Merry & Bright

I’ve said that this blog is strictly for pictures and stories and not “thoughts” since I am not nearly confident enough to post my thoughts--nor do I have enough to post! But I wanted to share something that impacted me personally.

One of our sessions of class in Texas was about God speaking to us. We did an exercise to open up our minds a bit to see how God reaches out in different ways. All around the classroom were pieces of paper taped to the wall and each paper had a different “communication method” on it, like dreams or specific scriptures, or songs, or words of encouragement from a friend, etc. There were probably about 20 different papers all over. Each of us had a bunch of stickers and then we put a sticker onto whatever papers reflected how God has spoken to us in the past. It was fun to look around at all the stickers to see just how much God does speak to us. It was a good reminder! 

But anyways, my point in all this is that I realized that God speaks most normally and clearly to me through lyrics. I absolutely love songs because it is then that I’m most often struck by His Incredible and Steadfast Love. {I’ve noticed that every time God’s Love is mentioned in His Word, “steadfast” always comes before “love”. Always.} One of my absolute favorites {and I tear up every.single.time that we sing it} is: 

Because the sinless Savior died

My sinful soul is counted free

{and...here’s where I lose it}

For God the Just is satisfied

To look on Him and pardon me. 

I realized that there is just something about a Savior in the form of a baby that makes my heart melt. I know that Easter is an important time that we think about Jesus’ sacrifice but I think the sacrifice is much more real to me at Christmas time. A helpless infant? To save me? 

I know that not everyone is a fan of Christmas carols so skip over the next few lines if that’s the case. But here’s just a few of the lyrics that jumped out at me this year: 

Let earth receive her King

Fields and floods, rocks hills and plains repeat the sounding joy

{He is Savior for me personally and for the ground itself! Even nature rejoices.} 

Mild he lays his glory by

Born that man no more may die

{Philippians 2:10--He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.} 

Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod? 

When you kiss your little baby you kiss the face of God?

{Luke 2:35--Therefore the child to be born will be  called holy--the Son of God.}

One of my favorite parts of Christmas this year was the very end of our Christmas Eve service. We sang Silent Night in 7 different languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, and Norwegian. I love that singing a song or reading a verse in a different language allows you to pick up a little bit more of a different sentiment or meaning (I think I mentioned that in my post about our field service). I know this is a lot of reading but I’ve written out the translations for Silent Night in each of those languages. It’s beautiful to me that Christ came for every nation and people group and He loves the diversity we bring to worship him. I hope you enjoy! 

{Disclaimer: Google Translate did all these so if you speak any of the below languages fluently, please don’t laugh too hard if the translations are too word-for-word.} 

Silent Night! Holy night!

All is calm; wakes lonely

Just the faithful and holy pair high.

Lovely boy with curly hair,

Sleep in heavenly peace!

{German}

~

Night of Peace, Holy Night.

No noise in the barn.

In heaven everything rests in peace.

But suddenly in the pure and fresh air.

Shining angels

Appear to the shepherds.

{French}

~

Silent night, holy night, 

All are sleeping. 

Among its stars who spread their light 

Beauty announces the baby Jesus 

Sleep in peace 

Sleep in peace 

{Spanish}

~

Silent night, holy night,

David's son long-expected.

Those millions will once be blessed,

Born in Bethlehem's manger.

He, lord of creatures,

He, of creatures sir.

{Dutch}

~

Silent night, holy night!

Everything is peaceful. The star gently

shining on the child in the stable straw

and the watchful two.

Christ on Earth is come;

To us is born a savior.

{Swedish}

~

Silent Night, Holy Christmas!

Angels descend into hiding.

Into paradise green,

where they see what God is doing.

Secretly among us they go.

Secretly among us they go.

{Norwegian}

I hope you had a most wonderful, merry, holly jolly day. Merry Christmas from the AFM! 

Cabin 4311

Whoohoo! The container arrived early!! Every month a container from Holland and the the US (Texas) is sent. Longterm crew can mail stuff to either packing location--obviously medical/ship stuff gets first priority but if there is room, they will put your stuff on!  No fees ... just a three month wait. Since we put our stuff on the container while we were in Texas, we only had to wait a month once we got on board. But it felt like three months to me; needless to say I was pretty excited about fixing our room up to look like a home. 

When we toured the ship in January, I tried to get as many pictures of the couples’ cabin as possible. It was definitely weird trying to plan a room without being able to measure things or walk around. But I happened upon the email address of a couple on board and wrote them with some questions. They were so awesome and responded with LOTS of helpful information. And what do you know--they turned out to be our neighbors! :) 

So without further ado.. here is cabin 4311, hereafter known as home. 

