Friend Ships
Latest Update (Winter 2001)

Warm greetings. Thank you for your continued love, prayers, and support. Much has been accomplished this year to prepare us for the new direction God has given us. It has been a year of strategy, prayer, repairs, maintenance and moving!

Gods' Ship Spirit is making her return! The MV Spirit, after having been severely damaged by a "donation" of hazardous waste, is in the final stages of being completely restored and made fit for a return to service. She has been sandblasted, welded and painted. Her engines are being repaired or replaced, and all needed systems renewed. Her holds are already two thirds full of top quality hospital supplies, building materials, clothing and other items, and we hope to be ready to sail on a mission sometime early in 2001.

Spirit's first mission following her refit will probably be to the Caribbean and Central America. The countries under consideration for a delivery of relief goods are, Honduras (still recovering from the devastating effects of Hurricane Mitch), the Island of Roatan (where Friend Ships has a program that will provide trade schools and many other outreaches to local people) and Belize (heavily hit this past year by a hurricane and floods). Other countries we are considering for the mission are Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and several Caribbean Islands. We'll let you know more as plans firm up. We hope to retrieve Spirit's sister ship, Spirit of Grace very soon and bring her around to our new home in the Gulf.

This has been a year of difficult challenges. The Port of Los Angeles, in implementing their expansion program, found it necessary to cancel our lease at Berth 147 (the "Old Port Cafe" and our large storage yard,) and the berth space for the vessels we had moored in San Pedro. The crew worked long days and many hours to move and squeeze in all our equipment from Berth 147 to a new, much smaller lot. We sold or gave away three ships (one in Seattle and two in Los Angeles) that we were not currently using, and on January 5th, Faithful went to anchor in Los Angeles to await a tow through the Panama Canal and on to Roatan.

At exactly the same time our lease was being canceled in Los Angeles, the Port of Galveston, in an effort to expand their income producing activity, terminated our lease there. But praise God - just this month, we were able to renegotiate a lease and a wonderful benefactor is paying the funds necessary for us to have a berth and warehouse home base in Galveston. Now we are in search of offices and housing for our land based staff here in Galveston as we shift our headquarters from Los Angeles. By next month, we hope to have some very exciting news for you on that.

The Port of Los Angeles is still providing our great warehouse in Wilmington free of charge and the team will continue to operate Storehouse One, distributing food to people locally and collecting items for shipments overseas. Spirit and Spirit of Grace, however, will now operate out of Texas. All main office functions of Friend Ships will consolidate in Galveston as soon as we are able to find a suitable headquarters building to house our staff and provide offices. Although it has been a hardship to lose many of our facilities in Los Angeles, we are confident that a Gulf base is the Lord's plan for us.

From our new home in the Gulf, Spirit and Spirit of Grace will be loaded and otherwise readied to respond to disasters throughout the world. We are building a new web site that will allow people to purchase rice, beans, water, corn, flour (and other needed supplies) along with diesel fuel for our ships, at wholesale rates from corporations, in order to help people in need, especially in times of disaster. In this way, the donors choose what they would like to send and know that not only is 100% of their donation used to purchase those commodities, but their buying power actually doubles or triples because of the wholesale rates offered to us by corporate partners sensitive to our cause. We'll let you know when the site is completed and where to find it on the web.

It has been a difficult year financially. Our average monthly income has been only 1/3 of our outgo so we have been selling equipment to keep our bills paid. Our regular monthly expenses total about $12,000 to cover the cost of electricity, phones, fuel, garbage disposal, insurance, rent, moorage and various other expenses in our four locations o f Seattle, Los Angeles, Galveston and Roatan.

But, in spite of all the trials, the Lord's work continues! Storehouse One in Los Angeles has collected and distributed about 2 million pounds of food since our last report in May. We have also collected and distributed toys, dry food (including several truckloads of canned goods), medical equipment, building materials and Gospel literature from both Los Angeles and Galveston. The donations have gone to support individuals, local programs like Dream Center in Los Angeles, youth outreaches in Galveston, as well as to other ministries for shipment to Mexico and Africa.

Our program in Roatan is making great progress. The first large building that will be used for seminars, housing and services is nearing completion, and is now providing a home for our faithful staff. We are making good progress on our second major structure, an office and housing facility. The crew are providing weekly ministry to the prisons and school children on the island. We are hoping to open the trade school with regular sessions sometime early in 2001.

In order to accomplish all these things before us, we need additional staff. We have had about 30 wonderful new crew join us in the last few months but we need many more. We are looking for competent, dedicated, dependable and committed workers with a servant's heart to join the team of great staff we already have. If you know of anyone who may fit that description and interested to serve for any length of time, please have them call our office in Galveston at (409) 762-6060 or please direct them to look at our website at "www.friendships.org" for more information.

We are looking forward to our new base in the Gulf and having both ships working out of one area. We are looking forward to shifting our focus to disaster relief and sharing the good news of the Gospel. The new year is full of promise and we are confident that our ship's missions and domestic food programs will continue with renewed focus, purpose and effectiveness. Thanks again for your love, your prayers, your support and friendship.

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