Work, Work, Work....and more Work...
Dear family and friends,
It's raining! As I write this update, we are enjoying some of the first
rain since last November! It has been so dry. As we listen to the lovely
sound of the downpour, we are thanking the Lord for the team that just
came from Riverside Community Church in Peoria Illinois. This team helped
us tremendously with much needed work on the Maritime Ministries Bahamas
facility and boats. The team did a huge amount of work-- knocking out job
after job on the "wish-list" and even adding a few! Among all of
these extremely helpful projects, one especially big thank you to the team
was for completing the guttering on the training school and piping it into
our rainwater cistern. This has been a long awaited improvement that
effectively doubles our water collecting capacity. It is hard to
appreciate how helpful that is unless you live in Salt Pond. But just
imagine our whole family crowded around the cistern manhole in the kitchen
excitedly rejoicing over the swiftly rising wet mark on the wooden
dipstick....Sometimes we have to laugh at ourselves!
Another very significant project the team enabled us to accomplish was
the establishement of two mooring systems in the harbor for the larger
boats in our budding fleet ("More Beyond" and "Saltair").
These moorings are designed to keep the boats anchored in hurricane force
winds, and they are essential to our being able to operate a boat-based
mission. "More Beyond"'s mooring had previously been partially
completed, but Riverside helped us purchase everything necessary to
complete this one and to establish a completely new one for "Saltair".
This required an impressive array of large anchors, heavy chain, chunky
shackles, and great big ropes. In order to deploy the systems, the team
had to carry all this equipment down to the sea. This was difficult as it
was all made up in a single unit. We also had to do some pretty fancy boat
handling and diving to get it done. Praise God for enabling us to pull it
off like a well oiled machine.
The team also poured the very last piece of the 60x100 slab as well as
several other concrete jobs. They did a copious amount of painting all
over the base including the daunting task of two coats on both sides of
the entire 300+ft. of picket fencing! They fixed our windows. They sanded
the teak toe rails down to bare wood on "More Beyond" (which is
now beautifully varnished with 6 coats of Bristol Finish). They scrubbed
and painted all the soffits. ETC.ETC.ETC!!!
To top it all off one of the team members, an art major at Bradley
University, came prepared to do lots of crafts with the local
children--they had a ball, and they are still doing crafts that she left
with us.
The outside of "Saltair" is nearly done. Deb has been a
tremendous help as she is a "finisher" and she is really
encouraging me to "get it done!" She has been encouraging in
word and deed though as she has been rolling up her sleeves to work even
after a long days of home schooling! I have had to repair large sections
of core rot in the balsa deck core. I was hoping I could avoid it, but
alas, I cannot--it has been a real learning experience. Also, the engine,
which was half submerged in rain water when we acquired the boat, actually
started and ran after a lot of tinkering, W-D40, and TLC! Praise the Lord
for His miracles. We can't wait to put her on the new mooring ASAP.
Other news since the last update--We have taken a second trip in
"More Beyond" over the Christmas holiday. We sailed the 600mile
round trip to Miami and back as a family. We did this to renew our
cruising permit, and do a lot of shopping. But, we are also really being
trained as a family to keep our mariner missionary skills honed. One
discovery we made this trip was that we were quite capable in "More
Beyond" of sailing in 20+kts of wind overnight in the ocean passages
throughout the islands. This seemed very daunting before, but because we
found ourselves forced to do it, we discovered that with the Lord's help
we managed just fine--the Lord is really training and stretching us. We
know that soon the Lord will be using these skills to lead the fleet for
mission trips to the islands, and it is critical that our whole family be
ready and able to go whenever and wherever He leads.
Also, we had the privilege of having my parents with us for two months,
and my sister Hope for two weeks. It was wonderful to have the family
time, the babysitting, and the ministry help! The girls got used to
running over to Grandma and Granddaddy's place every night after dinner to
read in the cozy little apartment with them. Deb and I were able to go on
the first date we have had in about 6 months! My dad and I had a lot of
quality time as we worked every day on boats, solar stills, and lots of
other projects together. Thank you Lord for all of your blessings!
We have had to concentrate on reporting some very practical work of our
lives and ministries that we have been involved in lately, but the
spiritual side of things has been really intense as well. We are really in
a major spiritual struggle for the island, and God is still doing lots of
miraculous things. We hope to share with you some more of these stories
soon. We really appreciate all of you, and we ask that you keep praying
for us. Thank you for your support.
Love,
Reuben, Deb, Rachel, and Stella
