We accepted the challenge of the mission and the crew of Spirit has gone to Seattle to join the small but mighty "Grace" crew reactivate and retrieve her. The groups we will be working with in Israel are very involved in providing the needs of poor Israeli immigrants (mostly Russian) and poor Arab families. They have a big vision for more volume that a shipload of supplies will offer!

There is much to accomplish to prepare "Spirit of Grace" for the mission. We need God’s willing hands now to help us, people to help prepare the ship for sea and help us load in Galveston. We’ll depart Seattle, travel through the locks of the Panama Canal and sail onto the Gulf of Mexico. We are very excited about our upcoming mission and will keep you informed as we make our way toward the sail date. Our Jewish brothers have promised us an incredible tour once in Israel! After enjoying Israel for a few weeks or more, the crew will select where they would like to spend a few more weeks in the Mediterranean whether it’s Greece, Egypt, Italy, France, Spain or Malta. It’s up to them to decide, a small reward for a job well done! We’ll depart the Mediterranean Sea, return back to the Gulf of Mexico, Port of Galveston, for the next mission. So goes the planned upcoming voyage of "Spirit of Grace". Looking for more crew!

The ship’s crew have worked on maintenance and repairs projects while awaiting our next mission. The office staff have created updated public relations materials and are designing a new home page for our website. We have received donations of a sanitation system, sanitation system supplies, truck parts, safety and fire gear, vehicle and generator parts, trade show booth space and hotel accommodations for our team, oil filters, coated fabrics, commercial grade sewing machine supplies and staples for our "gun". We have been blessed to welcome additional crew members who have joined the team in Galveston.

In Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, a terrible drought, coupled with plummeting market prices for coffee have caused thousands of people, especially children to be in danger of starvation. We are collecting rice, beans, corn, fuel and crew for a "Spirit" mission to Central America where we hope to cook and serve meals in effected areas, as well as distribute bulk food for distribution.

Storehouse One has continued to collect dry stores and meat items for the ship’s missions and to distribute fresh food weekly to several Los Angeles based programs. They have also received donations of various items needed for Friend Ships missions including a truck, forklift, paint and refrigeration equipment.

The team has concentrated this month on construction and farming. Much of the training FSI will conduct at the facility will be agricultural. Greenhouse and farming programs are not only vital to feed our staff but will eventually provide for students and serve as prototype and training ground for students to learn to feed thousands. This month the farm has produced tomatoes (more than 80 every day!), bell peppers, okra, baby carrots and cucumbers, well enjoyed by the staff. The greenhouse nursery constructed in November is being put to great use to birth new plants. And, we were able to obtain 300+ new palm trees, dozens of new papaya trees and 415 new fruit and food producing trees to add to those at the "Village"! We have over 100 avocado trees, 4 different types with each bearing fruit at different times of the year. We should be kept in buckets of guacamole. These trees will produce fruit in three years. We have several different types of lemon trees, more than 50 mango trees (5 different varieties), apple, pear, guava, star fruit, almond, cashew, macadamian, olive, pepper, vanilla, chocolate, cinnamon, allspice, and hundreds of varieties of flowering plants producing thousands of new seedlings appearing daily. What an incredible sight and we ain’t seen nothing yet!

The construction crew has made much progress on the large greenhouse building, a new warehouse, the staff housing building and have even found time to help build a home for a woman who has lost her house to a fire.

The children’s evangelism department has visited the jail and brought food (nine men prayed a salvation prayer), ministered and brought toys to the island’s orphanage, prayed for people at the hospital and saw big improvement to the heath of a man with an amputated leg, delivered stuffed toys and ministered to sick children in the hospital and taught, sang, played games and gave gifts to many of the islands wonderful children at school. School is just getting back into session where our teams will swing into full production as we are invited to most all public and private schools.

In 2001, we were able to complete repairs to MV SPIRIT. We’d like to share with you all that was accomplished. Spirit was taken into dry dock in Newpark Shipyard. We spent an incredible eight months there. We renewed the steel that needing replacing on her hull, maintenanced the rudder, extracted the prop and ground, polished and balanced it. We cleaned, then steam cleaned all the fuel tanks (250,000 gallons), opened and steam cleaned all of the fuel lines throughout the entire ship.  We realigned and balanced the entire propulsion line from the propeller through the engine. We replaced the thrust bearings and shaft bearings, sea chests, renewed the zincs and had a sand blast from the top of the mast to the bottom of the hull to near white steel. Then we had a complete zinc paint coating with the best final coat of Ameron Paint. We tore down the main engine to all but the crankshaft, reground the crank in place, installed all new liners, pistons and bearings, reworked all the heads, replaced the fuel injectors, pumps and manzels, and rewired the engine room and house. All air compressors were replaced with beautiful new high pressure ones from Ingersoll Rand. We installed new centrifuges, replaced all DC motors and pumps throughout the ship with new AC motors and several new pumps, extracted all valves and replaced or refurbished all valves having to do with the fuel and sanitation systems including all fuel manifolds. We installed new sanitation systems. We replaced the auxiliaries with three refurbished AC engines and motors and upgraded the deck gear with a hydraulic crane. We refurbished the windlass, added more chain, replaced the anchors with heavier ones and replaced most of the electronics including S band and X band radars, all new GPS and plotters, depth sounders and radios. We added air conditioning . We remodeled staterooms. We even put a new horn on her - a nice big one. She sounds like the Queen Mary coming into port! The great old lady has a complete face lift and full dress, now ready for war. What a blessing to have been able to do all this work that will enable the 58 year old ship to run for many more years.

Our current needs are for additional staff to fill out all ship and land based positions and funds for the various needed items to prepare for the mission to Israel. We need thousands of tons of food, 50,000 gallons of fuel and many crew for the mission to Central America. Please pray that the Lord will provide us a permanent home base in the Gulf and bring his called people for office staff, ship’s crew and to complete the Roatán team.

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