Traveling to Koge

Having finally finished putting in the generator in dry dock in Landskrona the ship limped over to Koge, Denmark for the final stage of outfit getting ready for the Passenger Ship Safety Certificate.

We traveled over the landbridge between Sweeden and Denmark. The bus stopped in Copenhagen where we spent the afternoon looking around the city. I liked Copenhagen and the Kings Gardens were magnificent, but on the whole, I was over tourism. We caught a train home at the end of the day in time to walk on the ship.

Cable work on deck 4

During dry dock, while there are less people on board and less AV operation tasks to take up our time, we have been running cables in deck four - the visitor experience deck. The cables are for audio and video for the various venues including the book ex, international cafe and welcome centre. Videos or announcements can be played on the screens from any of these locations and music can be played over speakers in the ceiling or announcements can be made. Ravi and I have been working away with out hands (and sometimes our heads) in the ceiling, running cables along the lovely cable trays in the deck head. It's dirty, painful, hard work (there's a lot of sharp things in the roof) but it's very satisfying to finish running and tying down a bunch of cables. Soon we will actually run the speaker wire for the speakers and install them in the ceiling.

Mission Experience

Last Wednesday night I headed out with a group from the ship into the town of Landskrona with the intention to spread the Gospel amongst the people there. We split up into groups of three people to make it less imposing. I chose to go with two good friends from the ship, who like me had not prepared for the journey so we had no tracts or bibles or anything. Also we didn't really know what we were doing so we spent a lot of time walking around the town looking for someone to talk to. After much walking we eventually ran into a man with a dog sitting on a park bench. My friend Todd patted the dog and then we began to chat with the man. I explained that we came from a ship in the shipyard and we had people from over 50 countries on board and the ship goes around the world selling books in countries where books are hard to get, and that we help out with building projects and disaster relief. Then I added that we spread the good news of Jesus Christ. He said "Oh, you believe in Jesus?" "Yes" - "You believe in God" "Yes" - "What is God's name?" - I didn't know where he was going with this but eventually we figured out that he was a Jehovah's witness. We talked with him for a while working out the differences and trying to challenge him about freedom and relationships. I prayed quietly while Todd asked more questions. Eventually I think we caused him to stumble a little and maybe he had to re-think something, but overall we didn't get very far before he decided he didn't want to talk any more.
It was an interesting experience, I'd like to know more about witnessing to other religions. Please pray that I receive more of these opportunities in the coming weeks.

The Island

Today a group of people headed from the mainland over to a little green island covered in wind turbines. We took the Logos Hope's rescue boat which is fairly nimble but only takes 4 passengers at a time. It was great getting a little boatride.
We walked the length of the island to explore, mostly we found these wind turbines (which we knew were there obviously) and some dirty water and some tracks. We found a bird sanctuary and several interesting looking sheds probably related to the windfarms. There were dirt roads all over the island, which seemed silly because any car would not be able to go anywhere but around the island.
On the otehr side of the island we met up with some more people from the Logos Hope at what appeared to be a beach where we could relax and go for a swim. It was pretty relaxing lying in the sun there. but...
In the end the 'beach' didn't deliver on an important point - there was water, but it only went up to my knees for around 500 meters. I walked and walked and walked until it reached my waist and then we played in the water a bit and went back. Also the water was full of seaweed - as was the shore. It makes me miss the Australian beaches.

Exploring Landskrona

Today we went out into the town to see what we could see-see-see. Much to our surprise the town of Landskrona with it's ugly shipyard is actually the most beautiful township I've ever laid my eyes upon. It totally blows Kiel out of the water. Earlier I described Sweeden as Northrend because of it's geographical location but it seems much more like Goldshire to me. So many beautiful parks with lakes and trees and lamp-posts.
So when my German friend saw this sign he commented "Hey, do you know what that sign says?" and of course I replied "Nope" because it's in sweedish - duh. He then said "Neither do I! Isn't it great?". It fees good to be in a country where Matt can no longer understand the language either. Apparently Sweedish people speak good english - that's good because Sweedish is freaky.
So Matt and I found these pens with various animals in them including these Llamas, which didn't seem too interested in us, despite the German's amazement at such a creature. We also found some young Llamas which we petted and some young bulls. Matt climed into the pen and stared down the bull for a while.
Man this lake was so beautiful that I just had to cry.

Arriving in Landskrona

Finally we arrived in landskrona a little after 15:00. The shipyard where we are staying is heavily industrialised and looks dangerous and ugly, but it sure is fascinating. There is a ship next to us that is being sandblasted and painted in the dry dock. Apparently we have to wait for 10 days to get into the drydock because another ship got in ahead of us because they paid more money. It's going to be rough and tough here in Landskrona, but since there are fewer people on board it'll be a time of community building as well as hard work.

Leaving Kiel

Today the logos hope finally sailed out of Kiel after a long stay in the northen German town. As the ship still is not registered as a passenger ship it can only take 80 crew while sailing, so any non-essential personnel had to go by land in a bus - that means me and thankfully all my friends as well. Here you see me and Philipp waiting on the keyside for the ship to sail away
Many from local churches and the community at large came to say good-bye to the ship and it's crew, many visiting the day before and during the morning before forming a large crowd on the quayside to send off the ship that has been a large part of the christian community in Kiel for many months.
Finally sailing away it still required two tugs to navigate safely out of the harbor. Everyone cheered and there were many horns-a-honking including car horns, air horns and finally the big, manly ship horn.
So with the ship gone the remnants of the ship's crew walked down the road to a local church where we spent the night on the floor before heading off to Sweeden on a coach. We were all very excited and a little disapointed to be not sailing with the ship, but it was fun nonetheless.