Newsletter #6

Galle, Sri Lanka

Welcome to the beach in Galle!

Prayer walk around Galle Fort. We were 
given several tasks/challenges - this 
one was to  capture in 1 photograph 
the verse: "God is the same yesterday, 
today and forever".
We were portraying 'time' on a clock...

As we walked to the next part, we were to pick up rubbish
with our awesome orange gloves.

The next challenge was to write 'Logos Hope' 
using only natural objects, and nothing that 
we brought with us from the ship.

One church team I was sent with 4 others to a small church in the town of Matara, 2hrs away from the ship. I was leading the church team on our last day in Galle and was asked to preach on healing. There were many factors and problems in putting the team together, organising meetings (5 very different and opposing schedules can make organising ship meetings difficult), lack of notice, lack of time, lack of experience and the 'Sri Lanka factor' - no matter what you organise, the plans will be changed and most likely delayed.

However God, by His grace, put it all together and the end result was something only He could have done. The last minute addition of someone giving a testimony that was partially healing but mostly salvation went perfectly with the theme God gave me of "healing/miracles as a signpost directing people towards salvation and building of faith and not an end unto themselves", the pastor being 1hr late to pick us up with the bus gave us the chance to finally have a full team meeting, the 35 instead of 85 people congregation we were told to expect meant we were able to have the pastor translate for each person their needs and pray for each one individually.

This is the quaint streets around 
the Galle Fort area.

View from Galle Fort during the day

I gave a tour to Fathima (the girl in red on the left) and her mother
on the ship and so the next afternoon she invited me to their place
for afternoon tea. It was lovely to meet them and spend time.
Fathima and I are still in touch - she sent me a birthday card this month!

There was a beautiful beach nearby, by the name of 'Unawatuna'.

The same afternoon I had spent a few hours on our visitor deck and was approached by a man named Kaundike. We started talking and he enquired how he could join the ship. I explained that we were all Christians and you needed to be a Christian in order to join the ship then asked about his beliefs. He shared he was Buddhist but believed in Jesus too, after all Christianity and Buddhism are similar, right? We discussed this for over an hour, both sharing about our beliefs and I was able to give testimony to the living God and really impress that God has an individual plan for each of our lives and I can see the results of Him in my life. This was a big distinction from Kaundike’s belief that Buddha simply wrote a manual for living then left and is now in ‘nirvana’. 

Our conversation ended with me challenging him to ask Jesus to prove Himself and if He is real, to reveal Himself in Kaundike’s life. He agreed and we prayed together then he asked for my email, saying he would let me know when something happened. That night when I checked my emails, Kaundike had written: “Tell me the way to your God”. I wrote back and he has since given his life to Christ and I am discipling him via email. I've sent him a Bible and will talk to the Galle line-up team to try and connect him with a local church. Kaundike shared that his mother was also interested in the Bible and he's been reading it with her - it is always great when families are united by Christ. 

At a ship family dinner at Unawatuna Beach 
with my little sister Tessa (South Africa).

A 30min walk along the shore led to the city - we met a few guys
who showed us their boats.

Sailing away from Galle, watching the port get smaller with Lucie.

Our last view of Galle Fort at sunset as we sailed away.