New 06 August 2005
TEESSHIPS
OM SHIPS INTERNATIONAL
A PERMANENT TEESSHIPS FEATURE
New 06 August 2005
TEESSHIPS
OM SHIPS
INTERNATIONAL
This all began when our minister started her contribution to our Church magazine for June 2005 with the following:
From
time to time people ask me: Why are you a clown? What does a
clown minister do? What makes you a clown? Well here are a few
pointers:
Firstly the word “clown” originally
meant “clod.” A clod was a lowly sort of person who did
the lowliest of tasks; the nearest equivalent word in the New
Testament is the Greek word “doulos.” This was the
lowliest form of servant – a slave – who had no
apparent power. Yet, this was also the word the Gospel writers
used whenever Jesus called on his followers to be servants. To be
doulos, clods, clowns with him.
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Spot an opening and who jumps in?!
Those who know the editor’s enthusiasm for ships will not be surprised that, arising from Rosemary’s letter, he cannot resist talking about
The DOULOS – a remarkable ship
For any ship to be afloat and still in service 91 years after being built is a remarkable feat, being some three to four times the lifespan of most of their contemporaries. But this applies to a ship named DOULOS which was built in America in 1914 as a humble freighter called MEDINA, for U.S. owners.
Surviving two world wars she continued in this role until 1948 when, already 34 years old, she was converted to the passenger ship ROMA for Panama owners. An even bigger surprise came four years later when sold to the well-known re-emerging Costa concern of Italy to become their cruise liner FRANCA C, being extensively modernised and again rebuilt a few years later.
Offered for sale in 1976 and 62 years old, she had already well outlived most ships but she was snapped up and re-emerged the following year as the DOULOS for an almost unique purpose. Nearly 30 years later, she is still performing the same function, and is recognised as the world's oldest active ocean going passenger ship.
The background to this dates back to a meeting in 1964 of the interdenominational Christian missionary organisation, Operation Mobilisation, out of which came the idea of using ships to further their mission work. This came to fruition in 1971 when a former Danish ship the UMANAK, built in 1949, entered service as the LOGOS (Greek for “word”). She was registered in Singapore under the ownership of Educational Book Exhibits Ltd.
The use of the LOGOS as a mission ship involving book exhibitions, Christian conferences and meetings, etc., proved so successful that the decision was taken to supplement their activities with a much larger vessel – and along came the DOULOS. Her operations are reflected by the title of her German holding company Gute Bücher für Alle A.G., readily translatable as “good books for all”.
Sadly, the LOGOS was wrecked in 1988, fortunately with no loss of life, and replaced in 1990 by the LOGOS II (built 1968). She in turn is being replaced next year by the LOGOS HOPE (built 1973), but still the veteran DOULOS plods on continuing her programme of visiting ports throughout the world, which has included several in the UK over the years, a true servant and slave for God.
At the time of writing (May 2005) she is in Mombasa, Kenya. The LOGOS II is even closer to home at Birkenhead across the River Mersey from Liverpool. On average their ships have been visited by 1,000,000 people a year since 1971.
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It did almost cross my mind to rename our AVENEWS (we are the Avenue Methodist Church, Middlesbrough) as a special shipping edition as in the same issue we were reporting the impending loading of a container of goods for Malawi. As things turned out, there was enough left over from what had been donated to fill a second container. In June both were loaded onto P&O Nedlloyd vessels which sailed for Durban.
Additionally, in an article of general interest one of our members, Vera, had cause to make a passing reference to Shell Oil tankers! To show what a small world we live in it was quite a surprise when a couple of weeks later Vera said to me she had contacted a friend she had who was on the DOULOS. One thing led to another and there will be an item from her friend in our next AVENEWS.
Aside from this I had been reminding myself for quite some time that I must add the DOULOS to my Favourite Ships in these TEESSHIPS pages - whenever I got round to digging out one of the photos I have of her. She was a ship I went on board of in Sunderland a bit over 20 years ago. From the contact with Vera's friend I was put in touch with Mirjam of the Communications Section of OM Ships International who, most kindly, has supplied a nice selection of views covering all their ships. So now, this project has grown into a pictoral feature on their fleet!
Website for OM Ships International: http://www.omships.org/