Greetings from sunny Marco Island Friends and Followers of Sail and Serve!

This is a shortened version of our newsletter that went out in July so the news is a little old, but it will give you an idea of where we are at.  We are actually still on Marco Island since it is such a great place to get equipment, talk with other sailors and learn. So here is the newsletter:

We are happy to report that we are all alive, have all toes and fingers still attached and, to date, there has been no mutiny on board! So much has happened that it does not seem possible that we have been gone just over a month. So many people and resources came together at the 11th hour as we scrambled to get every lose end tied up in Colorado before setting off across the country, on June 3rd, with all of our belongings packed into a minivan (with two cargo bags on top) that it left our heads spinning. Thank you all for your support, prayers and help! We drove straight through to Kentucky and had a wonderful visit with Ben and Lisa Hinnen and their delightful children Madison, Spencer and Pierce. In an effort to motivate Josh to eat more vegetables Ben came very close to convincing him that Kelp is a protein just like meat. Thanks Ben!

We left Kentucky late in the evening and drove straight through to Cleawater, Florida where we met up with Cort Peterson who had arranged to take us out on a six person outrigger canoe, which he paddles competitively. We all really enjoyed the experience and got a nice change of pace from our long drives. On June 6th we arrived at the marina here on Marco Island and have been living on the boat ever since. 

Beatrice and I both feel this is the hardest and best thing we have ever done. There were and are so many major adjustments that need to be made to stay sane in this new life style we have adopted. Although the changes are not easy to make they are almost all good. We have to learn to live with less, for example, the answer simplify. We need to eat healthy, easy to prepare meals. Answer: be frugal, plan ahead. Get four strong willed people to agree to a course of action, or even where this or that towel will be stowed? Develop team work, cast a vision, Pray! You get the idea. Every adjustment we've had to make has made us stronger and better.

Beatrice is very busy right now narrowing down the options for home schooling curriculum and is excited for school to begin! We pray together every day and she has had a persistent burden to pray for people back home. 

Living on the water is wonderful. We are at the end of the B dock right next to the bay at our little marina and almost daily get visits from dolphins. A couple of weeks ago they came so close that as they exhaled from their blowholes the spray got Josh's and Gabriella's feet wet. We regularly see them just feet from where we are sitting in the cockpit of our boat. Another day Josh and Gabriella saw two manatees and two dolphins nearby in the water simultaneously. On one of our afternoon sails we saw a sea turtle, dolphins, a feeding frenzy involving yellow-fin tuna, whatever they were feeding on, a shark, and an air assault from pelicans, gulls and other winged creatures, and later on, flamingos on our way back in to the marina. On our first overnight trip, to Panther Key, in the appropriately named 10,000 Islands region near us, we took the dingy out and got pretty close to some flamingos as well. Living so close to nature we are constantly reminded of God's creativity. We often see stingrays in our marina too. Sometimes they jump out of the water two or three feet and sometimes they do flips. Being the son of a scientist I have studied this singular phenomenon at length to determine the reason for this odd behavior. After considerable pondering I've deduced that the rays are simply expressing their unbridled joy. It is as though they are saying "look I swim and I can fly!" No matter that their flight lasted just a second or two and ended with a belly flop; for that brief moment they did in fact fly. 

Although we had planned to spend almost all of our time this first month and a half or so concentrated on the boat and all that needs to be done to get her ready for serious off shore sailing, God seems to have had other plans. We have found ourselves becoming very involved and connected with New Life Community Church  http://www.newlifemarco.org/ here on Marco Island. We went to the Sunday service the first Sunday we were on the Island and felt an immediate connection as Pastor Thomas Mcculley’s sermon was on World Missions! It’s a very small church, but with great vision. We have become involved in the church activities both in prayer support and getting to know people in the church and their stories. We know that God will continue to use us to encourage, support and build up the church wherever we go if we remain available and willing. I don't think either of us planned to be quite this involved this soon, but it is great!

Although we feel we could stay here indefinitely we are thinking it is about time to shove off and get some more miles under our keel. We are thinking of leaving here around July 20th or so, heading to the Dry Tortugas and the Keys and then up to the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina and then coming back here in late September to prepare for our long voyage down to the Virgin Islands. Please pray for a lot of important decisions we will need to be making in the next weeks and months.

(Since we originally wrote this we have been to Key West and Dry Tortugas and back.  We are now back on Marco Island and are trying to determine if it’s time to leave when the marina lease is out Aug 24^th or not.) 

 

We are so grateful for the prayers and support we have received and want to make sure that you know we don’t take it for granted! It’s a real encouragement to us and it helps us carry out what we believe God has called us to do.

You can make a tax deductible donation by check or online with Pay Pal by following the instructions on our website in the upper right corner http://sailandserve1.blogspot.com/

Heaps of Blessings on all of you!