Doulos

We have all come home exhausted but having had a wonderful afternoon & evening exploring the Doulos ship which is in port in Brisbane at the moment (and are here till' 19 August for those who still plan to try and make a trip). Even Daddy was able to join us as he worked a bit of overtime in previous few days .

We joined some other home schoolers on board the ship for a bit of an overview about the ship,

some multi-choice questions in a quiz, watch a couple of little skits (one about how people from different cultures greet eachother) and then enjoy a wander around the book shop (oh and nice prices on books with international money unit and Aussie dollar ;) Found a lovely Kate Greenaway book... (just love her illustrations!)but that's another subject...

A while later we went on a tour of the ship with a friendly tour guide from Nigeria.

Took a peek in the noisy engine room

Unfortunately Owen got taken away in the dirty laundry bin (honestly Dad's are so much fun to take on excursions - just can't resist opportunities to tease, can they?... and just look at Owen's face - just loves it!!)

Joshua and Sariah enjoyed trying on the Captains cap.

A little later our guide pointed out the real captain of the ship himself, and it was "Aye, Aye, Captain!" from our cheeky Josh... and a too hard to resist photo opportunity!

Overall it was a lovely day and great to see so many Christians working and living together in tight quarters (and the room they showed us was tiny indeed) - learning to serve the Lord together.

Our tour guide was telling us about the many opportunities for Bibles to be available in countries that normally oppose them being available to non-Christians. Seems that when Bibles are forbidden to those of other religions - they just want them with a passion! They have even had trouble keeping up with the demand in some cases!

My advice to any who wish to visit the doulos with kids:

Take plenty of drinks & snacks and more drinks and snacks (never seem to have enough of these with my kids), warm jackets, camera and be prepared to carry little ones for a while (quite a bit of walking and very steep stair cases)... oh and try not to let your little one lie down from exhaustion right near the entry way stairs on the way out like my 5 year old did (had to scrape him off the ground he was quite ready to sleep there on the hard deck... yikes... what type of mother allows that??)

And do you know what? Our kids have all hit the pillow and there is not a peep to be heard!