I got this e-mail from the base director at Reef to Outback in Townsvillle, Australia. We had been talking for years about birthing a ship ministry out of YWAM Australia, and it is very close to coming together. You can read some of the latest developments below:
Recently I had an historic trip to Papua New Guinea, Mike Reynolds (who seems to refuse retirement, even after his official retirement as the Speaker for the Legislative Assembly of Queensland commenced late last month) returned to Port Moresby earlier this week, accompanied by representatives from the YWAM Australia & PNG Ship Tour, Rebekah Hoover and Hannah Peart.
The trip, which served to strengthen both the recent twinning relationship between the PNG National Parliament and the Queensland National Parliament and the Sister City relationship between Townsville and Port Moresby, was very successful. Continue reading YWAM Australia Trip to Papua New Guinea Plans Ship Tour→
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.
Last month saw YWAM Internationally joining together to pray for the growing ship ministry in Youth With A Mission. After Mercy Ships was released as their own ministry YWAM continued their own ship ministry under the banner of Marine Reach.
You can read about the International Day of Prayer for the YWAM Ship Ministry here.
