The Final Fairwell...

Sunday afternoon the Fragata Greenhalgh was scheduled to leave about 3:00pm. Yvonne and I went to the pier at 2:00pm to see the ship off. Rubem, Daniel, Camillo, Tiago, Italo, and Renato, came off the ship to see us.

Italo and Renato had come to the house once. Renato's wife had a baby last month while they were underway. So he's really excited about getting home to see his new son! We visited for a while, hugged, and took pictures. Camillo presented Yvonne and me with "mission t-shirts" as souvenirs.

We stayed on the pier and watched as the cables and lines were all detached from the ship. Paulo and Edivaldo couldn't come off the ship because they were working to get the vessel underway. But while we waited Paulo came up on deck and waved to us.

While we watched the crew preparing the ship to get underway we were so intent on the activities on deck we didn't even notice that one of the crew members had walked up to us with plastic cups and a pitcher of ice water. Camillo motioned that he had sent him down. That was so thoughtful (and refreshing too)!


Finally it was time for the ship to back away from the pier.



We went all the way to the end of the pier and watched until the ship was under away.


I'll say it one more time, this was a great group of men! I know they ministered to us as much as we ministered to them.