Our latest Sunday

Cebu – Philippines

Well we have been moored at the port of Cebu since Thursday. Cebu is the main city of Cebu Island where they speak their own language. The island is an idyllic holiday location in parts but poverty is round the corner in many places.

Let me describe the reception we received at the port – the ship sailed 2 days to reach the port having left Manila on Tuesday. A line up team goes to a port some 3 – 6 months in advance of the ship’s visit – this is to gain necessary permissions – link up with locals and generally get the whole thing together. On the day of arrival local churches will often prepare a welcome – the ship appears over the horizon from the port and the crew hang over the decks with all their national flags. This ship has been to Cebu 4 times previously over the last 20+ years and many folk were expectant about its arrival.

We got a big welcome in Cebu – a drum band, classical orchestra and worship band all were on the quayside with banners and dancing from local kids and a cultural group. The ship was involved in establishing a ministry among street kids last visit and about 30 from the day-care centre danced for the ship. It was all quite moving – a family from the ship came from the city so there was a big banner welcoming them and their family alongside. A local Pastor addressed us all over the tannoy and the worship band did their thing!

I had to break off in the middle to start getting the book exhibition ready – I am detailed to work there for the next few weeks – you work on shifts (in uniform). The book-ex (jargon) caries 6000 titles and sells great titles at huge knockdown prices. The split is 50-50 secular spiritual and gives the local population for miles around access to literature at an accessible price – westerners just take this for granted.

It takes a full day to prepare for the visitors the shelves need replenishing – vast quantities need to be retrieved from the hold – the lift is 90 years old – a lot is basic manhandling. I am hugely impressed at the young 20 somethings who run it all with military precision often working 10 hour shifts. Clear up and replenishment sometimes goes on ‘til 2-3am to v=be ready for the next day.

The books are really good and great value – the marriage section has loads of titles we have never seen and it is really excellent. There are cookery books – kid’s books – Christian living titles – devotionals – atlases – history – classics – just masses.

So we do a big opening with dignitaries – First time in the Philippines it was President Marcos who opened the exhibit – people dress in national costumes – there are 54 nationalities on board at present. There is a grand opening function – then the invitees hit the book-ex. Of course all the time we are looking to engage with folk and share what makes a group of folk like us want to live together in a metal box that floats.

The main exhibition opened on Friday with a bang – 12000 people came through the exhibition – that is a lot of people. This port 10000 school kids are scheduled to come through – there is programmes for them and pastors and all sorts of groups – teaching and fun and tours etc. So all the kids at this port will get a clear Good News presentation.

On Sunday I joined a team to preach at a local church in Talisay City. It was a real honour; I went with a Malaysian girl, a South African grandmother and an American. I preached in the main service and they did a kids programme. The church runs a programme feeding local kids on the dump site – we went with them to run fun games and a presentation for the kids. After the presentation the kids are fed a meal which is their only regular meal. Other food they have to work the dump for which I can assure you is a shocking existence. Their families live there and the church project has an amazing impact on their lives.

They were great kids – bright excited and excitable! Just hungry, not the scrawny bloated belly African near death hunger but hungry enough for huge excitement around a pot of stuff I would have died eating.

It all affects you – the Pastor explained a local businessmen supplies 4 chickens a week and a bag of rice a month and that’s how they afford it – 4 chickens £12 x 52 – 12 x £5 = £700 per year approx to make a huge difference to a whole little community. The amazing part of being involved – is when we go – they know someone cares about them – maybe its less practical than the local Pastor – it really carries some clout though.

Compassion has some 24 centres on the island where children from poor homes are supported by monthly western donations – turns out the little girl we have been supporting for 8 years is on this island – so we are going to see if we can find her….This church runs the scheme and it is quite something to see the kids that actually benefit – clean, clothed, healthy and every bit as happy as a child should be at that age.

Well this is enough for now – today I (Keith) had the experience of helping the team unload a 40ft container of books – we have 2 at this port – some 30+ pallets of books after the crane lifts them to the deck each box has to manhandled to storage – I am wrecked and sunburnt!

