Back to Rehab

Today I was given the opportunity to go to a woman’s rehab center called the Serenity House.  There were 10 women living there who are or have been addicted to drugs or alcohol or had been living out on the streets and seeking a place to get their lives back together.  Nine of us girls from the ship drove about 2 hours to spend the afternoon with these ladies and it was such an amazing time.  After introducing ourselves I sang a song for them.  It was a song called Come to Me by Jill Paquette.  The first couple of lines go something like this: “Broken and battered your confidence shattered but I am still here.  The things that you cling to they seem to just bring you right back to your fears.”  And the song goes on to talk about how Jesus is calling us to come to Him and everything will be alright and you will find love and healing through Him.  The women really seemed to enjoy it.  After my song, one of our girls shared her testimony.  She has had a pretty rough life and has a story that these women could relate to really well and after she finished sharing each of the 10 women there began sharing each of their stories with us.  It was amazing to see such openness and honesty and it was so good to just be real with each other as we all shared our different struggles and battles and how and in Whom we find hope and strength.  The lady that acts as the director of the place shared with us that she was ready to give up and close down because she felt like she wasn’t really accomplishing anything and she was just getting ready to have a meeting with the women to discuss some options when we pulled up.  She told us that we had brought her a new hope and motivation to continue the work.  Please be praying for her and the women there, as this is the only women’s shelter of its kind in all of the English speaking Caribbean.  During our time there I also had the opportunity to pray for a 16 year old girl who had been raped by a relative and gotten pregnant and had a 2 week old daughter.  What a precious pair those two are and she seems to have a genuine relationship with Christ and asked me to pray for her mom who is not saved.  I hurt inside for these women and the lives they have lived and the pain and the brokenness and the addictions they have fallen prey to, some of it because of their own choices and some of it because of unfortunate circumstances.  But these women were so open to hearing and talking about the Lord and we were able to encourage each other to never give up, to keep fighting the battle, and to trust God to provide the victory.  I tried so much to help these women know and understand that they were beautiful and precious and worthy of love.  The place they live in is in desperate need of repair and our team is really hoping that we can send some others out there to do some work for them and we would really like to have the opportunity to bring these women back to the ship with us and host them for a day and let them share a meal with us while we are there.  Please be praying that God would orchestrate that for us, as it would be such a blessing!

From University to Rehab

This morning a group of us traveled to one of the universities in the Port of Spain.  The original plan was to spend a couple of hours walking around the campus praying, handing out tracts, and starting up conversations with some of the students with the purpose of sharing our faith.  Upon arriving and speaking to the man in charge we were informed that we would not be allowed to do that because it goes against the schools’ policy.  We had brought some literature with us and were given permission to set up a table in one of the lounges and if students happened to walk in and approach us then we could talk with them.  I think this actually ended up working to our advantage because we had a number of people come through who had got word we were there and were curious about who we were and what we were doing.  God definitely worked everything out.

Later in the afternoon my team was picked up by a couple of men who run a place called the Rebirth Center.  It is a rehabilitation center for men who are or have been addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, who are homeless, unemployed, or any number of things.  This place was in the middle of nowhere.  They own quite a bit of land that is surrounded by the mountains and the jungle and they have a garden where they grow a lot of their own food and have a number of various jobs and leadership positions for the men to fulfill during their stay.  What an amazing time I had here.  There was probably somewhere between 30 and 40 men and we did a short program for them.  We introduced ourselves and the ship, had an interactive sketchboard message talking about brokenness and how Jesus came to heal our brokenness and then one of our guys shared his testimony and by the end of our little program we had 8 men come up to give their lives to Christ and we got to pray for each of them individually, Amen!  After this happened there were many others who were still interested in knowing more, so we had a spontaneous question and answer time where the men asked all kinds of spiritual questions.  Then a couple of the men that were already believers chose to come up front and share their stories with us and a couple of other guys each sang a song for us.  It was an amazing time.  Afterwards we had the chance to hang out and chat with them and some of them went and cut down some coconuts and sliced them open with their machete and passed it to me to drink; nothing quite like fresh coconut water!  I found it very easy to talk to these men, or rather they found it very easy to talk to me and I mostly just listened.  Our bus driver had to come tell me 3 different times that we needed to leave.  I could have stayed there all night, it was such a beautiful place and the guys have such crazy stories and it was such an amazing opportunity to share a bit of hope with them.  What a blessing to be used by God!

Laventille, Trinidad

After driving through the twisting mountain roads of Trinidad, my small team of 6 people arrived in Laventille, one of the most dangerous cities in Trinidad.  Most local people try to avoid this area as it is known for its high crime rate and violence.  We came to entertain a group of about 15 children who attend an after school program in the area.  After going around and having everyone introduce themselves, we took the children outside and played a few games, told a short story with a gospel message, shared about the ship and what we do, and sang some songs.  The kids were so sweet and even taught us a few of their own songs and actually made us sing them alone just to make sure we had actually learned them.  Afterwards, we had a little bit of time left to just hang out with the kids and love on them.  Right before we left I had a couple of the younger boys call me over and made me bend down and they each gave me a kiss on the cheek…too cute!

