Willemstad, Curaçao :: Crewmembers clear rubbish from an area close to the ship.
Every week, Logos Hope crewmembers have scheduled ‘Connect-Days’ where they go ashore in teams for outreach and to connect with the community. The pandemic restricts connecting with local people as much as previously, so these days crew focus on more practical projects. Recently, teams started taking care of the area close to where the ship is currently docked in Caracas Bay, Curaçao.
Help Ministries Manager Pavel Martinez (Mexico) thinks the clean-up project was a great opportunity to serve the community and to take good care of God’s creation at the same time. It also gave them an opportunity to have some interesting conversations with local people. He says, “When they asked me why we were cleaning the beach, I could tell them I want to show God’s love through my actions.”
Benjamin Föll (Germany) saw picking up rubbish as an easy way to bless the local community – untill he picked up a plastic bag with an animal cadaver in it. He says, “It smelled horrible! We grabbed the bag and threw it into our trash bag and whenever we opened the bag to throw more trash into it the bad stench came out of it. I was disgusted and questioned the sense of doing this.” But God used this situation to remind the young man of something: “I realised in our life it is the same as there is often something that stinks so badly that we don’t even want to touch it, but to get a clean heart and to get rid of, for example, a bad habit, we need to do exactly that. As we ask God to clean our hearts, we have to face the 'smelly' things in our lives and surrender everything to Him. Even if it’s hard and shameful to admit something, it is worth it when at the end Jesus just grabs the bag and takes it with Him,” says Benjamin.
Visible or invisible – the impact of ‘Connect-Days’ often lingers longer than the day itself in the hearts of ship volunteers and those they meet. Crewmembers want to be the hands and feet of Jesus and His love remains, even when the work is done.