Poured Out

Peter is speaking at the GO conference tonight (8:30 Holland time) during quite a climactic session in the week’s programme. He woke up in the night feeling very sick and after speaking this morning, went back to bed for 5 hours. He’s not sure but he thinks he might’ve eaten something dodgy but his stomach is not right. I know he would appreciate prayer for strength and a clear mind as he speaks tonight and for God to work powerfully in people’s hearts.

If you are on facebook, we just added the NetworkedBlogs box over to the right . . . if you’d like to test it for us, please click Follow.  We may decide this is not worth having, but better to find out first!

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Melanie has updated her bookshelf with several new reviews.

Click here

I preached yesterday at Oakhall Church.  It is encouraging to think about what Joseph didn’t know, and yet what he did know enabled him to press on into the challenging times ahead with faith – I for one was encouraged by taking a closer look at Joseph in Matthew 1.  Now I have one “preach” left before a break for the rest of the month.  The break will involve family time and Christmas, but it will also allow me to make progress on some other projects too.  On Saturday I had a couple of hours with Ron, my colleague in the Cor Deo venture.  That was encouraging and I have some projects to press ahead on that front in these next days.  It is exciting to see God bringing details together for this.  I have meetings with people most days this week, some about Cor Deo.  Hopefully we’ll all be able to get into some sort of December rhythm – it can easily become an overwhelming month, but hopefully not this year.

Less than a week after being with the ships office in Mosbach, I was surprised to hear the big news concerning the Doulos.  Let me quote the official news:

Press Release: The ministry of OM’s ship Doulos will come to an end on 31st December 2009.

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. 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. The ship is presently in Singapore and has been undergoing the annual period of dry dock and surveys.

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.

Chief Executive Officer of OM Ships International, Peter Nicoll, said, “The outcome of this is that Doulos will not be able to continue in ministry. This is not what any of us wanted, and has serious consequences for everyone on board, those about to join and for ports we planned to visit.”

“We are committed to operating safe ships and complying with the requirements of our classification society, RINA, as well as the International Safety Management requirements for ships,” affirms Peter Nicoll. “We have been praying that God would use this five-year ‘special survey’ to give us a clear picture of the way forward for Doulos and that He has done.”

The well-being of the 280 crew and staff onboard is of paramount importance. Each person will receive the guidance and support they need to decide what their next steps should be. Some are close to the end of their period of service, while others joined as recently as September.

Keeping the ship compliant with the highest marine standards has been a real challenge over the years. It is a remarkable testimony to the professionalism and dedication of the non-profit organisation’s technical personnel that the ship has continued to meet marine requirements until now.

CEO Peter Nicoll stated, “We recognise God’s faithfulness through these 32 years of wonderful service of the ‘servant’-Doulos-as an outstanding OM ministry, through more than 600 port visits in over 100 countries. Many lives have been transformed, both visitors and those who have served on board.

We are also deeply grateful to our partners around the world who have supported the ship in ministry through the years. Please continue to pray with us as we work on present challenges and seek the Lord for the future.

With Logos Hope now active and exciting ministry taking place, we are investigating possible options to charter another ship in the interim and have already begun working on the Doulos replacement project.

Ken Miller
Director of Communications
OM Ships International

I’m on a roll here since I figured out how to put pictures on the site – for the fifteenth time!!   Here are some photos from our 4th of July celebration last week.  (See below for my other post from today.)

The girls made sure everyone wore red, white and blue!  Peter was gone all day and when he came home, we decided last minute to do a BBQ so he went out and bought the stuff we needed, plus a bouquet of red, white and blue flowers for his American wife!  Here the girls are getting ready to do a “parade” for us.  Two parade marchers and 4 spectators!

Here comes the parade!

This is the sign on Aliyah’s shirt!  I don’t think the girls have a clue who Miss America really is.  Their innocence is so sweet.

Mariah – watching the parade

Finishing off our BBQ . . .

And now it’s time for cake, a patriotic one of course!

Who cares what holiday it is, if dessert is included, I’m there!

The ideal way to be putting photos on our site would be to post them as we take them.  I haven’t quite got organized enough for that yet!  So, here’s a bunch from the past few weeks.

This was New Year’s Day . . . we went to a National Trust site for a walk.  It was cooooo-ld! Yes, those are feet in the tree above Aliyah and Joel.  Guess whose?

Yup, you’re right.  It’s Hannah, the family tree climber.  Which parent did she get the climbing genes from, anyway?

After our walk, which was quite short, because we were all freezing, we went to the restaurant for some nourishment.  We captured Joel imitating his sisters, who sometimes hold their noses when they drink vegetable juice. It was only water in the cup, so we’re not sure what inspired the nose-holding . . . or the napkin on the head!

Peter and the girls designed and constructed some beds for the girls’ playmobil.  They even stained them and made mattresses.

Yes, it has been a cold winter.  Mariah is practicing for when she is a missionary to Siberia! (just kidding)

Aliyah lost her first tooth!

Where’s the fire, Joel?

  Swimming in the living room (see post on January 30th – click here)

Ready to dive into all that water!

The water theme continued that night  . . . Daddy started squirting Joel in his highchair.  Hardly a fair water fight!

Joel didn’t seem to mind!

So, I guess the whole tropical paradise thing was all in our heads.  This is real winter!!!  We got at least a foot of snow – very unusual for our part of the country.  This is the view out our bedroom window.

Oh, the joy of the white, cold stuff!

Let it snow, let it snow . . . Peter was doing front flips into it when it was fresh.

The girls are eating snow-cream, mint flavored by request.

  Happy 6th Birthday, Aliyah!

The girls love to dress up together.  These are dresses that Hannah and Aliyah wore as flower girls 3 years ago.

Look whose sporting a new haircut.

He looks more like Daddy than ever now.

With the snow now gone, we finally got to take Aliyah to the Science Museum in London for her special birthday outing.  Here she is standing on an arch bridge she built herself.

Hope you enjoyed the photos.  I’ll try not to save up so many next time before I post them.  Thank you for praying for our family as we aim to grow in our love for the Lord together.

Just in case you forget to check the website at times, but actually want to know what is on the site, we have a new feature.  On the right menu you can see the subscription option.  If you click on that a page will come up allowing you to enter your email address.  Then you’ll receive an email to confirm you want to subscribe.  Click on the link on that email and you’ll start receiving our posts by email.  When we write a post, within a few hours you’ll receive an email with the post in it.  Simple.  It seems to work, so now over to you.

In conversation the other day a friend referred to a book as if I was currently reading it, but I haven’t looked at it for a while.  Then I realized that I need to update my bookshelf on this site.  So I have.  It is not exhaustive (since I am in the middle of many books), it is not going to be current for as long as I leave it up there (since I will be done with some of the books soon), and it is not as if I finish everything I start (some of last year’s books are still on my currently reading shelf!)  Anyway, my bookshelf is now up to date, and Melanie’s should follow in the next few days.  We’ll let you know with another post when her’s is updated.

If you look over to the right, you’ll see an addition to the menu of pages – The Daily Reader.  This is where we will post each month’s encouragement sheet in anticipation of another month of Bible reading.  This has all been designed for Oakhall Church, but we make it available here for anyone who wants to join us in the adventure of reading God’s Word through in 2009!  The reading plan and January’s encouragement sheet are now available on The Daily Reader page.