“i just wish i could remember the words to Waltzing Matilda” i thought to myself. I was in the house of the pastor of a church in rural India and since they were not so fluent in English we had begun to exchange cultural songs. This week I had the opportunity to visit many churches in Kerela, India, to present the ship, give my testimony, and give messages of encouragement. After each service we were invited to share a meal with the pastors of each church. Each family put on a banquet of Indian food for us, which I absolutely loved. After the meal we would have fellowship together. As I stumbled my way through the verses of Waltzing Matilda the smiles on their faces told me I had connected with them.
Then came the real treat. Their two daughters performed for us a song in the local language (Malayalam) and they even danced as well. The tune was stuck in my head for many days. When we were finished we spent some time to pray with the family. It was very difficult to say goodbye as we had had such a great time with them. It is true indeed that wherever you go you have a family in the Lord.
Author Archives: Chris Young
A page from another book
“Thank you for visiting Logos Hope, the world’s largest floating book-fair, my name is Chris and I’m from Australia”. I’m speaking on a microphone before a small crowd of people who have just arrived at the ship after a long wait and a bumpy bus ride. They are about to enter the book fair and browse our selection of books, and it’s my job to tell them how to work out the price of the books and where to find the bathroom. In speaking briefly with one of the crowd he said to me “I am so glad that you are open again this week because I was unable to come before – and I brought my family with me”.
You see this week is unlike any other time I have been on the ship. We have been delayed by two weeks in Sri-Lanka because some repairs took longer than we hoped. So we opened the book fair again and sent people out to tell the city that we are open again – but unusually we aren’t hosting any events so there is very little work to do in AV. For this reason I was able to live my dream this week and work in the book fair for 6 days. I have volunteered my time there often when they are short on staff, but only for an hour or two here and there. I have prayed for the opportunity to work there for a longer time without leaving AV and this week God said ‘Yes!’. He is good!
To see first-hand a variety of people of different walks of life and beliefs on the ship and browsing our good books and meeting crew members gives me a new perspective on what God is doing on this ship and new enthusiasm for this ministry.
Back to basics
“Open your bibles, what does it say: ‘In the beginning God…’ Stop there. Now, who is this book all about? You? No.” In our busy lives on the ship working in AV with programs one after the other sometimes we forget the simplest things. Life is not all about ourselves and what we can get out of it – we didn’t come to the ship to work, that is what we left behind. No, we came to worship – worship with our hands and our heads, with the skills he has given us and with the strength he provides.
Ian Currey from OmniVision came to the ship for a week to spend some time with the AV team training us in the how, what, when and (most importantly) why of AV. Since we have extended our stay in Sri Lanka but we have no events to run – we have been blessed with the time to sit at the feet of someone more experienced and learn some of the things we can’t learn on the job.
Thinking about what Ian said in the training, I noticed that I often look at what I do on a day-to-day business as work, not worship. I am using my own strength to complete the tasks before me and operating as I would in my job at home. Once I was asked to do something over lunch time and I was quite upset that I would miss lunch with my friends. While it’s good to have boundaries and not always say yes – it seems clear to me now that I am not always making my service on board an act of worship to God.
Next year I would really like to go to Omnivision in the U.K. for two or more years. I would be a part of AV for huge Christian events in Europe and creating videos promoting the work that OM does around the world.
A very different easter
Easter eggs painted like famous figures like George Verwer, Easter sunday service on Saturday night and working on good Friday. This year’s Easter was not like the previous years on the ship.
This Easter the ship that I live on is in a dry dock – which means it’s out of the water for repairs to the hull and the engines. We work hard from 7am till 6pm and have many local workers come on board to help us complete the work on time. The dockyard is in South Asia, in a country where other world religions dominate the landscape and Christianity remains a minority – so there’s little allowance for us to stop work and reflect. But we did find time to have a special prayer evening on Thursday night, watch the passion of the Christ on Friday night and have a resurrection church service on Saturday night – Easter eve. Even though we were hard at work, it was impossible to escape the reality that Jesus suffered for us. The movie The Passion of the Christ really brings home the full impact of what he did for us. In church we were reminded that we will also undergo suffering and trials if we are to grow and share in his glory ‘If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.’ and ‘In this world you will have trouble but take heart, I have overcome the world’.
Dry dock work
So what am I doing in dry dock? Am I working in the engine room? No. I’m still working in Audio Visual, only my job has changed drastically. In place of managing a team of 5 operators and running big events I am sweating it out running cables, soldering, cutting, cleaning and otherwise making repairs and maintenance long overdue.
