Friend Ships February 2015 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:

Thank you so much for the tremendous help

and love you give to us here at Friend Ships.

We are so grateful that the Lord has brought

us together for His purposes! The new Sea

Hawks, who arrived in January, are doing great

as they go through boot camp and reach

out to the community each week.

The entire team is now fully engaged in

preparing for a multi-faceted upcoming

mission we are planning for January

through April of next year. We will

provide medical and dental care, food, clothing and disaster relief training in three of the neediest countries of our

hemisphere. We plan to stay three weeks in each country, for two weeks providing medical services and the third week

offering community emergency response training for church and community members. While during the same time we

prepare for this three-country medical and disaster relief training missions, Friend Ship Courageous continues to prepare

for Israel. We are still looking for help to prepare and establish a Middle Eastern base.

In late January, we plan to depart from Port Mercy in Lake Charles with two ships and sail for Puerto Cortes, Honduras

where we will offload our medical mash unit and transport it south to the small but incredibly beautiful town of Tela, along

the mainlands Caribbean coast where we conducted a medical mission some years ago. Here we are able to reach some of

the poorest of the poor people of Honduras, we call machete people.

Along a great part of the length of the Honduran Caribbean coast is a rail where the old fruit train runs to transport fruits

Sea Hawks aboard MV Hope

Courageous being readied for Israel

and vegetables on its flatcars. The narrow tracks were laid around the turn of the century in order to carry bananas,

pineapples and other produce for Chiquita and the Standard Fruit Company when these companies established a base in

Tela. On one of the last days of a previous medical mission to Tela, we received patients who arrived on the old train,

vintage 1918, which clicks along at a slow pace graciously stopping to pick up people who live on the banks. These are

those who have no other place to live and come to build homes on federal land that is the rocky river banks in the flood

plain near Tela. An average of once every two years, the rain takes all of their cardboard houses and mud huts built on

the banks and wash them out to sea so that the people have nothing and must start again. At each bridge the train stops

and toots its whistle. People came out to ride the flatcars to the end of the line where they disembarked to have our

medical teams treat them. We saw elderly crippled folks and sick children making their way from the train depot two

blocks away from the Friend Ships medical set-up. We rushed to greet them and usher them into the clinic, directing them

to the appropriate medical providers they were able to have their needs cared for. After treatment we served them a

delicious meal before boarding the train for home.

We have never forgotten these villagers and look

forward to providing for them again.

One of the first days of the Tela mission, a four

month old baby who had been born without ears or

ear canals arrived to the clinic with her mother. The

girl also had pneumonia and a serious throat

problem that caused her to regurgitate her food.

The medical staff examined her and decided that a

miracle cure was what this baby needed, the only

MV Hope

Medical Set-up brought in by ship

thing that would fully restore her. The pastors, along with the medical team and Friend Ships crew surrounded the baby and

prayed fervently. The next day she was stronger, with a much brighter countenance. The mother had asked the Lord

specifically to cause her baby to take food and since the time we prayed, she was able to hold down food and was nursing

enthusiastically. Later that day the babys father arrived and soon gave his heart to the Lord. The team prayed for the baby

again and this time the mother asked the Lord to take away the gurgling, a symptom of the pneumonia. The last day of

the clinic, they returned to report that the girl had not gurgled since prayer! As the family left that day, we knew we may

never see them again but confident that we left behind a

household united in Christ with renewed faith and hope

for their future.

When the operation is complete in Honduras, well sail

for Cuba and then onto the southwest region of Haiti,

where we will coordinate efforts with our longtime

friend and fellow laborer, Pastor Bo Melin who has a

ministry of leadership training to pastors and has

been working for many years in this region of Haiti.

In each country we travel to the mission, medical

providers will fly in from the U.S. and work together

with local medical providers in each country.

Doctors, dentists and nurses will stay aboard ship

and be transported each day by our Bell Jet

helicopter, maximizing the amount of time they

have to spend with patients. The Friend Ships team

will support the operations with site and spiritual support, food service, childrens ministry and more. While patients await

treatment, there will be believers to talk and pray with them. Their children will be invited to the youth area of the complex

to be ministered to with puppet shows and other activities. Well have a prayer tent where local pastors are stationed to pray

with patients. Teams will distribute clothing, cut hair and fit people with eye glasses. After seeing medical providers, patients

will be served a nourishing lunch and invited to evening worship and evangelistic services held in the comfort of our large

tent. We will work together with our very good friend from Honduras, General Carlos Cordero, a commissioner of

20' containers serve as secure clinics

Bell Jet Helicopter provides air support

COPECO, an agency that coordinates

public and private disaster relief.

This mission is a huge undertaking and

will require many resources but, of

course, we have a big God. For such a

long and complex job, there is much to

do and this mission is already underway.

The portion that happens overseas is

only the final phase. The work and prayer

we invest in advance will result in a

smooth, successful and fruitful ministry.

If you are interested in helping (especially

if you have worked previously with

Friend Ships or trained with us), please contact Colleen Meza at cmeza@friendships.org. If you would like to bring a team,

we would be so grateful for the help.

As you know, it isnt usually our practice to ask for funds. We do request that you pray and ask the Lord to please provide

funds for us and if He puts it on your heart, consider giving to this mission. We believe we both will be blessed along with

the poor. We need to purchase medicine in advance so when we treat patients, we will give them what they need instead

of giving them a prescription form and sending them away without the medicine, knowing they cannot afford to purchase

it. We can purchase large amounts of medicine for a tiny fraction at cost by obtaining the medicine in advance to fill

prescriptions on site during the mission. We also need funds for fuel to operate our ships and big generators, to travel to

Honduras, then to Cuba and onto Haiti; to lay out at sea and to provide for our medical teams and relief workers.

We are hoping to make this mission an annual event. When the ships return to Port Mercy each year, we will be ready to

stand by for hurricane relief either here in the US or overseas. Thank you for considering helping us as we know there are

so many organizations out there and so many worthy of your support. Thank you so much for helping us to advance the

Kingdom and lift up the Name of the Lord Jesus.

All our love and gratitude,

Don and Sondra Tipton and Friend Ships Team

Disaster Relief Training