I am in the midst of an historic moment for OM. The ministry of OM’s ship Doulos will come to an end on 31st December 2009. The hearts of thousands upon thousands of Christians touched by the ministry of Doulos are turned towards Singapore where she is berthed for dry dock work.
Doulos is the world’s oldest ocean-going passenger ship, now 95 years old, with the hull built in 1914, just two years after Titanic. The ship is presently in Singapore and has been undergoing the annual period of dry dock and marine surveys. In spite of the all year round maintenance that has taken place, the amount of steel replacement and other repairs needed for her to continue sailing are overwhelming. These surveys are what brought about this revelation.
Early indications are that the work would cost over €10 million and take five months to complete. The OM Ships executive leadership team and board believes that is not appropriate to invest resources of this scale into the ship, since Doulos would have a limited ministry future.
Needless to say this has come as quite a shock to the community. It was very much a surprise to everyone as it was thought that we would be able to sail the ship at least through September, 2010. There are 295 people living on board the ship at present of which 2/3 of the community were on land based ministry teams in South Asia as the ship has been progressing through the dry dock work. Everyone is now back on the ship and they are coming to grips with the knowledge that after Christmas they won’t have a home or ministry onboard the Doulos.
***Info about the Doulos Ministry***
Over one million visitors come on board each year to browse the hallmark of the ship’s ministry—a large floating book fair with 6,000 titles in stock, including books for university studies, professional and career interests, history, science, economics, language learning, hobbies, novels, children's stories, biographies, dictionaries, atlases and a wide variety of Christian resources, including Bibles, study materials and books on Christian living.
The ships also bring aid and relief to needy people and places around the world. Crewmembers go ashore to provide medical aid, help construct schools, orphanages and homes, and give gifts of food, clothing and books. Teams also visit hospitals, orphanages and prisons to share God’s compassion and love. This is just a small picture into their ministry. They run conferences, evangelistic outreaches, mobilize Christians into action and exhibit God’s love to the nations of the world.
Since 1970, more than 40 million people have visited the ships during more than 1,350 port visits in 158 nations.
***What this means for me?!***
I came to the Doulos to train the IT staff on how to operate their systems and how to be better IT professionals. That role has now changed drastically to one of decommissioning the IT systems on board. The IT staff onboard are completely unable to cope with the task of this magnitude and complexity. I found out the definite news on Thursday, 19th of November and have been scrambling since then to work out a plan of attack on how to actually do this.
God has been in this trip. Thank you already for all your prayers. Even before this news I have seen God’s hand at work in a number of ways. One way was that I “accidentally” purchased a return ticket from Singapore when I had intended to purchase a one way ticket because the intentions were for me to return from Oman in the Arabian Peninsula. All the travel arrangements had not been booked yet for my return from Oman. So my accident has been used by God for good as I can now use the return leg of my flight.
Another thing is the fact that I am actually here on board the ship is remarkable. There is only a handful of people within OM capable of shutting down the IT systems on board. The others have families and could not be out here in such an indefinite situation as I find myself. Everyone on board is touched in some way with the IT systems and it is a comfort to the guys that I am here to help them through these final few weeks.
Thursday evening after the news was released I immediately began to work with the Ships IT staff back in Carlisle to come up with a 2 page initial plan of attack. Over the coming weeks leading to her final decommissioning we will need to lots of things to safely remove all IT systems apart from those required for her final sailing. I am uncertain when I might return to Carlisle because of this.
***Prayer Requests***
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