{Disclaimer: I am not a professional photographer by any means!} 

Come on in...

and have a seat! {No nails allowed in the walls but thankfully ALL of the walls 

are metal so all it takes to hang up a picture is a couple of magnets! Easy 
to move around too then. 

We bought these bathmat rugs because they are cheap but super soft!

 They sort of make the bed feel like it’s in another room. 

And many many thanks to Sandy, who sewed these curtains up

out of flat sheets right before we left! They definitely make the 

space look different. :) 

AND many many thanks to Grandma Stull who sewed

 up the blue pillow shams there for me! :) The key to living

 on a ship is BRIGHT colors I think! 

The wallpaper looking stuff is actually a self-adhesive shelf liner. 

I found it cheap on amazon and there is tons of it! It just helps

 take away from the beige-ness.

View from the other side of the room. {Mail us your pictures so we can add to our fridge collection!} 

Pop on over anytime. :) 

And You Work As...?

I think I say this every time I start out a post but once again--I can’t believe we're entering our fourth week on board. I guess it’s about time you heard about our jobs! :) 

Both of us are really enjoying our jobs so far. We felt like we got plenty of confirmation about our jobs before we got here and it’s been such a blessing to feel needed where we’re at--and to love what we do. 

Jordan in the carpentry shop.  
Of course the two most frequently asked questions on the ship are: How long are you here for? [and] What do you do? When Jordan responds with, “I’m a carpenter,” he usually gets a “AWESOME!!!” And when I introduce myself people often excitedly say, “Oh I met your husband!! He fixed something of mine!” I think that that basically sums up what people think about the carpenters. There are two guys in carpentry: Jordan and Derek. Derek was in our gateway as well so it was really cool that they got to know each other before getting to the ship. 

Jordan and Derek at a cowboy church in TX.
 (I feel the need to explain the matching plaid shirts and boots.)

When someone runs into a problem, they fill out a work request form and check one of four departments for it to go to: plumber, electrician, engineer, or carpenter. So a LOT of maintenance stuff gets sent their way. And since they in the business of fixing whatever’s broken, people like to see Jordan or Derek coming their way! The carpentry position has recently gotten extended--it used to only require a three month stay but now requires a two year stay. This means that the carpenter can get involved in more long-term projects. It also means that hopefully the backed up work orders will get whittled down! 

Flipping through some work orders. 

Jordan’s shop is on deck 7 which is both a pro and a con... there is no air conditioning and the ceiling for his shop is the floor of deck 8, which is the top deck. So the sun beats down on the ceiling and that room is TOASTY. They do have a fan but hopefully will get something more figured out! But it's nice that they can walk out of their shop and have a beautiful view of the ocean. Pointe Noire is a busy port too so they see lots of ships coming and going every day. 

This one was particularly cool--it was HUGE
and unloaded cars for import all day!

They do work all over the ship though, which means climbing a LOT of stairs every day. They've also been working on organizing the shop a lot; being there for more than three months means they have a chance to organize in addition to working on projects (which they are doing as well). 

Working on the doors going into the dining room.

Organizing, organizing, organizing...

As for me, I am loving my job! Hospitality is in charge of making new arrivals and crew members feel welcome. We meet each new arrival, help them through embarkation paperwork, provide them a meal, and show them to their rooms. I love greeting people; it gives me a chance to get to know them before any one else does. It’s fun to know that you can be a friendly face to someone who just arrived to live with 450 strangers. We also give tours of the ship to those people which has been helpful for me--I was forced to learn my way around pretty quickly! 

Cecily (also in hospitality) and I waiting for new arrivals with the guards.

We also are in charge of cleaning cabins and setting them up for arrival. We do that for guests, new crew, and returning crew. A lot of effort goes into making the space look welcoming. I definitely appreciated that when I got on board so I’m grateful that it’s an important part of the job! 

We do a lot of set up for weekly meetings and also the occasional function. I love making things look pretty so it’s been a fun part of the job. :) 

And then--I get to bake cookies!! The kitchen staff (who do an amazing job, by the way) makes a lot of our cookies that we use for welcoming new crew and meetings but if we have a really busy week we will make cookies as well. Hospitality has their own kitchen for such weeks! We also make birthday cards for all the staff and deliver the cards, along with a $2 Starbucks coupon and a cookie pack. Starbucks donates coffee to the ship so all of the coffee is Starbucks --we basically just pay for the milk and water! So a $2 coupon would actually buy you quite a bit. :)

Can't be much happier than this. :) 

Hope you enjoyed. :) 

PS. If you are ever annoyed because some of the pictures are way over on the left when everything else is centered, I wanted to let you know that A.) I am not doing it on purpose--it drives me crazy too and B.) I'm not sure how it happens; everything is perfectly centered when I hit "publish" and then it does something funky. My sincerest apologies to my fellow OCD readers.