After a two-week calling in Hong Kong，MV Logos Hope ,the world's largest library ship at sea，visited Taichung recently. This library ship will be open for 12 days. A series of activities such as Join Youth with a Mission, Church Visiting, Attention, Care & Support to HIV-infected people will be held during this period.
MV Logos Hope is operated by GBA Ships, which is a charity organization of German Christians and a member of Operation Mobilisation, or OM for short .OM hopes to show different cultures to various countries in the world through an onboard book fair.
MV Logos Hope has visited more than 160 countries and the number of visitors has broken 44 million since 1970.
This ship has 132.5-meter in length and goes up to nine-stories in height .With a displacement of over 12,000 tons, it is the largest ship of OM and went into operation in 2009. It is also the only library ship at sea which is still in travel.
The best feature of MV Logos Hope is that it is a huge mobile ship library. More than 5,000 booklists are includedand over 800 thousand books are loaded on board. Those books cover family life, science, sports, art, education and children books. All books were bought in the United States, the United Kingdom and some other countries by German head office and are sold in a price as cheap as possible to the public. The profits will be donated to give assistance to developing countriessuch as providing pure water, medical checkups, and treatment and so on. MV Logos Hope also donates books to local churches, schools or libraries according to circumstances.
MV Logos Hope has a lot of chances to serve local people through humanitarian aids in many countries through spreading knowledge. Everyone on the crew hopes to express God's Care and Love to common people through practical assistance. They once built churches in South America,constructed water towers in the Caribbean sea, and in Africa, they helped to rebuild schools,donate stationery and hold free dentist clinics and so on.
Because of this journey, many local people built bridges of friendship with crew. They received the Love of God.
About 400 Christian volunteers from 60 countries and districts are on board. According to the Christian Daily, the Captain said in particular on the opening ceremony on the day of 13th, that it is God's Love that motivates these professional crew to serve on this ship for free. Hundreds of members, from cleaners to the captain, all of them are volunteers and do not receive any salary. Even though they come from different contries, they share the same faith, and prayer is the bridge to open hearts to each other and make each service be led by God .
"We can make a difference because God has redeemed our lives," said the Director-General of MV Logos Hope. He said that when he was traveling around the world, he witnessed that the life of local pepole changed because of God's Word. They not only invited people to visit their ship but also the crew on board will go ashore and serve local people every time they arrive in a new country. A lot of people get to know Lord for the first time in their lives because of MV Logos Hope and even the first time to meet Christians！
MV Logos Hope plans to go to Southeast Asia next and finish its Travelling in Asia by the end of this year and on to South Africa and Latin America. It is estimated that MV Logos Hope will revisit China after 8 to 10 years next time.
