No problem mon!

We're in Jamaica :-))
Friday, april 11th, we arrived in Montego Bay, Jamaica. This island looks different then the other islands we've visited so far. The first thing we saw right before we arrived was an island with lots of green and mountains. The kids said they already felt at home here, since there were mountains on this island :-)
Friday evening we went out to the yachtclub with a group to celebrate the birthday of 2 of our crewmembers, Collette and Stein Are. The yachtclub is about 20-30 min walk from here and is a really nice place to sit and relax. They also have a playground and swimmingpool, and they told us we are welcome to come back with the kids to swim.
Anyway... we had a very nice evening and were back just before the gate closes at 11pm (which we by the way didn't know).
Saturday the bookfair opened and already the first day we had about 1500 visitors, not bad for a first day, even though we know that for Jamaica it's a "slow" day being a weekend-day.
Also, in this port, a gospel flow team came over from USA. Gospel flow is a way of 'entertaining' the visitors while they are waiting to enter the bookfair. On a busy day people can be waiting in line for several hours! So on those days we have 'crowd control', which is a team that litterally control the crowd, make sure they don't start pushing each other and things don't get out of hand.
Then we let in around 250-300 people at a time and they first enter our main meetingroom, where they buy drinks if they would like and sit in an airconditioned room. For 15 minutes we (the gospel flow team) then share the gospel with them, both through video's, drama, songs and a short preaching. After the 15 minutes, they leave the meetingroom and enter the bookfair, and we get ready to let in the next 250-300 people.
We did the gospel flow on sunday after church and did that until 8.30 in the evening!!! Herbert took care of the children, so I could participate in the gospel flow. It was just me from our crew + the team from USA and I was exhausted at the end of the evening, but it was really great doing this, and I learned so much from doing this!!!
For monday we had planned to go out to the city center to hand out flyers and talk to people, but just as we were ready to go and walked down the gangway, a group of schoolkids arrived to the ship. And even though they didn't ask for a program (they were just gonna visit the bookfair) we asked the teachers if they were interested (which they were) and went back in to prepare a program for the kids :-) It was very spontaneous, but we had a great time.
There were quite many kids, I'd guess about 60 or so... We did some songs, dances and games and told them about Jesus.
Yesterday we had 1 school program planned. At 10 am about 20 kids would arrive and we would do a program. They arrived around 10.30 and there were more than 20 kids, probably closer to 40. But, we had fun and we're able to get the kids quite involved and have them pay attention and receive the message. We thought we were done when they left, but no.... a group of teenagers came in, all around 14-15 years old, and thought we had a program for them. Oh well.. since our team was there already, we might as well continue :-)
I hadn't really done a teenage program before, so Richard (teamleader of the group from USA) did about that whole program. The message was really good and he managed to keep their attention, even though it almost seemed they lost attention after a while, but then he did a 'trick' that really caught their attention again, and then he prayed with them and gave them a challenge to read the John's Gospel (little book they get for free when the leave the ship) and actually read 1 chapter every day and don't wait until tomorrow, but start today! The devil's favorite word is tomorrow, because if we postpone things, we are likely to not do it at all, and of course he doesn't want us to read the Bible! So... start reading this 1st chapter of John's today!
Many of the teenagers seemed quite involved and ready to read it that evening.

In the evening we had a dinner at the yachtclub. The whole crew was invited for a dinner either monday or tuesday. The food was good and the company was very nice. Towards the end of the evening Marthe got a bit bored and she know I had a John's Gospel in my bag, so she asked me if she could have it. Of course I gave her the book and she told me "mom, I'm going to read the 1st chapter tonight!" Isn't that great?! She had really understood and remembered the message Richard gave and she really wants to live her life for and with Jesus!
By the way, Marthe is very involved in all the childrens programs. She is part of the team when we do programs and shows the kids a dance to the song 'Jesus You're my superhero' and knows the dance better than we all do :-) She also knows all the drama's now, since she always wants to be there when we practice.

Oh, Marthe got a 'job'. She's not allowed to really work yet, but she got permission to help out in the bookhold and bookfair whenever she wants. She's been working for a couple of hours now and really liked it. She gets to be part of the team together with the adults and not only be one of the kids. She needs that time with the adults.
The bookhold manager was really pleased with her help, she did a good job :-)

Today, wednesday, we again had a spontaneous school program. A couple of schools turned up at the same time and we did a program for around 70 kids! Good thing we always have some videos we can show, some games and dramas we all know, so that already fills up 15-20 minutes.
Aniina asked me if I can MC (which is do all the talking) a couple of the school programs next week. Herbert will know his work scedule for next week by the end of this week, so then I can have a look at when I can do the school programs.
I'd never have thought that I would do all this, leading worship, leading childrens programs, do gospel flow, but it almost comes natural! God really blesses me and takes away my fear for things I thought I couldn't do, and I learn so much from our time here!

Ending todays blog with Philippians 4:13
I can do everything through him who gives me strength