Captain's Log #14
March 2001

CAPTAIN'S LOG - O330 HOURS-16 MARCH 2001-m/v GALILEAN
Not a soul stirred anymore, even though you'd have thought it was the middle of the day in the middle of a party when we left, judging by the excitement! Projecting the tides to best be able to run the reefs when we reached our destination ten hours later, meant that we needed to weigh anchor shortly after 2 AM. We worked the Galilean forward in the darkness carefully threading her through the gauntlet of obstacles seaward from our mooring, every now and then illuminating a distant marker with the two million candle power spotlight. Before long we had made it through the 'Bay of Islands' and after clearing Suva harbor around an incoming freighter, we set a south/south-easterly course out into the darkness of the open Pacific under a tropical moon in it's third quarter.
 
This was finally our first serious trip outwards to the islands that God has been calling us inexorably towards, beyond the distant horizons that seemed to have held us at bay. The excitement was a tangible thing for all eleven of us on board. To watch that which only God can bring about unfold before you, is worth whatever it takes to be a part of. Especially when the battle to keep it from happening is so real. All ties to land were now severed and as the twinkling lights of civilization continued to dim into the darkness of our wake, the 'Galilean' found her rhythm with the swells of a northeasterly sea and the methodical drone of the diesels. In front of me, I watched the depth gauge scrolling numbers faster and faster as the ocean floor plummeted down.. down.. down.. into the inky black underneath us...   150 feet...  600...  1000 feet...     then nothing, just lines, the depth gauge had found its limits and had turned itself off. Can't use an anchor much out here.
 
CONVICTION? - CAPTAIN'S LOG - 0430 HOURS
In the midnight hours of most nights, excitement is hard to hold onto and this night was no different. Before long, people were sprawled out throughout the vessel, allowing the ocean to rock them into a deep sleep and the casual but sure commitments made in the light of day, to absolutely be one of those to help stand watch, seemed to loose the bight of their conviction.
 
A BALL OF FIRE - CAPTAIN'S LOG - 0540 HOURS
As the hours slipped away, I thought that I had long been the only one awake when off of our port beam the horizon quietly began to slide into focus as the silent dawn set fire to the eastern sky. Then with a thunderous speed, born on the open ocean where there are no obstacles to slow down its forward momentum, a huge ball of fire began climbing up into the cloudless blue. A new day was in the throes of being born. Surely no different than ten thousand that have gone before it. Ordained by the One who ordered the first. The Pacific in it's vastness becoming visible, stretching out in all points of the compass, and behind me on the flybridge I heard a quite voice in a Fijian accent;

"It is so very big pastor...  God is so very, very big!!" It was Dan - the security guard whom many of you have spent time praying for. "Pastor Hahmen, I have never been on a boat before. I have never experienced anything like this. I've never seen the ocean like this...  it is so very, very big...  what a God we have, Pastor Hahmen...   what a God we have!!  Thank you for asking me to come! I thank God for helping me to get off work. I have never seen anything like this before!"

The tears were working their way down his dark cheeks. Before this trip would be over, Dan would stand before many people in different villages on the south side of Kadavu island and share with strangers what God has come to mean to him, as the 16mm reels would be changed on the JESUS Film shown on the sands of a distant shore. And God would use this man.
 
MARKERS - CAPTAIN'S LOG - 1200 HOURS
The navigation equipment was doing everything it should, but still I believe in redundant systems and backup plans whenever I can have them. One reason I wanted a backup plan was because there is, in all the world only one chart available for the hazardous waters around this particular island and guess when it was that the British collected the information used for this chart??  1840 to 1877. No jokes...  I really like to have backup plans. One such plan was Junior. Junior wasn't blinking. Picking up the landmarks that he had grown up with, pointing each one out to me in less than fluent English.
 
"Tell me about the passage through the reef into Soso bay, Junior. The chart makes it look very, very narrow...   and it looks like it's not straight...   it looks like the passage through the coral reef makes a right hand turn in the middle of the reef...   does it do that, Junior??" 
 
"Yes Pastor, we must turn right in the middle of the reef in line with the breakers or we will hit the reef." Junior made a snake like motion with his hand. That was it! That did it! My 'brave' JESUS Film team had heard and seen enough! Out of the corner of my eye I could see them putting their life jackets on as I finished my conversation with Junior.
 
"Junior, the chart shows markers, are there marker buoys of any kind showing the passage??"
"Oh yes, pastor there is!"
"Are you kidding, Junior...   there really are markers showing the passage?" 
"Yes pastor."
"Do they mark the entrance to the passage from the open sea??" 
"No pastor."
"Do they mark the right hand turn in the middle of the reef??" 
"No pastor."
"How many markers are there and what do they mark, Junior??"
"There is one marker and it shows when you have made it all the way through, pastor...   and pastor... the top of the marker... it is gone."
"Thanks Junior."  "Cindy!  Cindy!  How many people do we have praying for us???"
 
God gave us good water, great visibility, good equipment, a good crew and completely safe passage in, out and around all the reefs of Soso bay, Kadavu Island, Fiji. What a mighty God we serve! And if you wonder - you should just see this part of the world. It is like a tropical Eden!! IT IS INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL!! Like nothing you've ever seen. And the water? - a deep crystal clear blue, with a million shades of green and someday I'll try describing it.
 
JESUS FILM ON KADAVU
We had found a good anchorage, made contact with the head chief, presented our 'sevu-sevu' (I don't have time to explain, maybe later) we'd been welcomed by the three surrounding chiefs and the elders of the villages, moved our JESUS Film equipment by the Galilean's tender to the first village and set everything up. The twilight disappeared in an instant as a darkness and tranquility swept in and settled across the coral reefs and rolling lines of breakers. Almost like a living thing, it swallowed up the island of Kadavu and kept moving on in it's relentless journey west. This darkness and peace is unique to places like this, removed from the talons of such strange intrusions as electricity and roads and blaring horns and diesel and trucks and the myriad of other stuff that inundates our lives with the noises and sights and smells that eventually we become blind to ... until they are gone.
 
The silhouette of Coconut Palms above me wasn't there anymore. In their stead, my senses took in the nocturnal sounds and the humid, salty smells of the tropical South Pacific. Apart from the occasional flickering flame from a kerosene lantern, the JESUS Film reflecting back from the screen was the only source of light as far as the eye could see anywhere. Before we would leave this bay on the south side of Kadavu island there would be lives transformed for time and eternity. There would be numbers added to the Kingdom. To their darkness would come the only light that there is. The only hope, where there is no hope. There would be those who would come to personally know the Master with the help of the incredible evangelistic tool of the JESUS Film and because of the countless like you, praying and providing what is necessary to make this happen as part of the passionate mission of the Church of the Nazarene!
 
Our God Reigns.
Harmon

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