Project Hope Progress

Dear Friends,

This week teams from Marine Reach Medical and Marine Reach Training are preparing to fly to Vanuatu for a number of targeted outreach opportunities.  Anticipation is high as we enter this tiny nation of only 250,000 people spread across 83 islands, covering some 650 nautical miles.  As always the island people are so loving and appreciative of every gift and act of service we bring. Yes, outreaches have continued these three years without a ship.   However, NOW that we have the new ship, M/V PACIFIC HOPE, we look forward to 2014 and extending our impact bringing more people, resources, and services.

 During the months of October and November, these land-based teams will be performing dental work, optometry examinations, ophthalmology surgeries as well as screening for future eye operations.  Students from our Discipleship School (DTS) will assist the medical teams on Tanna Island.   Our students will also help with ongoing construction and ministry at the newest YWAM  base outside Port Vila (V2Life Base) and share the love of Christ everywhere they go.  Advance work teams will be assessing locations for future medical, educational, and community development projects.  It is with God’s love that we enter this nation and spread out over two specific islands. 

Back in Tauranga, the refit work has begun in earnest aboard the PACIFIC HOPE.  We have ‘gutted’ the area for the future medical clinic and plans are being made for the next steps to get the Pacific Hope ready for service in the islands. Not only the Clinic area needs work, but the galley and mess hall, CO2 room which affords fire protection in the unlikely event of an emergency, and last but certainly not least, our sewage system needs upgrading!

As volunteers come, bringing their skills to this multi-faceted labour of love, it is a very moving time to watch the next chapter of the Pacific Hope’s story unfold.  It is a reminder of the stories of Ezra and Nehemiah when a call went out to the people to come, bringing their gifts and talents to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.  The response was so overwhelming that Nehemiah had to tell the people to wait....even stop.   Oh, that we would have such a grass-roots response that we would be concerned with scheduling everyone in to help, and organizing the gifts they bring.  We hunger for the presence and the glory of the Lord to fill this ship so that everyone who comes in contact with the ship, its crew and the vision of this ship will know there is something different about this “God Ship.”

We know there will be challenges and sacrifices in the days ahead, and we also acknowledge that God has launched us on a journey of faith and perseverance...ever aware of the Lord being concerned for the character and Christ-like-ness He builds in us.  Daily we must remind ourselves of Hebrews 11:1:   Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  

I would like to thank you for your generous support and faithfulness in helping us acquire this new vessel to the Islands, the Pacific Hope.  Would you respond to this Nehemiah call and help us begin the journey of transformation.  Let it start in our hearts…let us be assured that this hope we carry will produce not only medical results, but also fruit of eternal value.

If you are able we invite you to come to Tauranga, visit the Pacific Hope, and be part of the journey of rebuilding our (YOUR) ship and sharing her with God’s people in the islands. 

In His Majesty’s Navy, 

 Capt Jesse Misa

Sail for Change - Project Hope

The Pacific Hope safely alongside Tauranga Harbor New Zealand

It has been 2 months since we arrived the port of Tauranga, NZ and work has been quietly progressing.

We have a faithful small crew on board patiently dismantling the aft cabins soon to be renovated to become a multipurpose medical facility onboard.

We dream of providing dentistry, primary health care and optometry next year as we focus on the islands of Vanuatu as an initial step into getting this new vessel of mercy a 5 month dry run next year.

But till then we are calling on volunteers to join us. Carpenters, fitters and welders, engineers and deck people, and just ordinary men and women and youth willing to get their hands dirty and be part of the change process both on the ship and the people we are preparing to serve in the most remote and isolated islands of the liquid continent in the south pacific.

We are also looking to corporate sponsors to help in gifts in kind like lumber, steel, tools and engineering supplies as we renovate within and without the ship. 

Our dream is to make ready the Pacific Hope to sail from the port of Tauranga and represent this generous city to the nations of the Pacific in the years to come.

It would take this city and its generous people to help restore this vessel so we can begin to restore someone's eyesight by a simple Cataract Surgery or simply providing a pair of reading or prescription eye glasses so they can just see and read again.

If you are just wanting to serve in any capacity there is always room to be part of the work onboard.

It has been 23 years since Marine Reach and the first ship was launched from our beautiful city with over 360,000 people reached with free medical health care with a real world value of over $43 million dollars. 

So we launch 'Project Hope - Sail for Change', as the words aptly denotes, our mission is to bring hope and change in people lives that otherwise won't receive it because of their situation and location.

I came to New Zealand to serve for 6 months and my life has been changed forever, that was 22 years ago.... I look forward to the next 2 decades now, I am a bit older but still passionate about what we do...because I know WHY I do it....

