Prayers as we begin our voyage tomorrow

Packed! Can’t fit anymore – these are just my bags with Steve’s 3 bags still upstairs plus backpacks!

As we have been doing the final preparations this next week, we have the feeling of amazing gratitude towards God for enabling us to take another World Cruise voyage. The opportunity on the ship to worship every Sunday is available with a Church of England style worship. Led by the Captain of the ship and other officers it is joyful with song and praise. On one Sunday, they provided us with the Cruiser’s prayer. Before we depart on this cruise, we remember this prayer……

The Cruisers’ Prayer
Heavenly Father, look down on us, your humble, obedient cruise servants who are doomed to travel this earth, taking photographs, sending postcards, and buying souvenirs.
We beseech you, O Lord, to see that our ship is not detained, or ports missed, or schedules unmet.  Give us divine guidance in our selection of ship.  We pray that the telephone lines are unclogged and the internet freely connecteth.
Lead us to good, inexpensive restaurants where the wine is included in the price of the meal.  Give us the wisdom to tip correctly, even in currencies we do not understand.  Make the natives love us for what we are and not for what we can contribute to the local economy.  Grant us the strength to visit the museums, cathedrals, palaces, and if we skip a historic monument to take a nap after lunch, have mercy on us for our flesh is weak.
Dear God, protect our wives from bargains they don’t need or can’t afford.  Lead them not into temptation for they know not what they do.
Almighty Father, keep our husbands from looking at the foreign women and comparing them to us.  Save them from making fools of themselves in night clubs and bars.  Above all, forgive them their trespasses, for they know exactly what they do.
And when our voyage is over, grant us the favor of finding someone who will look at our cruise pictures and listen to our tales from the launderette, so our lives as cruise veterans may not have been in vain.
Amen!