Quick Update

We are now safely ensconced on the MV Doulos moored in the port of Cebu – Philippines, this is after having sailed for 2 days across the Philippine sea.

We arrived in the dead of night on Sunday /Monday after a mammoth 30 hour journey from Frankfurt – London – Hong Kong – Manila. Only one real moment of panic when Virgin wouldn’t allow all our hand luggage!

Needless to say we have been struggling to overcome our jet lag – Keith is up most of the night but the girls a re doing well. We were met by our dear old friends Heather and Edward – we were at University with Heather – they have been part of the ministry for many years and are currently the Acting Directors of the ship. We are occupying the Director’s cabin whilst they are on furlough.

The accommodation is actually great – Tessa and Izzy have their own room and Ruth has a separate cabin, our room packs up to allow hospitality through the day.

Keith has been detailed to work in the book exhibition to gain some comprehension of how the ministry works. On Sunday he is due to preach in a local church.

To find out more about OM’s ship ministry check out http://www.omships.org/ we are on the Doulos. Basically it is a huge floating book exhibition which comes to ports with a sense of a state visit. When the ship arrived in Cebu today we had a school band, local dance troupe and all sorts of quayside welcome. We are here for 3 weeks and will be involved in a wide range of ministry.

The book exhibition welcome 93000 visitors in 3 weeks in Manila – this gives a sense of how huge the contact with the local populus can be!

We are not connected to the internet very well on board so are trying to get info out we are temporarily using emails for the ship on board keith.mallon@mvdoulos.org dawn.mallon@mvdoulos.org same pattern for ruth, tessa & Isabel (spelt like that)

Hopefully you can get through to us, we tried sending out an email today and have had a few bounce back with wrong email addresses – if you didn’t get one and want one let us know! We will try to keep you informed with fresh info!

Pray we will settle in well – kids all need friends, also everything is different 30 different nationalities so we are getting a bit of culture shock – all the familiar things are just not there. The house sale seems to be going through OK……

Getting into Gear

We have had a great 2 weeks at the conference in Germany. We have been well looked after in nice accomodation. The girls have been the only ones in their age group but have enjoyed helping to look after the little ones and have been taking part in the chilren's groups as well as some of the adult programme. They have also been doing some school work in between!

We have spent time with some lovely people, have had some chance to recuperate after a very busy lead up, and have had some great input. We have had training for cultural differences, great worship and prayer times, time for fellowship and heart searching, as well as challenges about our relationship with God.

We leave very soon for our flight back to Heathrow, meet Dawn's parents in the airport for a few hours, then fly to Hong Kong and then Manilla. We get there midnight on Sunday their time. We are getting excited!

Leaving at the airport

Finally fixed the upload of pictures - (phew) - had a couple of brains on it then it turns out it is a tiny fix

This is us hanging about in the airport ready to go - 20 seconds later a hot cup of coffee flew across the table and soaked me!

We were dog tired but ready to go!

We're off!

HI everybody - we write this while waiting for the departure at gate 5

What a send off - we are so grateful to all our friends for commissioning us and endorsing what we are doing.

We finally packed at 1.30am today and Mum and Dad and Steve & Gail sent us off at 5am after a few hours sleep- thank you so much

The events of the last week show God's timing

We pulled our house sale on tuesday last (7 days ago) we received another offer on the same day the surveyor came on thursday we tried to buy a house thursday it was taken off the market. The prospective owners of 27 came round on saturday, we offered on another on saturday pm and finally heard 5.45pm Monday we have an offer accepted for a Carlisle home

Amongst that there have been many tearful goodbyes with some much encouragement all round

Thank you to those who have prayed and those who support we need you all

We set off in a tired state but full ofconfidence that God is calling us.

Wewill keep you posted!

First is 10 days in Germany foe a GO conference where we get training in cross cultural stuff and who knows what

20th Jan we fly to Hong Kong and Manila to join the ship