Blue Moon over the Sea
It will be a while before “Cruise Carnival ’18” takes place in July, but enrollment is already in full swing. To perfect the programme planning for “Cruise Carnival ’18”, some co-workers purposely joined the debut mainland tour of the cruise on 28th January to experience firsthand of the facilities, activities, itinerary, etc. on board.
Praise the Lord for the company of more than twenty co-workers including not only the administrative staff and person-in-charges of respective programmes, but also the core members of Bible School course planning team and the writing team. We made full use of our time on board by working separately, exploring the cruise or holding meetings. Father God also confirmed through the environment that this cruise is truly His grace prepared for us.
The cruise was very spacious with a total of 11 floors comprising of cozy bedrooms, a grand concert hall, restaurants, different kinds of function rooms, a swimming pool and a fitness room, etc. It departed from Shenzhen Prince Bay Cruise Homeport and passed through the Taiwan Strait to Okinawa, Japan while returning from Hualien and Taitung offshore via Ludao and Orchid Island then around Eluanbi of southern Taiwan back to Shenzhen.
Coincidentally, the cruise circled Taiwan once so that we could pray over both sides of the Taiwan Strait which was our second time. The first time was ten years ago in 2008 when our church first moved to Tsuen Wan and after “Jesus 101” hundred-night evangelistic meeting. All church co-workers sailed through the Taiwan Strait and reached Keelung and Kaohsiung in a cruise. During that time, relationship of the two sides of the Strait was in great tension but amazingly, talks restarted on the 6th month and the 11th day (6.11) that year. How thankful!
In the evening of 31st January, we dined and celebrated birthday for an accompanying co-worker in the Italian restaurant on the 10th floor. Besides one other table, we were the only diners, experiencing the blue fullmoon which was rare in recent history.
The cruise stopped by Ishigaki Island. After sunset, in a beautiful weather, the full moon was high in the sky. Through the glass door of the restaurant, we went on the deck, enjoying the splendid night with photo-taking, hymn-singing and chit-chatting. Later on, fog came up from the sea and even started drizzling and the red moon after the lunar eclipse was not to be seen. Praise the Lord! God cares for man and granted us a wonderful evening with fine dining, a tranquil environment and even the highly unusual super blue moon.
We believe “Return 2018” is a promise of Father God. “Cruise Carnival ’18” will definitely be a marvelous event. Brothers and sisters, let us seize the opportunity and invite our families, relatives and new friends to join the cruise. They will surely be drawn to the Lord and return to the House of God! • [2018.02.11]