my A-Team report from 09

i had the honor to be part of an amazing A-Team in Taiwan and this is a report i had to write after the A-Team and i found it again :)enjoy

A-Tam report “Nei Wan” 17-28 May 2009!
It is a normal day in Hualien, Taiwan, nobody knows what will happen in the next view minutes. Everything is quiet. It is lunch time and everywhere on the ship douloids meet together to eat and to talk. Suddenly a scream goes through the Mess, just a few minutes later another one is to be heard in the Info Area and the Bakery. What is happening?
The new A-Team for Nei Wan had been confirmed and the happy ones couldn’t believe that they were chosen. The “dream team” listed Aileen Araus, Rachel Hampton, Katrina Lynch, Syncha, Mauritz Luth, Florian Frei and Sebi Dukat. A lot of prayer reached the haven Doors for this A-Team and a lot where answered the very moment the Team was put together.
The very first meeting made clear, that this Team had been a perfect combination. As this Team met the first time to talk and pray and get to know each other a bit better, laughter surrounded the Dining room.
I was picked for this A-Team, and I couldn’t believe it. I prayed a lot for this A-Team, about the Team the ministry and if God wants me to go in the first place and I know that I wasn’t the only one. As we found out about the Team I was really happy and yes a lot of prayers were answered in the moment we realized who was in the Team. We all heard about the ministry before and had our ideas about how it could be like. In the moment we met the very first time in the Dining room, we had to find out, that having fun wouldn’t be a problem, as we laughed more than anything else. As we got more information about the schedule we realized, that this wasn’t only the “perfect” Team, but also the “perfect” schedule. It sounded more like a Brake with ministry than one of those “exhausting” A-Teams. We prayed a lot about the time we would spent away from the ship and one of our biggest prayer points was not to lose the focus with all this sport and fun activities, we had on the schedule, a prayer which was answered in a very special way. Mauritz as the Team Leader turned out to be AMAZING (this word turned out to be one of many good memories about this very “special” Team). He had the right ideas in the right moments and took good care about the organization and gave us as the Team the feeling of being in good hands. We met a few times to pray and well get to know the others a bit better. In all those meetings we could see, that all of us where really happy to be in this Team and that we all were really excited.
We all said: this sounds too good to be true, and how right we all were in the end.
The Day we left, all of us where happy to get off the ship for a few days and to start a new small chapter in our Doulos Story. The way to the Nei Wan was nice and already on the train we started to joke around and to just relax. It was in the train, that we met Gibbous. Gibbous became a good friend of us and even now, he is and always will be with us. If you don’t know him, ask one of us and we can tell you more about Mr. Gibbous, or is it Mrs. Gibbous?!
We arrived in the afternoon in Nei Wan and were picked up by our Host mum Daishu Mama. Daishu mama has a daughter in Australia and because she likes Kangaroos, she named herself “Kangaroo Mama” in Chinese Daishu Mama. The first impression she gave us was a very sympathetic one. It didn’t take long, until this lovely lady made her way into our hearts.
She drove us to her house and even on the Way we started to feel welcomed. As we saw the House my heart made a small jump of excitement. The House turned out to be self made and just beautiful in every way. A climbing wall at the outside, bikes everywhere and with only glass as “walls” a very open house which made you feel go in and stay. Mama showed us the House and we had to realize that this place was HUGE. The place had more than 4 big rooms, with place for more than 100 people. We all were amazed by the size and the look. Mama showed us the rooms and we settled down. As we met the first time to talk we all were in a really happy mood, we laughed and were excited to see what would happen next. As we sat down mama wanted us to learn a Chinese song. So we started writing down the “words” in our own way, so that we were able to speak it. We got in to the song very fast and just after a few times we were able to sing along. Out of the funny tunes from the beginning became nice words and in the end well almost Chinese. We all were curious what the song means, so we asked mama. When she told us what the meaning of the song was we all fell back in our chairs and had to swallow once or twice. The song turned out to be the verse that we picked for our A-Team. “I lift my eyes up to the hills where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth” –psalm 121: 1, 2.
So the very first thing we did, when we arrived after we put our stuff away was learning the verse that we picked in Chinese as a song. BOOM and that’s god, in the moment you don’t expect him, he will show himself and he will blow you off you chair. For me that was such a moment. It took me a while to come back into the scene. And then it happened, all our expectations about a nice relaxed A-Team were destroyed in just a few minutes. They took our old schedule and ripped it apart (metaphorical spoken). Nothing they told us became true. Not the farming in the morning, not the hour for our breakfast, not the hour for our personal quiet time and not the sport we were supposed to do as a Team. NOPE nothing of all that. Instead we faced 10 Days full of school visits.
In just a few minutes the verse we just learned as a Chinese song, became the string we had to hold on.
But here started one of my big highlights in these 10 days. Instead of losing our heads and starting to complain all of us stayed calm and took the new changes very easy. Well from the outside. From the inside we all were a bit disappointed, but we kind of expected that to happen. So from the next morning on we had to get up early, eat breakfast and leave for the schools, we were supposed to visit. We prepared a small program for one hour, always in mind to stay flexible. As we started our first program in our very first school, a rush started. The next day’s all looked the same: get up early in the morning, leave for the schools, come back in the late afternoon, preparing food, eating, meeting for debrief, going to bed. We quickly found out, that we needed prayer and so we started to meet a bit earlier in the mornings, to pray for the day. I can’t remember, how often we sang that song, that we learned, but it kind of gave us the strength that we needed for the day.
It was really tuff, specially the very first day. We had such a good program and we really wanted to bless the kids and be open, but after every program, that day 3 programs, each one hour, we had to adjust and change a lot of things. We kind of started to feel like a tool for the people. But again we all said we are here to be a blessing and not to complain and to get our own will. So every time we had to change something, we just looked at each other, smiled and said yes no problem. So one big thing in this A-Team was being flexible to a degree, where everything could have happened. Seriously we started to expect everything. They could have us asked, to do a three hour program, or to speak for the president of Taiwan, we would have looked at each other, would have smiled and would have said, yes of course.
After the first day’s it became normal, to get up early in the morning and to come back late in the afternoon. We started to just see that as our normal rhythm.

