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Yesterday evening, Fahim and I went to his parent's place. While we were there, we learned that the Book Ship was in town. What the heck is a book ship, I asked? Why, it's a ship that carries books, of course! What the heck?

It sails around, visiting country after country, and sells books along the way. It's currently in Colombo, and on New Years, it sails for Galle, in the south of the country.

Fahim's father went to it and purchased books, including 3 for Fahim, years ago - perhaps 20? Fahim went by himself later and purchased more books.

Cool!

But Fahim also tells me that, when he went, people slept at the port overnight because they wanted to get into the ship early. The ship opens at 10am. When he went, he waited in line for 3 hours in the hot sun before he finally got on. Given the long wait and my propensity for heat exhaustion/heat stroke, we're not going. Unless we hear that the lines are really short this year, which is unlikely as it's been growing in popularity. Which is a good thing if you're talking about spreading literacy.

I gather that people who want to go to the ship have to sail over in a smaller boat, so only limited numbers can go at a time. Or something like that.

From here:

quote:

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he Ships Ministry began in 1970 as part of the global Christian training and outreach movement, Operation Mobilisation (OM). Since then OM's ships have visited over 450 different ports in 142 countries and welcomed 33 million visitors on board. An international crew and staff of volunteers live and work on the ships. Our goals are to supply vital literature resources, encourage cross-cultural understanding, train young people for more effective life and service, provide needed relief, and share a message of hope in God wherever there is opportunity.

The ships remain in port for several weeks and open the gangways to hundreds and sometimes thousands of visitors each day. On average, 1 million visitors are welcomed on board every year! The floating book fairs offer 6,000 titles, providing many visitors their first-ever opportunity to purchase quality educational and Christian literature. Teams go from the ship into surrounding areas to supply aid and community care. In each port, the ship's crew joins local churches to bring hope, often in the shadow of poverty, disease and oppression.

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Anyway, I'd never heard of such a thing before - it sounded a little odd, but in a good way. So I did some online research, and found out that there are three ships in the family. One is the Doulos, the Book Ship that's currently in port in Sri Lanka. Next, we have Logos II, currently in Bermuda, and Logos Hope, which is in dry dock, near as I can tell.

I don't know if any of you have ever heard of such a thing before. I hadn't. I like hearing about things like this.

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