California...

Hey all... just a bit of an update. Friendships flew me out to Los Angeles last week to work on a yacht that was donated to the ministry. It is a beautiful classic wood hull motor yacht, 75 feel overall. Our plan with this boat is to use it in the Caribbean region, likely homeported at our base on Roatan Island in Honduras. The boat's mission will be to visit various locations hosting pastor's seminars and doing advance work for the larger ships when they visit. It's an exciting vision, and I have been asked to take a leading role in this ministry as the vessel's captain so I would like to ask for prayer and wisdom for this. I only want to do it if that is what would please our heavenly father. I think I am willing to do this, and of course it would be cool but the Kingdom isn't about what would be cool. There are plenty of more experienced seamen out there that God can call up if I am not His choice for this. If so, that's fine with me too. I like what I've been doing with the other ships as well. So may His Name be lifted up and His Kingdom advanced. God Be Praised. Jacob

Mission update letter

Hello and blessings to you all. I really want to thank every one of you who have been supporting me as a missionary with your prayers, emails and also the financial donations which God uses to allow me to be here doing this work. I have now been down here in Louisiana with Friendships Unlimited for the past six months, in addition to another 7 month period following Hurricane Katrina in 2005/2006. As many of you will know Friendships Unlimited is a non-profit organization which operates a small fleet of ships which bring humanitarian relief and the Gospel of Jesus Christ to impoverished nations both in the Caribbean and overseas. We do disaster relief, in response to Hurricanes, Earthquakes and the like both here in the US or wherever our service is needed. Other relief voyages have been to Israel, Africa, Russia, Haiti, and Honduras. Relief supplies have also been sent worldwide via commercial shipping lines. I am currently serving this missionary organization in the position of Bosun and 3rd Mate. My role is as a volunteer with the deck department. So far I have primarily been involved in the upgrades and renovations to the F/V MerSea as well as overseeing the deck maintenence, preparing her for service with our organisation. In addition I will be sailing as 3rd Mate on the F/V Hope on our upcoming voyage to do a medical outreach on Nevis Island in the West Indies during May and June and then on the F/V Coastal Pilot when we sail her from Seattle to our base in Louisiana later this summer. In Los Angeles we will be picking up a 75 foot motor yacht which our base there is currently converting to use for doing advance work for our larger ships and Pastor's seminars in the Caribbean region. I expect it will be based out of our ministry centre in Honduras. I will be heading out to L.A. in the next few days to work on this vessel. I cannot well enough express my gratitude for those of you who have sent me out to do this work. I cannot imagine anything in this world I would rather be doing. My biggest prayer requests are for wisdom in desicions regarding my role here as I have been asked to take on this yacht as her captain, director and maintenence overseer. It would be a big step up in responsibilty to say the least. I just keep saying wow. This really is beyond anything I could have imagined right now. Please pray for wisdom for me in making these decisions, as well as pray for me to do really well at what God has placed before me. I am SO honored. Finances is another prayer request I am really seeking God for right now. I don't think I have ever been quite so stretched but I know God loves to build our faith through these things. I am looking up to our father, who is our Lord and Provider. I am in a place where I am very aware of my reliance on his provision. I am praying for a miracle. Please pray with me. Although I very much love where I am at right now, I do miss you all and the fellowship we have shared at different times. May God's richest blessings rest on you each. Email me anytime. Love in Christ, Jacob Blondahl

Dependance

On whom do you depend? On whom do you want to depend? Dependance is a theme that has been in my prayers a lot lately. I am in a place of being dependant on God... Actually we all are, we just usually don't see it. I do see it, more and more. I love the fact that God loves us enough that he brings us to a place, or allows us to wander to a place- where we see first hand that we are God-dependant. He wants us to seek Him for our needs, and regularly. I have prayed a lot of times in my life for needs that I had, often financial ones. To date, I have not had a winning lottery ticket magically blow in the window and land on my bed as I was kneeling there in prayer. As much as I may think that would be great, that has not been my experience of God's provision, but I have seen God's provision! Just not in the ways I may dream of. Usually He provides in ways I don't anticipate. Sometimes He also provides in ways I don't appreciate, at least not the way I should. Living and working much of my life as a full time missionary, I often don't have the ability to go get a job and live off it. At times I have, but right now, as I am living on a ship in the US, it would be both impossible time-wise (As I work more than full time and am liable to sail away anytime) as well as illegal. As a Canadian, I can't just go get a job here anyways. So living here, and doing what I am doing, I see very clearly that I am reliant on God's provision. Believe me, when I go online to check my bank account, I am praying! I know that I have certain financial obligations, but I also know that by my works, I cannot fulfill them. My options are to 1.) Drop what I am doing, leave here and return to Canada and do something else, or 2.) Trust God for a miracle. The deciding factor is that I really believe this is where I am supposed to be. I cannot think of anything in the world I would would rather be doing, or anywhere I would rather be. I felt clearly for a long time that I needed to get back here doing this sort of thing, and I am happier and more at peace right now than I can remember being. I love my job, I love this ministry, and more than anything I love what God is doing inside of me. I love the Peace that He has brought me. I am excited about getting the Mersea ready for sea and I am excited about taking the Hope to Nevis in May. I am excited that it looks as though I will have the opportunity to sail as 3rd mate. That is so cool. It's totally in God's hands if it does happen but I am excited, it's something I have wanted to do since I was in my teens. I remember how many people shared with me pictures or words the Lord gave them for me before I came down here, and almost all of them had to do with me being on a ship, at the helm, up the mast or in the chartroom. In most of those cases the people told me they saw rough waters coming, but the Lord was there with me, and His Peace was all around. It is so exciting to be here, to see these things happening. The Lord led me to a church here that I love, and it has been such a blessing to me. This morning they didn't even preach or anything, just worship. It was so awesome. So what am I gonna do? I'm going to serve the Lord. I'm going to do what He has brought me here to do, and I just pray all the time that my very life would be a living sacrifice to Him. I pray that every word I speak, every action I make would honor Him, would please Him. And I know that my God is fully able to provide for all of my needs, whatever they may be.