Our debrief times always had a devotion included. So every day in the evening, we sat together, talked about the day and planned the next one. We closed in worship and the devotion. We always had to be flexible, so sometimes it was the opposite way, kind of depending on Daishu mama.
The Devotions were one of the things, which gave us the power that we really needed. Every day one of us prepared one. One of the highlights was Mauritz Friday devotion. He celebrated the pass over feast with us. In English translated for the Chinese Host plus a whole guest family, which just arrived that day. As I said, we found the house most of the time full with people, we have never seen before.
Our ministry in the end was only school visits. We visited around 10 schools and had more than 21 programs. It was from time to time a total over kill, specially the Friday. On this Friday we had 5 Programs in 3 schools. A clear indicator that we visited to many schools was one of our visits on one of the local night markets. As we walked along the market students just came up and said hello, calling us by our names. Imagine that you walked around in Taiwan in an Area you have never been before and people come up and they know your name and where you come from. It was indeed a really strange situation, but also very funny.
Ok let’s talked about the more funny side that we had. This A-Team indeed had may highlights. One of it was definitely the Team itself. Even if we lost all our strength during the day, we sat down and did something as a Team. We watched DVD’s, prayed, played games, had mud fights, walked in the rain, layed down in the middle of the road late in the night and talked for hours. Oh and so much more. Every single one of these Things could fill a whole page.
The Mud fight was definitive one of the funniest things that happened. It was on the Monday, the day all the douloids came to go river tracking. This day was my personal Highlight during the A-Team. Well to be honest not because of all the douloids, but because of all the stuff we did after they left. It was nice to see them and the river tracking was fun, but we all were a bit irritated by all the douloids. So after we came back from the River tracking, we sat down on the stairs in the house and kind of waited for the moment the house was ours again. As they left, we waved good bye outside, sitting on the wall in the rain. We sat there for a good half hour just talking and enjoying the rain, as tschingwua Papa came up and asked us to help him farming. So we went to one of the ponds and started to take out grass. In the moment I went in, I knew that this will end in a funny way. It took us maybe 20 minutes and we started to throw this black disgusting mud at each other. Oh we had so much fun. In the end we all were full of mod. To clean our self’s we went down to the river and just jumped in. In the mean time Florian heated up the water, as every time we wanted to take a hot shower we had to boil water. After the definitive longer than 3 minutes hot shower, we all meet together and had dinner. I don’t know who had the idea, I guess it kind of was all of us, but we than just left the house and started walking on the road. It was a warm nice night and we all started talking. We went up to the dead end of the road and turned around. On the way back, we just stopped and lay down on the road. As the area was far away from all traffic, it was no problem. We talked and talked. As we came back, we prayed and went to bed.
This A-Team kind of had two Phases. Phase one was the murder with too many schools and too many programs. Daishu Mama was with us during this time. Phase one was from the Monday, that we came to the Saturday. Well on Saturday we picked up Tschingwua Papa from the train station, he spent some time with his son, 9 years old, away from the house. We all were really excited to meet the man, who build the house, was the husband of an amazing woman and who we heard about a lot. Daishu mama left us at that point. Her father was in the hospital with cancer and she left to visit him and stayed there for some days. This was one