Visiting my Brother

So the day after the ship docked in Tenerife I set off to go and see my brother for Christmas. I flew to Istanbul via London and Rob met me in Istanbul. Unfortunately I had flown into the airport that was on the opposite side of the city to where Rob was staying with a friend so we proceeded to take about 1.5 hours and various forms of public transport to get to the house we would stay at for my first 2 nights visiting. So we spent 2 nights in Istanbul and Rob showed me around as he used to live there for a while. I really enjoyed seeing the city as it has such a rich and long history that there is lots to see, we even went to the archeology museum there and saw some artifacts that were from Babylon from the time of King Nebuchadnezzar who is in the Bible. We traveled by bus to Haskovo, Bulgaria on the 23rd which is where my brother is currently living. We had a fairly relaxed time together and on Christmas day met up with an Australian family that lives there and went to a park behind the world’s second largest statue of Mary holding baby Jesus and we played a game of cricket :). Then in the evening of Christmas day my brother took me to a local Church he has been going to and said the service should go for about 1.5 hours and we left about 5 hours later, so I defiantly got a good dose of culture there. For the rest of my time there we just hung out and relaxed and I got to see a bit of how Rob lives there and the work he is doing so that was really good.

So we traveled back to Istanbul on the 30th and I caught a plane back to England on the 31st. Where I spent the next 7 days meeting up with friends mostly from Mercy Ships past and present, which was really good. I was due to travel back to the Ship on the 7th of Jan, but the night before I looked to find that my flight had been canceled due to snow and cold conditions that England has been experiencing. So I got my flight rescheduled for 2 days later and in the afternoon which was nice, because my original flight was in the morning at 7am which would have made it harder to get to the airport. So I went to the airport 2 hours before my flight on the 9th only to find that it had been delayed, but wasn't shown as so on the website so I proceeded to sit around for about 5 hours and finally after much waiting I was on the plane and then after a bit more waiting to be deiced we were on our way.

So now I am back on the ship, but I am no longer working in accounting. I am working back in the sales department as acting sales manager while the real one is away for a break, so I am in charge of the shop and cafe on the ship. I will be doing this for at lest as long as the sales manager is away and then I am not sure where I will be working, but I am unsure if I will be staying in this department or going to work somewhere else, so please pray that I get used in the best position where I can be most effective.