Another encouragement for us today was that at 1pm in Liberia, the millionth visitor to Logos Hope since it began ministry visited the ship. When there are milestones like this on the ship, leadership and others make it a special occasion and celebrate. This person was a man who had brought his brother to try and get some medical help. The ship doesn’t often offer medical help to the public but Liberia is a special port where a number of different practical help and health projects are taking place. As such, it turned out a clinic put on by the ship was taking place nearby and hopefully will be able to meet that practical need. The visitor was also looking for some good books as he is a university student and so he was at the right place for that! For us it is a great encouragement to have that many people visit the ship in about a year and a half of sailing and is a testimony to the wide reach and appeal of the ministry that is so much a part of our lives. Thanks for your part in helping us continue on even now as we serve from on shore. If you weren’t aware, we have a significant need for an increase in our financial support to enable us to serve from this office location so if you might be in a position to help with that, please take a look at this page.

Zac is doing a lot better now after seeing a doctor a couple of times for his breathing difficulties and we now have a ventilator machine with medicine that he has to do twice a day at home. That seems to have made things a lot better for him but we are having some issues with our health insurance and so we’re praying that can be sorted out quickly so we can get these things covered.

On my work side of things, I have now been back at the office for over a week and Monday I assumed my new role as Director of Communications for OM Ships International. I will be based out of our office here in Florence, SC going forward and am looking forward to this next challenge. It has been fairly easy to settle back in as the office hasn’t changed a whole lot since I was working there before going to the ship. It’s encouraging to see a few new team members working with us and the literature team being based in Florence is a great development. They are the ones who source, sort and send the books out to the ship. I got to tour the store on Irby street last week and it’s great to see what they are up to. There are opportunities for anyone to volunteer to help sort and organize the books.

Local readers may have noticed the project underway on the main property of OM Ships here. This is to build a “materials management center”, which will allow the literature team to be based there instead of renting the current location. There is some major earth moving equipment working as they prepare to pour the foundation for the steel structure and they’ve been digging a retaining pond area. It will be great to have everyone in one location and hopefully we will continue to offer a storefront option so you can get great books at great prices.

This post comes courtesy of Holly and as long time readers will know, this is a rare but special occurence which makes for good reading. Enjoy! - The Editor

We apologize for not writing sooner to let you all know how things have been going. We arrived back at our home in Florence, SC a little over 2 weeks ago and have been going full speed ever since. We had this lovely picture in our minds of arriving at the house, opening the door, doing some cleaning, and unpacking as the boys ran around the yard playing out back. What really happened was a completely different picture!

We opened the door excitedly only to find, our house was disgusting. After a professional cleaning crew spent the next 7 hours cleaning, we entered the house again only to discover that 5 appliances were completely broken, the carpets were terribly stained, the walls were scarred (curtain rods had been pulled out of the wall, leaving large holes) and there had been a dog which had dug up the yard, chewed on the shed and pooped (yes, they left it all for us to clean up) all over the yard. We were horrified.

Just that morning as I spent time talking with the Lord, he reminded me, “Holly, this house is not your home. It’s just where you live while you serve me there.” He had prepared my heart. Despite Him preparing my heart, it has been a huge project to get everything replaced, painted, patched, cleaned, etc… We are so thankful to my parents and to our friends (you know who you are!!) who have given so much of their time and talents to help us get things back in order. We feel God taking care of us through you.

We still have a lot of work to do (especially painting), but we have seen a lot of progress already. The boys have already settled in and are really enjoying having space to run around and play, and enjoy catching bugs and leaving their Lego all over the house. They will start school in about one month, but it is nice having them home.

On the other hand, Jon had his first day back at work today. He is taking on the position of Director of Communications for OM Ships and he is excited about the new role and feels he has a lot to bring to it. We are excited to continue our ministry with Logos Hope, which is now in West Africa, through this key role.

Please continue to pray for us as we adjust to being back in the US, as the kids start school in a month, as Jon takes on his new role, and as we try to increase our financial support to meet our needs here in the US. We praise the Lord that we have enough gifts each month to cover our basic living expenses, but we still need to see giving to help cover our medical insurance, taxes, social security and other requirements. We know the Lord can and will provide for this, but it seems like a large amount to raise. If you would like more details, or have any creative fund raising ideas, please email us.

We want to offer a HUGE THANK YOU to all of those who have been supporting us over the last 5 years we have been serving in OM and we are so thankful that every one of you wants to continue to give in this way. It was so wonderful to be able to catch up with so many of you while we did our road trip around the US. God is so good, so full of blessing and love for us. What a joy to be able to share that with others!

Please also pray for Zachary as he has had a very difficult time breathing. He has asthma which was mild on the ship with the sea air, but we have not been able to get it under control since we’ve been home. I took him over to Urgent Care this morning and they gave him a breathing treatment right away and some strong medicine to take over the next few days. This has been especially hard because we do not yet have our medical insurance sorted out. We would love to see him able to breath easily again.

That’s all for now from the Crowe’s Nest.

P.S. If you are looking for a good book, I just finished “Peace Child” by Don Richardson (It had sat on my shelf for about 10 years). It’s a hard reality, but completely amazing to see how God can make himself relevant to anyone, even cannibals.

We’re now in San Diego and enjoying staying with our friends the Spigelmires here. We’ve had one evening event last night to update people on how our experience was on board and what we’re moving into next. Tomorrow night we have the second event and then on Friday we continue the travels as we head north to Nevada to visit with one of Holly’s sisters before we then go up and across the top of the country.

I’ve been adding shorter, more regular updates via twitter which you can follow on our website, through facebook (http://www.facebook.com/#!/joncrowe) or through twitter itself (http://twitter.com/vegiemite)