by Curlan Campbell, NOW Grenada
The world’s largest floating book fair, the Logos Hope has graced the Carenage, bringing with it over 400 volunteers. Having a wide assortment of books, the Logos Hope provides members of various faith-based organisations the opportunity to select from a wide cross-section of publications from around the world.
The ship opened its doors to the public on Wednesday, attracting hundreds of people onboard including school children, as many of the nation’s schools took advantage of the opportunity to explore the ship.
President of The Alliance of Evangelical churches of Grenada, Rev Joachim Phillip says within the area of biblical leadership, the ship’s wide array of publications have proven useful for his ministry.
Rev Phillip has also commended members of Logos Hope for their volunteer services towards spreading God’s ministry. “It is a joy to have them [Logos Hope] back again in 2017 and we are grateful as a committee… also the Logos Hope is sending out teams to various homes to minister to persons.”
Director of the Grenada Institute for Theological Education, John Lewis says he is also interested in the vast selection of books on leadership training, which he says is important to further advancement of the church. “There are other resources in Theological Education of course you know we operate a theological education programme and this provides a great resource for us to source the materials that otherwise we couldn’t have ….”
Media Relations Officer Pevel Martinez said the ship has over 1 million books in storage. “We are the largest floating book fair in the world, we have more than 5,000 different books here on exhibition, but our storage has over a million of them and how we collect them we have some agreements with many editorials from around the world, most of them in United States and Europe and they provide us with the books.”
On Friday a team from the Logos Hope donated 350 books and a bookshelf to the Grenada Community Library which relies entirely on donations for its operation.
Team Leader of the Logos Hope crew, Abby William said it is hoped that the donation will further empower the nation’s youth. “I believe that when the Logos Hope came into this country that we brought knowledge help and hope, and I believe a lot of that lies within the books that we bring because we believe that words have power.”
Public Relations Officer Grenada Community Library & Resource Centre Inc, Aaron Sylvester, said, “We are thankful for the donation we received; those 350 books will go towards a worthy cause, they are going to go to the children and adults that come to the library and support us.”
The ship will close its doors to the Grenadian public on 11 December as it prepares to chart a new course towards Latin America, making its first stop in Colombia.