Dear friends and
family,
Well, the long months of travel have been well worth the effort. Having
the boat here, and being "official" has made a huge difference
in our ministry on the island. This has been an exciting time, and we
really do appreciate your prayers. The Lord is beginning to bring in a
fruitful harvest. We have "More Beyond" anchored very securely
just off of our mission base with two big anchors. We have been taking out
a couple of guys who recently gave their hearts to the Lord. After getting
"More Beyond" underway, I teach them to sail. Then, we pull out
our Bibles and sit at anchor and talk about God. What a privilege!
Benjamin, who is one of the older boys, has quite a Barnabas calling,
and he keeps bringing other guys who, in his words, "need to know the
Lord too." In this way another friend of his recently gave his heart
to the Lord, and two more have come for discipleship sails. In addition to
these older boys, we have recently been introducing several of the more
serious SALT boys to sail-training and navigation skills on "More
Beyond". We have been combining sailing, prayer and deep
conversations about how our lives can more effectively glorify God.
Recently, we had a somewhat longer cruise where the boys took turns
navigating, standing watch, and preparing food aboard. It was like a
little mini discipleship cruise. We have been realizing, with a thrill,
that we are getting closer to the fulfillment of our vision of taking
teams of islanders on boats to other islands for missions work. On one of
our first sailing exercises, Jehu looked at me with the light of
revelation in his eyes and said, "hey, we could use this boat for
mission trips!" I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. It has
only been 14 years that I have been waiting for that revelation to come to
Long Island youth.
Recently Jehu, and Jarad and several of the others have been getting
really serious about the Lord. They have been doing things like
ministering in prayer to their peers, studying the Bible at school,
leading their peers in prayer walks through all the North end settlements,
and planning a youth rally that is drawing in other kids from other youth
groups for a unified outreach. In addition to this, Pastor Jimmy has
recently reached out to all the pastors on the island and invited them to
a prayer breakfast. He received an overwhelmingly positive response, and
the first one was well attended. All the pastors were very excited and
pledged to continue. We sense that the Lord is drawing near, and we are
soon going to experience an explosion of His Glory here. Pray with us to
this end.
In addition to the sail training, the SALT program has largely been
focusing on the "SALTAIR" restoration project. We have the boys
over every Tuesday after school, and we made it plain to them that they
would have to demonstrate their seriousness and commitment to hard work.
They diligently work with me for about 2 hours, and then we have a dinner
together which Deb has prepared. We have a time of teaching about Godly
character development in their lives, and then Pastor Jimmy takes them
home. He talks to them some more about the Lord during the forty-five
minute ride. It is working well, and the boys are getting to see the boat
taking shape as a vivid picture of how God is restoring their lives.
Thank you so much for keeping us in prayer, and for supporting the work
that is going on here.
We love and appreciate you,
Reuben, Debra, Rachel, Stella
