8/10/2019 Friend Ships Activities Report December 2014

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Friend Ships December 2014 Activities ReportFRIEND SHIPS at PORT MERCY, 1019 North 1st Avenue, Lake Charles, LA 70601

Tel: 337-433-5022 Fax: 337-433-3433 Email: info@friendships.org Website: www.friendships.org

Dear Friend Ships Family:

What a productive and wonderfulmonth we’ve had here at Friend Ships!Thank you for all the support you giveus in so many ways to help carry on withthe Lord’s work. Our new ship,Courageous, arrived safe and sound atPort Mercy from Seattle. It was a goodvoyage with “lively” seas both in thePacific and the Atlantic. The transitthrough the Panama Canal was smoothand the ship is now ready to start beingprepared for her mission to the MiddleEast.

The Sea Hawks, Ready Responseteam and crew had an incredibleThanksgiving Day! As we prepared for this outreach, the Lord poured in His provisionsus, so that we had all that we needed in abundance. The food service team did outstanding job of preparing as Mission Director Teri Shields gathered names of people wwould be alone on Thanksgiving Day. We called each one to see if they would like usbring them food and visit with them. Then we assembled the list. It included people wlive in the woods, families who live in high risk areas and widows without family near-bybe with them. Each member of the team was given a name to pray for a few days priorThanksgiving.

On Thanksgiving Day, the food was cooked to perfection, loaded into “cambros” (insulattubs that keep food hot); we broke up into teams and set out to visit each household. Soof the teams ate together with those they went to see; some visited and left plenty of foodbe enjoyed for days to come; some food wasdropped off at the door because friends andfamily had unexpectedly shown up at thehouse. Most everyone was prayed with andfor. 

The team members listened as our gueststalked. We heard heartbreaking stories ofsickness, hard breaks, self-sacrifice,incarceration, the inability to get work, fear andperhaps most of all, loneliness, the feeling thatthey are forgotten. We were reminded of thequote attributed to Mother Theresa,“Loneliness and the feeling of being unwantedis the most terrible poverty.” As they listened,the Lord gave our team words ofencouragement and comfort to share. One

woman cried most of the visit as she told of the

ord p se oo service team i

Courageous

Thanksgiving Outreach

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heartbreak and abuse she had endured. She talked of the son she had but knew that wouldn’t be visiting, she said. The team prayed with her and prayed her son would gettouch with her and as the prayer ended, there was a knock on the door. It was her soThank you, Jesus!!

When the team arrived to the people living in the woods, they were amazed to see how tcamp had been made ready to receive them-given the circumstances; it was so clean aneat, those they visited were so very hospitable and gracious. A crew member who hactually been homeless herself years ago said she knew the feeling of hopelessness whi

grows the longer one is in that situation. She was able to encourage them that she was liviproof that the Lord can absolutely change and bless your circumstances!

Even though their situations were tough, many of those we visited who knew the Lord weso joyous and full of Jesus, so grateful for the food and most of all for the visit and tprayers. It was a blessing all around and we are so grateful the Lord allowed us to share oThanksgiving with people in need and live out Luke 14: 13-14. “But when you givebanquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Althouthey cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

In December, we had a great group of

young Sea Hawks graduate after ayear of faithful service and training.The evening prior to graduation, thewhole Sea Hawk team took a hayrideinto the neighborhood and sangChristmas carols, bringing cheer andrefreshments to all they encountered.The final week before Christmasbreak, the team who has not yetgraduated, “deployed” to Port Mercy,treating the week as an exercise/drillfor disaster relief response, sleeping intents, eating military rations andworking hard to accomplish somemuch needed projects. On theweekends, we joined a local ministryto go out in the evenings and ministerto women working the streets. We alsoparticipated in several Thanksgivingand Christmas outreach programsgiven by local churches.

We wish you the Merriest of

Christmas seasons! May you andeveryone you love be richly blessed!According to Proverbs 14:31, to helpthe poor is to honor God. What bettergift to give to Jesus on His birthdaythen our help to people in need allyear long! Thank you once again forstanding with us.

Love,

Don and Sondra Tipton and the FriendShips Teams

Christmas Caroling 

Sea Hawks 2014 2nd  Battalion

Graduation