Don and Deyon Stephens, the founders of Mercy Ships, which was birthed out of Youth With A Mission (YWAM), were honoured with a humanitarian of the year award given by The Variety Club in London.

Mercy Ships was launched as a ministry of Youth With A Mission in 1978 and has since come away from YWAM to form their own separate organisation. In the last 30-years Mercy Ships has completed over 560 port visits in 53 developing and 17 developed nations, treating over a quarter of a million people in that time.

Since Mercy Ships launched out of YWAM a new ministry within YWAM called Marine Reach has taken up the banner as the ship ministry for Youth With A Mission. Marine Reach has a focus on smaller, more versatile ships that can stop at ports and communities that larger ships are unable to serve.

You can read more about the humanitarian away given to Mercy Ships here.