of the hard things for us as well, we became so close with Mama and just to think about, that her father was in the hospital with cancer and that they had no idea what was going on, was tuff. We prayed for him and mama a lot and well we still do. Phase two was different. First we were all the time with Dad and well he did things differently. He kind of left all the time to pick up people or to do some stuff. But not in a bad way, he still was around and we had the chance to get to know him. He was and well still is a bike freak, so the house was packed with bikes and he bought two brand new laying bikes in the time we’ve been there. We all had the chance to try them out and it was Amazing. With Sunday the second Phase started and it was more a relaxed time. We still had school visits, but not as many as before. We had more time for the team and we could relax more. The last days went by way too fast. We all had the chance to really enjoy the last day and well, the day we left was really sad.
On the day before the last day, Tshingwua papa came up and asked us, if we would like to bring his son to the school on the next day. As we all were used to get up early in the morning, mautitz and I said yes. he asked us what bikes we would like to use and well we both kind of said the laying ones. He just looked at me and said “no, you have to use the unicycle”. He found out, that I can ride the unicycle a bit, so he wanted to challenge me. Wow what a request. It took me some time to say yes, but I ended up on the unicycle. It was hard, so hard, as joseph the son rides the unicycle every day to school and back. I had no idea how far away the school was and how the way looked like. To make long story short, I did it and well mauritz did it on one of the laying bikes. It was fun and as we came back and sat down on the breakfast table Papa came up with a unicycle in his hand and gave it to me as a present. This unicycle is now to be found in my cage MUahaha.
Writing all this down brings a lot of feelings back and I can say, that all of them are good ones. I enjoyed this A-Team a lot and I learned a lot about myself I can say that coming back to the ship was really tuff for me, but I wouldn’t like to miss this experience.
I want to thank the lineup department, who made all this possible and well all of my Team mates. Crap, without you this would have been so boring.
There is so much more, that I could have written down, but I have to stop here. If some of you end up with open questions, please come up to me, ore one of us who was part of this very special Team.
“wua jau shang gau shan tschü mu
wua de bang tschu thscong hölai
wue de bang tschu thschong tciau keentie
de whä hö wua elay” Psalm 121, vers 1+2
Dear father god I want to thank you for this A-Team I want to say thank you for every single experience that we were able to have. God I pray that you will be with Daishu Mama and Tschingwua Papa. Help them to go through all the hard times. Be with Mama’s father, as he has cancer. We asked for you healing power in his life. God you see that he is not a Christians, open his eyes and his heart, so that he might see the truth. Father I pray for your wisdom in mama’s and papa’s life. Let who they are be a blessing to many people keep them safe and help them to fully trust you and to let go of all their pain. God I thank you for who there are. I thank you for all the blessing he had in the time we could spent with them. God I also pray that you will be with their ministry you know how they long to serve you. I pray that you will help them to keep going fighting the good fight.
Lord I also want to thank you for the Team that we’ve been. I pray for us, that you will help us to keep all this in good memory and that we wound forget your love that you have shown us. Lord Help us to stay focused and to trust you more and more. Thank you for who you are in our lives.
I pray for your hand of protection upon us, mama dad, mum and dad. Let your blessings fill our lives and bring peace into our hearts. Be with all the Kids that we meet and let what we did be a impact in their lives. In Jesus name AMEN