Ship Family

Every Tuesday night is ship family night. Everyone onboard belongs to a particular ‘ship family’ who get together to share a meal once a week and spend the evening together getting to know each other, going out in the port, watching a movie, playing a game, etc… It’s a good opportunity to get to know some other people and feel a little more like you belong to a family. This is a picture of my family….the Crowe family. We have lots of fun together!

Independence Day and Farewell

Today was Trinidad and Tobago’s Independence Day. The day was complete with lots of loud music, crowds of people, street vendors, and fireworks. We had a nice Indian dinner together as ships company and met together in the Logos Lounge for a farewell/thank you service for our director onboard. Him and his family are going to be leaving in a couple of weeks and going back home to Australia to continue working with OM there. After the service we all gathered up on Deck 9 to take in Trinidad and Tobago’s fireworks. They launched them from the dock directly across from our ship. It was a pretty amazing show! Any time I see fireworks anywhere other than home I am always left a bit disappointed because no one can do fireworks like Bettendorf, but I have to say, Tobago put up a pretty good fight. I was very impressed with their finale, not only was it almost too much for the eyes to handle but they also set off some pretty loud explosives, it was awesome!!! We ended the night back down in the dining room with an ice cream sundae bar. All in all, it was a good day of celebration.

I'm still alive!

Wow! 2 Months. I am so sorry I have not been keeping you updated. Those of you who were actually following my blog have probably given up on me by now, but don’t give up completely. I’m back! And I will try to do my best to give you regular updates again so that you all can feel like you are sharing in my journey. The last 2 months in bullet form: a very brief summary…

• Participated in some great ministry in the port of Cardiff. I got to help in giving out food to some of the homeless and spent the evening in the streets talking with many of them. I was amazed at how much they opened up and were willing to share their stories. Both times I went I was given the chance to pray with someone and felt so much joy in my heart that I could give them a piece of hope. I pray that God will complete the work that was started.
• Survived a smolder fire that started in the toilet paper storage room onboard the ship while sailing from Cardiff to London. Our fire team responded quickly and got things under control with no one injured and very little damage.
• Spent a few weeks in London ministering to the multi-cultural population that exists there. Got to take a tour of the city in a red double-decker bus and prayed for the needs of the city and for God to intervene.

• Got to help lead worship for the official opening of our Hope Theater on Deck 3. This is where many of our onboard ministries and programs now take place. It can seat about 400 people.
• Celebrated the 4th of July with the American’s onboard in Cork, Ireland. Was great to celebrate our countries freedom but more so to celebrate the freedom we have in Christ and to pray for others to experience that freedom.
• Spent 14 days sailing across the Atlantic. What an amazing time together as a ship community. God did many great things during the voyage. We came together in unity and experienced rest and refreshment from our Savior. We enjoyed quiet days, work days, family night, barbeque’s outside on Deck 9, prayer nights, worship nights, movie nights, fun/talent night, saw dolphins and whales, beautiful sunsets, nothing but ocean for miles and miles and so much more. I think I have been mostly cured of my sea-sickness (praise the Lord) and was able to really enjoy the voyage. 

• Arrived safely to the Caribbean and just finished our first port of St. Vincent’s and the Grenadines. We had over 43,000 people come onboard the ship. We sold more books in that one port than we sold in the last 4 ports in Europe. We sent out 22 sports teams, about 30 church teams, and saw over 100 people accept Christ, Amen!
• Arrived in Grenada this morning and are preparing for the ministry here. We have our official opening tomorrow and are looking forward to all that God is going to accomplish during our stay.

Indispensable Faith

Hebrews 11:6- "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarded of those who diligently seek Him."  Our relationship with each other is one based on confidence and confidence rests on character.  God is a being of supreme moral excellence, possessing in perfection all of the qualities that make up holy character.  He deserves and invites the unreserved confidence of every man.  Any good and proper relationship to Him must be one of confidence and of faith.  Where there is no faith, it is impossible to please Him.  The fallen nature of man began with a loss of confidence of faith in God.  Man questioned the very character and integrity of God and therefore opened the doors to every kind of evil and darkness.  Only a restored faith can bring a restored relationship.  John 8:12- "I am the light of the world, He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life."  1 John 5:10 says he who does not believe God has made Him a liar...  A God who lies is a God without character, and where there is no character there can be no confidence.  These things cause me to ask some questions.  Do you think there needs to be a balance betwee our confidence or faith in God and our fear of God?  Or is our fear of God something that we only experience at the beginning of our relationship with Him?  As we come to know God more and our love is being perfected and fear is cast out (1 Jn. 4:18), how do we balance coming before God in confidence still recognizing His position of being a Holy God deserving of our complete devotion and our position of being so unworthy?  Or perhaps we can come to Him as a Holy God in confidence because He has made us holy and clothed us with His righteousness.  Hmm...something to think about!  We need to repent and give a sincere apology to God for distrusting Him for so long and by faith, throw ourselves upon Christ in complete confidence and this will achieve reconciliation between God and man.  We need to allow the grace of God to meet us where we are and to change us from what we are sorry we've become into what we are fervently longing to be.  My soul is hungry for more of Him and I pray that I will learn more of how to be wise in the wisdom of God and that with the help of His Holy Spirit I can learn to follow and obey the Truth no matter what it may cost.