how the kids were able to entertain themselves for hours with simple things such pushing each other around in wheel barrows. 

Heavy rains came in the afternoon and they tried to catch water droplets from the roof

Growing up I remember whining if I didn't have the latest and greatest gadget and I'd say most children do the same. These kids appreciated the small moments in lifemade do with what they had. 

After a full day, the family thanked us for our work. Often those you help, end up helping you in ways you can never imagine.

Welcoming the New K.K. Preship

Most of the volunteers on board are on two year stints. They receive about a month of prep training prior to coming to the ship. Half of that training occurs at what's called a Go conference in Mosbach, Germany while the other half occurs in the local port where the group will join the Doulos. Their pre-ship training covers everything from outreach techniques to water safety and survival. Though these recruits mix with the rest of the ships company through out their time on the Doulos, much camaraderie is built during their training.  These groups of about 60-70 volunteers are called "Preships." Every six months an old Preship leaves the ship as a new one joins. 

I had the privilege of seeing the new Kota Kinabalu Preship arrive and it was quite a spectacle. Many of the current crew members dress up in their international costumes to welcome the new recruits. Almost all the crew were on the docks waving their country's flag, cheering the K.K. Preshippers as they approached their new home on board. 

One of the very special qualities of the people on board is much they make you feel welcomed. Within my first hours on the Doulos I was greeted by countless crew members. Not because they had to, but because they genuinely wanted to make everyone feel at home. I hoped that I could do the same for our new peers. Good begets good. 

Patience Taught, Patience Learned

A group of four of us were tasked with performing a program on the Doulos around the theme of "abundant life" at a Christian youth class. Unfortunately one of our team members came under the weather at the last minute so there were only three of us to entertain sixty teenagers for a couple hours.  As I've been learning, outreach rarely goes according to plan so we just worked around it. 

One of our team members, an older gentleman (whom I'll call John) was not willing to perform some of the skits and activities we had planned on doing. With a furrowed brow and folded arms he exclaimed, "I don't do skits. I can never remember what I'm supposed to do and I always miss my cue." I found myself frustrated at the fact that we not only had one less person on the team but that John was unwilling to be flexible. I prayed, please give me the patience to deal with John. Rather than bashing heads, myself and my other team member tried to help John overcome his disinterests. We reassured him that he could fulfill the task with a little practice. We went over the drama skit several times to make sure he knew what to do. 

After our program we were to break down into groups and discuss with the kids what they thought living an abundant life meant. To support our topic, John suggested using some rope to show some knot tying tricks. The rope tricks seemed impossible but by sleight of hand worked like magic. The idea was to illustrate that nothing is impossible with God. I humored John having him show me the seemingly simple tricks. I watched him put the end of a string through a loop without ever feeding it through the loop in the first place. Baffled, I couldn't figure out where the sleight of hand was. I watched over and over but still couldn't figure it out. Without getting annoyed, John repeated the exercise until I could figure it out. The person whom we had to demonstrated patience to earlier was not showing patience in return. It was a humbling moment.

A volunteer picked us up and brought us to the youth program. For a couple hours we ran our program and John was able to help out with the skit that we practiced. I gave a testimony of how I came to my faith. 

We talked about our experience working on the Doulos and the joy of serving those in need around the world. Afterwards we broke into groups and I had to facilitate a discussion with about twenty teenagers. It was definitely a challenge to keep their attention as they grew distracted and antsy. Just as our discussion ran out of steam, I busted out an art history book to show them a painting by Rembrandt of Jesus crossing the Sea of Galilee. They became engaged and it helped them visualize our topic of discussion. All in all, we had a great time. 

 

I never ended up needing to use the rope tricks. But through out the day, it was clear that acting out of patience rather than frustration can work through any challenge.

Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

After a four day voyage we arrived in Kota Kinabalu (otherwise known as K.K.), in East Malaysia. We were greeted by locals in traditional Malay costumes as they played drums. As a greeting from our diverse international crew, many were waving their home country flags off the port side of the ship.

While at sea, we had reset up the book shop so that we could open on the day of our arrival. All the bookshelf cabinets had to be uncovered and unpacked. It was a good days worth of hard work. Already on our first day we had several thousand visitors come on board. 

We received a port orientation on local culture and language. I had been learning Thai phrases the past month and now needed to shift gears and start practicing some Malay greetings. After a great voyage I was anxious to get back into doing some outreach work. 

'Tis Easier to Steer a Moving Ship

The other day my friend Geoff was reflecting on a pastors message. The pastor talked about how in life you can't grow unless you go out there and just seize opportunities that will shape you. The outcome can never really predicted. You just need to take that first step in order for the grounding to be provided under your feet. In essence, its easier to steer a moving ship than one that is still.

Today I had the privilege of steering the ship. The physical act of steering was both a literal and metaphorical representation of the devotional my friend shared the other day. I was thankful for the opportunity to be at the helm.