the lovly left overs :)

enjoy!

here some pics from mooring stations.

 

i look so dirty, as i was down with jeff kelly in the anchor locker. we had to wind in the anchor chain, as we lifted up the anchor. heavy duty work, but a lot of fun
 

 

jeff kelly rocks 

and here the promissed video

the swiming pool and the old lady at night

well as promised, i would like to show you the swimming pool that we are building.
this is already a old stage, so by now we already put the canvas in and could fill it up with water, but that has to wait a bit.
so here the pictures.

we used the old bookshop shelfs as a foundation and screwed them together. in the middle we put old mattresses, that we cut in the fitting size and on top, to cover everything we put a old canvas. the canvas is not in the pictures, as these pictures are a day old.

if you look careful enough, you can see a basketball ring in the back. jap, we will be playing ball games. we still have to figure out, how we fill it, as the fire pipes are filled with dirty water and to clean them will take a while. kind of like if you turn of the water back home and turn it on again after a day, you will have rusty water for like one minute. well in a ship you have the same thing, just that a minute becomes 1-2 hours. newest suggestion was using the crane and big drums, fill up the drums over the ship side and bring them on with the crane and then use the pallet jacks to bring them to the book ex. funny idea, we see what will win

well and here one picture of the lady at night.
isn't she beautiful?!

i had to think about the fact, that it has been a while, that i told you, what god has done in my life lately. well he does a lot.
the entire thing with us being here is such a pain, and it is teaching me a lot about patience. i realize over and over again, how much i need to learn to just be silent and wait for god to speak.
i had a funny moment the other day, well more embarrassing, but also funny.
it was one of these nights, when i could not sleep (have them a lot lately) so i was laying awake in my bed, thinking about my day. i had the thought, that would it not be amazing, if somebody would have written down salomons wisdom. well geog said the other night, that if we want to learn something about wisdom, that we sould read proverbs, so sebi makes his way to proverbs ans starts reading, and yes it hit me, as i realized proverbs is written by salomon. man i am such a bible looser. but hey, i learned something, i need to learn more about the book of books.
and i do, day after day

ok, i have to keep going.
have a blessed day
sebi

A Canon EOS 5 Analog

and here we go, sebi just got a fitting lens for his Canon EOS 5 analog.
and thats how the sweet lady looks like.
build in 1992 and still one of the top cameras in the analog way of life.
i am happy and the pictures hopefully will speak that language ;)

last day of network

well, everything comes to an end.
with today, we have our last day of network on the MV Doulos.
of course you need to be careful with saying so, because things here change all the time.
but normally today should be the last day, that we can receive and send emails, or access the Internet.

that means, that from now on, this blog will be dead until i come home, or until i find the patience to walk to vivo and spend some time there.
i will do it at least once, as i filmed some stuff, that i would like to put in here.
but we see.

in the moment it feels like we made it to the final number, so the only people you see in the moment are the once you work with. it hits me all the time, to realize that still 80 people have to leave. this number will be hit in one week.
and than its done, than we are only 35 peeps left on a ship made for 350.

ok enough about people leaving.
we decided to go back to franca C style and because franca had a pool, we need one.
so we started building a pool and if we are lucky and everything goes well, by the end of next week, we will be able to swim in our own MV Doulos pool.
i will try to put on some pics later.
it is cool to have some freedom and fun besides all the stress and unknowing.

ok, i will go again.
have a blessed day friends
sebi

two weeks later, but i tell you crazy two weeks later

well it has been a while and i look back and ask myself what to tell you guys.

the ship has changed its look almost everyday in the last week, we moved back to dry docks world and started to unload all the pallets of books, medical stuff, satellite etc. etc. etc even my stors are empty now, so from now on i am officially not the storekeeper any more, i am from now on the Keeper ;)

things here have gone more and more crazy.
we have our final crew list and so we now all know if we are sailing or not.
and well i am, so i am part of the 35 people, who stay on the ship and sail it to...drumroll...we have no idea. yes still we are not sure, what is coming next. it is getting more and more well lets say frustrating. but we stand strong and wait upon the lord, right?!