Back at it.

Well I had a great time during my trip back to Canada for Christmas. It was good to spend time with family and friends both in Manitoba and B.C. I am sorry though that I have not updated this blog while I was away. The trip North was good but a few deteriorating car parts and lack of a block heater cost me a lot upon my arrival back in Winnipeg. Then the trip West to B.C. was smooth quiet and uneventful. The last day I had meant to stay in 100 Mile House the car decided it had had it and started acting up big time so needless to say it is buried in the snow in my parents backyard now and I'm not going to comment on weather it will ever run again. Not anytime soon anyhow. I bought that car anticipating big financial savings on fuel, but what I have saved there has been dwarfed by the well over $10,000 the thing has cost me in parts and maintenance. That is especially encouraging when I think about the fact that it is now basically inoperable without a lot more major work being done on it. So anyways after about 80 hours of Greyhounds and Greyhound stations I finally got back to Louisiana and the ship at Port Mercy. Then after a shower and some lunch it was straight to work... The news was my ship may be going out on a bareboat charter for an indefinite period of time and inspectors were due the next morning to check it out. As of now I have not heard weather the charter is happening but either way we have lots of work to do on it both outside and in for use either by us or anyone else. Interior work we've done has included a total remodel of one end of the mess hall (A former cabin had been partially removed and we turned it into an extension of the mess hall.) One cabin has been completely redone and another couple are coming up next. I've done a bunch of repairs and or alterations to the electrical power in the cabins we are working in and odds and ends of little projects throughout the ship. On the deck side we have been chipping rust and repainting the ship as weather allows. It's kind of rainy here this time of year. I welded some new railings on the Starboard side quarter deck and have patched cut and repaired other railings, drains and rusty places on deck. One blessing we have is almost everything I have been involved in installing on the Mer Sea we have salvaged from the Shalom, an old Canadian Coast Guard research vessel we have and are parting out. I enjoy seeing the stuff we are salvaging put to use right away on the Mer Sea and our other vessels. So far we have been able to reuse tables, chairs, beds (bunks), shelving, bulkhead sections, outside deck railings, wiring and electrical components, ceiling tiles and probably other things I can't think of right now. I believe we are going to be able to install Shalom's gyro pilot automatic steering system as well. Down in the engine room the engineers have replaced one of the Detroit 6v71 Diesel generators and are working on the exciters for the main propulsion generators as well as some electrical improvements, breakers and circuitry. Although we still have a lot of work to do it is really encouraging to see the progress that is being made. It it miraculous really considering how understaffed we are compared to where I would like to see us for the jobs we have to do. Right now as bosun I am the only full time deck hand we have, there are two students who work 6 hours a day as well, one carpenter and the Captain- that is our entire current deck dept for all five ships we have here. I am glad to have been able to focus almost exclusively on the Mer Sea, otherwise it would be too overwhelming. At some point though I expect that could change though as the current plan is for the Hope to be the vessel used for the Spring outreach scheduled in late March or April. I don't know much on that though including where that outreach will be to or weather I will be sailing. Right now I'm just focused on getting the Mer Sea up to par. It's all good though.

Canada or Bust

Just to let you all know what's up I will be back in Winnipeg at the end of this week then 100 Mile House B.C. for Christmas... This was a fairly quick decision but one I'm happy with. After that I do plan to return to Friendships again. There is no shortage of work here. Believe me. So having said that I would like to ask for prayer as it will mean a lot of driving. And to be honest my car's not the newest model around! Thanks. Jacob

He is no fool...

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." -Jim Elliot

Nov. 1st, 2007

Just a bit of an update here... Lately the things I've been doing have been centered around the Mer Sea, lots of projects which involve greasing, fixing, chipping rust, painting and welding, in no particular order. I enjoy the jobs which involve creativity in fabricating new parts especially, and of course putting the last coat of paint on something and standing back to look at how nice it looks, all gleaming nicely. We put a shore boat up in the old Stbd lifeboat davit. Now the cradle needs to be adjusted to fit it but it will w0rk nicely when done. The boat will be used to bring our crew and cargo ashore in places we are unable to tie the ship up to a wharf (like for example remote villages up a river in Central America or the Caribbean). Slowly the ship is really starting to come together and look really good. All the safety systems have been gone over, fire lockers organized, painted and everything logged properly so future crew does not have to wonder how something works or if we even have the parts to operate it. I feel very satisfied with the progress we have made. I have attended a local Vineyard church here which I really like but obviously it is not like home. I do miss my Winnipeg church and moreover my friends that were part of my life there. But that having been said, otherwise I like it here. The weather here has been cool for a week or so but has warmed up again this week. Shorts are still very comfortable. My car had been acting up for a while, problems related to overheating. After a new water pump, thermostat and of corse several hours under the hood with very black oily hands, I did get it back to where it seems to think it will run. Then on Sunday it didn't want to change gears, but oh well. I bought it some new transmission fluid and coaxed it a bit and then it offered me the use of the gears back. You don't want to drive too far in first gear only.