Working on this ship has taught me a lot about being a good steward of what I am given. People often told me to be faithful with the little things and then God will give you big things. Certainly the AV on this ship is a very big thing and I’m glad that I spent the time looking after AV in my home church first. Still I have a lot to learn about the proper care and maintenance of equipment. You wouldn’t beleive the dust that accumulates inside stuff after two years!
Like a ship out of water
As the water receded we were able to see just what Logos Hope looks like beneath the water. I even had the oportunity to go down and stand underneath the ship and see the propellers. Andy why would we do such a thing? Twice in every five years ocean-going ships are required to go into dry-dock to do routine maintenance and inspection of the hull and all of the below water fittings. It also gives us the much needed opportunity to perform maintenance and repairs while the ship is closed for business that would otherwise be very disruptive to the ship’s normal operation. And that’s what I’m doing here. I have many repairs to make that have made quite a mess. Hopefully when we open for business again all the little problems will be fixed.
When the water was taken away we could see the condition of the ship, but also when the air conditioning is switched off and the luxuries taken away I can see more clearly who I really am and how much or little I love or respect others when I’m uncomfortable. I pray that God would use this time of hard work and discomfort to break me and mould me to be more like Jesus.
Dream Event
A few years ago I was asked to describe how I want my life to be in 10 years time. I came up with something like this:
I am in a dissuesed factory in India. I am working with a team to install the audio/visual and it technology for an evangelistic event for thousands of people.
There was more to it, but that was the crux of the dream.
Two days ago I lived that dream. Over 3000 people came to the Logos Hope International Night in Colombo, Sri-Lanka. I came a day beforehand and worked hard to install stage lighting and cameras while my collegue Greg worked on the existing sound equipment. Days before-hand I had worked long into the night preparing the equipment that we brought for this event. Now I saw it going into place and working perfectly. During the event I was the video director. My job was to coordinate 3 camera people to provide video coverage of the event. Two were regular camera people from the ship, and one was from the church where we held the event. I chose which camera to put on the screen at any given time. At the end of the event I had almost lost my voice since I was speaking so much to the camera people (not shouting, just giving nice instructions), but it was well worth the long hours and hard work to see the event come together in such an amazing way. the 3000 visitors were mainly Christian so we tailored the event to encourage Christians to ‘go into all the world’. Thank you God for bringing me here to this place and including me in your plan.
Digital Generation
“I was three and a half years addicted to this game … I could be someone who I couldn’t be in real life … I started to cancel appointments with my friends and I stopped playing sport”. My friend Sander from Holland told the story of how he became addicted to an online game in his teenage years and how it prevented him from building meaningful relationships and hindered his walk with God.
Young people in Sri-Lanka are becoming increasingly engrossed in the online world. A place where social interaction is often cheap and shallow and true relationship is lost. In this unique youth event the ship’s younger people gave a challange to those visiting the ship to spend time apart from Facebook, MSN and SMS and build real friendships and spend time in the Word.
As an ex-gamer myself, I found the event had a powerful challenge whist not being overbearing. Social media technologies were never condemned and neither were online games, but both were put into perspective of a healthy Christian lifestyle.
Ministry Medina
In the past it was performed for the King but now the Korean Fan Dance is performed onboard for the King of Kings. The fan dance is one of many cultural performances that members of the ship’s crew learn to perform for international events. Scottish, Russian and hula dance, mime, drama and a host of songs are among the other performances that were demonstrated at the 2011 Ministry Medina. Here the newest members of the ship’s crew browse the available ‘passion groups’ to see what they would like to learn to use on their time onboard to demonstrate our cultural diversity and our Father’s great love. I have been learning and performing Drama since I joined the ship. Some of my best memories from my time on board are of performing dramas in front of people from lots of different countries. I hope to have many more opportunities to perform for audiences in India and tell them about the Love that my Father has for them.
Chinese Fellowship Visit
“I want you to approach a member of the crew and ask them these 5 questions”. Wei-ling from Taiwan encouraged the Chinese visitors to talk with the crewmembers in the room and ‘break the ice’. Having little else to do I stepped out of my box and said ‘Nin hao‘ to a man as he approached. We were only able to exchange names and countries as he didn’t speak a word of english – but he was still very happy to meet me. Another brave woman approached me and in broken english asked me how long I had been on board and what was my favourite food. Answering her in english first, then in Chinese I could tell her I had been on board already for 1 and a half years and of course my favourite food is Chinese food! (But I also like pizza!)
Together we sung songs to our heavenly father – though I understood only some of the words. They were very encouraged by singing together and by the talk from my friend Shaun who is from China and is staying on board for a short time. I also had a wonderful time and be thankful that I could be used by Him even when I can’t barely communicate with people.