the worst thing that happened in the last week was that one of my best friends left the ship. Katrina lynch is now in Austria skiing, yes big jealous face.
it is hard to say good bye to so many people again, specially when your close to them.
in the next few days, we will have to say good bye again to around 80 people...wuhu amazing :(

well in fact, that we still don't know, where the ship will go and when, i can't tell you, what is coming next for me. i will have to go home and find out there, what i want to do next. i will, when everything works out, spent the first two weeks in mosbach, to have a good debrief with OM and then i will make my way back home to Essen. we see how everything will work out.

ok my friends, i will have to leave you again.
have a blessed day and take care.
sebi

a good day

it was well i am not even sure anymore, but it was last year with friends.

we went into one of singapore parks and up to the "hendersan wave", which is a big bridge, leading from one part of the mount farber park to another part.
we went to just chill, take pictures and enjoy our time.
it was a good group and with that a good day.



now looking back at these moments it's strange, as almost everybody who was up there with us left already. judith, went to the Logos Hope ans Ryan went back home to america.
i am so thankful for all the amazing moments, that god allowed me to have with these amazing people. it is really a huge blessing to have so many friends from so many different nations. yes, we rubb against each other all the time, and it is not always easy, but you learn so much patience and you gain a lot of wisdome in such a challenging time. i would not like to miss one of these days from the last 1 1/2 years.

it is now official, the ship will be going for scrap, meaning it will not contiune sailing with another organisation. we are still not sure, where we will "beach" her, but in just a few days, we will know what is about to come. we expect the delivery date around the 17 of march, which leaves us with again 1 month time in singapore. depending, where we will go to, we might have a 10-11 days voyage WUHU AMAZING.
i can't wait, no really can't wait to dip this ship in the ozean again.
i pray for big waves and...well a litle storm would be nice ;)
we see, if this old lady will make it to the final destination in one peace *joke*
after 95 years of seetime, the oldest see going passangership will find its way to cremated, how sad.

we are getting more and more excited to leave singapore and well maybe find ourselfs again in india MUAHAHAHA

i wish you all a blessed day
sebi

The Verwer Hat

well, here the pictures of the Verwer hard hat.





Georg was only here for one evening, but it was amazing.
i never thought, he could be that funny.
was more like stand up comedy with deep topics, awesome.
he has a passion for everything and he really does keep up with us as the "youngsters".
well i had an amazing time listening to all his stories and praying for him and the world. thanks Georg.

sebi

still alive and the "Verwer Visit"

hello friends and who ever reads this.

We are, guess what? back in Dry Docks World.
man can't believe, that i see all this again ;)
we are here to unload the most of our things, that will find its way to the Logos Hope.
And in just a few days, we will find our way back to Keppel Bay and wait for the final confirmation, where we will sail to. the decision will be made this week, so we are all excited and well tired.

i realized, that i am living in one of the only full cabins on the entire ship.
most of our sections are now empty, as we said goodbye to 200 people, since we are in Singapore. i am still living with all my cabin mates together...well until the day after tomorrow. sunjae will leave us fist and just a day later John. so from 4 down to 2 in just 2 days, how sad. i enjoyed my time with these friends so much and i have learned a lot. sunjae from south Korea has been a huge blessing and also john has impacted my life in various ways. i am glad that these friends are part of my doulos memory. the only one left over will be ben from swiss. awesome guy. he comes originally from France, so his English is AMAZING ;)

Tomorrow will be a special day for us. we have Georg verwer coming to the ship.
he is, well the founder of OM and a great guy. if you have ever seen a guy running around with a jacket, that has the world on it, that's him. awesome christian and amazing teacher. i have heard him speaking way back in 2007 at TeenStreet and well was impressed. i don't know, how old he is, but he has an amazing spirit and can easily keep up with the young stars. he will stay on the ship from the 4-5 and well, we came up with a special surprise for him. as we have to carry a hard hat all the time, that we are outside, we made a special hard hat for him. i will put some pictures in later ;)

ok, i have to keep moving.
have a blessed day
sebi