Come and join us and get your feet wet and perhaps you too are called to jump in and be immersed.

Capt Jesse Misa
Regional Director
Marine Reach Asia Pacific
www.marinereach.com
64 7 543 3787

Giving Generously, Overcoming Poverty...

Firstly I would like to thank all of you who have responded to our Project Kilo appeal last month. We have seen over $16,000 NZ Dollars come in. Thank you for your generosity and stepping out in faith and courage to believe with us.  With faithful partners like you, we will see our new ship launched soon, which will serve the peoples of the Pacific Islands.

YWAM Medical Ship Australia, serving in some of the most isolated regions of Papua New Guinea with our previous ship, the M/Y Pacific Link, recently came across three villages that even the government of PNG was unaware of.

To date they have served 2,294 patients with optometry, dental and primary health care needs and a further 2,700 receiving health care education and preventative health resources. That is a staggering 4,994 people ministered to in nine (9) clinical days with six (6) villages visited. Thank you to YWAM Medical Ship Australia crew, staff and volunteers, for working so hard serving the Lord and the isolated people of the “Fly River” of PNG.

Our Marine Reach bases in Fiji and the Philippines continue to reach out to those in need daily.  Island Mercy Teams continue their outreach season in the Pacific with a construction outreach in Lautoka, Fiji, followed by medical, ophthalmic and optometry programs in Fiji and Vanuatu.

All of those who serve with Marine Reach are volunteers and do not receive any remuneration for their services; from our CEO to our Ship Captains, crew, doctors, nurses, staff and the non-professional, yet extraordinary, men and women who choose to make a difference in the lives of the peoples of the Pacific Islands…using their own hands, feet and resources. 

Keeping the Fire Stoked!

The 10th of May 2012 marks the 21st year since Princess and I came to New Zealand. We joined the ship ministry, still in its infancy, in Tauranga. I still remember the joy we felt as we basked in the beauty and potential of this nation.  We still do!

Our hope and aspirations remain the same despite the challenges we have faced during the last two decades which have tested our resolve;  however, the joys and triumphs have far surpassed the challenges.  Your partnership with Marine Reach has helped Marine Reach accomplish so much in these 21 years. We look forward to the next 21 years.

Our ‘Island Mercy Teams’ will be scattered abroad from Asia throughout the Pacific Islands this year. Our medical team in the Philippines have done amazing work providing medical relief in the areas of dentistry, primary health care and optometry. They have served over 1500 people to date on the island of Mindoro. Our teams have overcome the extremely hot climate and difficult conditions. I extend my thanks to all who worked so hard to make this outreach possible. Well done faithful servants!

Our discipleship training school staff and students are at present in the Philippines, Thailand, Fiji and Brazil.  We look forward to seeing them all back in New Zealand for debriefing and graduation by the end of May. 

The “Project Kilo” campaign received a tremendous boost last week as pledges and monies received crossed the half a million dollar mark.  Yes, you have read correctly, we have just broken the ½ million dollar mark. This is both significant and encouraging to us and I’m sure to you as well.  We are well on the way to achieving the goal of acquiring a ship for New Zealand. This time last year, we started the “Project Kilo” campaign with zero dollars toward a new ship; together we have come so far.

Never underestimate the “widows mite”.  I believe that a group of people with unity of purpose and faith, journeying together, accomplishes much, but as well leaves a historical marker which will inspire those who will follow on after us.

Thank you for being brave and believing in us and believing with us. Thank you for walking and sailing with us all these years. Soon we will be sailing again perhaps on our new ship…together.

We are engaging the youth of our city to start dreaming again about serving others by volunteering and giving of themselves. We hope to see not hundreds but thousands of people get involved.

A New Vessel for Marine Reach



 Why A New Ship?

I have ask that question myself hundreds of times. The cost of purchasing one, the maintenance, the crewing, the fueling, the organisation, why a new ship?

If we only look to what it would take to purchase and operate a ship then one will never enter such an endeavour. A hole in your pocket as many Yatch owners would comment. I good friend of mine once said that you need to be partially crazy to do it.

But the alternative to the negatives is outweighed by the positives. The people, the help, the joy it brings, the changed lives, the health, the hope, why not a ship?

I guess the question has been answered a long long time ago when I first started serving with the ship ministry and I have not looked back, I can only look forward, still counting the cost but I know that it is what we are to do. Why a New Ship....my answer... Why not!

Jesse Misa
http://www.projectkilo.com/
Marine Reach New Zealand