St.Kitts - Antigua

Our visit to St.Kitts was short and after a 6 hour sail yesterday (the 7th of May) we arrived in St.Johns, Antigua.

First a little update on what we've done in St.Kitts. Because of the short stay (friday-wednesday) we haven't done very much ministry on this island, but Herbert has been to jail saturday afternoon to share the gospel. He thought that was a good experience and he now also likes to do more ministry, which is a good thing :-)
Saturday evening was movie night on board. They showed a movie called 'the climb' (if I remember right) and it was open for visitors as well as crew members. After being there for about 10 minutes, we decided we'd rather have our private family movie night and went to our cabin to watch a movie together with the kids.

Sunday we went to the Wesleyan Holiness Church. Gareth Bolton, an OM-man, has been on board the Logos II for about 2 weeks, together with his wife Malou. And he has done teaching on Eclesiastics for the ships crew members. We had one session almost every day, either morning or evening. And on Sunday, he was the one preaching in this church we went to. We were a group of 6 adults (Gareth and Malou, Herbert and I, the Norwegian Stein Are, and the Hungarian Réka) and our 4 kids. We introduced ourselves in church and Réka told something about the ship and our ministry. Gareths preaching was very good and we were glad we went there with them.
After the church service the pastor and his wife took us to the church's outreach where they served us lunch. They had all kinds of food, and also mangos which grow all over the islands here and are ripe now. They showed us the best way to peal and eat a mango, which is not an easy fruit to eat without getting yourself dirty.
We were back on the ship around 2.30 that afternoon.
Sunday night was we had another event on board that was called 'youth explosion'. We first wondered why they named it that, but after a little while we understood. It was really an explosion, WHAT A NOISE can people make. A local church organised it and was in charge of the program, but it felt like it never ended. There was lots of singing, dancing and talking, most of the time VERY loud! But, we survived also this night :-)

New day, new chances (and challenges). In the evening a family night was planned. Again, a local church had organised it. We thought a family night was about spending time with other families and do fun things for kids and adults, but that is obviously not what they think a family night is. The pastor asked us (Herbert and me) to talk about family life and how to raise children and keep your marriage working. Not that we are so good or experienced, but well... we're one of the 2 families on board, have been married for a zillion years and have almost a handfull of kids, so they guessed we should know something about it :-)
First the worship team started, after that the pastor spoke for a couple of minutes and then handed the microphone to us. I introduced our family and told a bit about the ship / ships life and what we do on board. After that Herbert spoke about marriage and raising children and referred to the '5 love languages' of which Gary Chapman wrote about in a book.
After Herberts talk the pastor started a discussion and it was actually quite interesting to talk about this subject with the locals.
After most people had left, the worship team continued playing and singing a bit and then I started singing with them, together with some of the other crew members. We actually sang for about 30 minutes or something like that before they started packing their things and had to leave. We had a great time! Always wanted to sing the Hillsong song "our God is an awesome God" in Reggae style? Travel to the Caribbean, find a church with a good worship team and have fun! :-))

Tuesday Herbert worked in the evening, which means having time off during the day. We decided to go on a luxury day to the Marriott hotel! A volunteer from the Peace Corps told us that we might get in for free to use the swimming pool in the Marriott, since we work as volunteers/missionaries. Unfortunately we had to pay for a day pass, which we did buy, because it was about time we did something fun for the kids. We have been swimming in the pools the whole day. There were 2 pool areas, and the one we were at hardly had any people around it, so we basicly had the whole pool to ourselves. There was also a outdoor jacuzzi which was big enough to swim in actually!
With the day pass came a room, so we had a place to keep our things, to change and to shower/bath. The room was very luxurious, about 5 times the size of our cabin on board here and the bathroom contained a jacuzzi! We showered, but the kids were in the bath tub for a while before we had to go back to the ship.
We had a great day!

Wednesday we left for Antigua.

So far we haven't seen anything of this island yet, but we might go out for a walk tomorrow to explore the port-area.

Now I really have to go to sleep, it's waaaaay past bedtime!!!

Good night
God bless you!