Tour Recap Video

Recap video of the PNG outreaches this year. It was such a privilege to be a part of this
series of outreaches. The Pacific Link ship will be berthed in Townsville, Queensland Australia
from now on. Marine Reach NZ gave the ship to YWAM Australia. YWAM Australia
will operate the ship in Papua New Guinea.

OFF TO PNG

Hi everyone,

We are just now throwing off the mooring lines and preparing to sail out through the Torres Straits toward Papua New Guinea (PNG). This has been anticipated for over one year and now we are on the brink so to speak.

Blessings,
Mike & Jeannie

G'day everyone.
Jeannie and I are well. We have been on a public
relations tour of New Zealand and Australia since October last year with the M/V Pacific Link.

We've had a few breaks ( December - January) then a few week break in April and again right now (late June and into July).

The ship is in Townsville, Queensland Australia. Here's a website with a satellite photo of Townsville, and links to photos, videos etc. http://wiki.worldflicks.org/tafe_queensland_townsville_city_campus.html#coords=%28-19.260469030934704,%20146.8137949705124%29&z=19

Jeannie and I have flown back to New Zealand for two weeks to see the kids, grand kids and friends. We will be back onboard the ship mid July to assist in preparations for the outreaches into Papua New Guinea this year.

Right now we are in Invercargill, NZ visiting our daughter Cate and her husband Drew. We'll drive up to Clyde, NZ today. Up in the mountains. It's winter here and we hope to play in the snow a bit. Back on Sunday to Invercargill then up to Christchurch then to Tauranga for time with Matt and Susie and the grandkids.

Our most recent newsletter is...or should be following this paragraph. Sometimes it works...sometimes it doesn't. I think the problem is with the guy behind the keyboard..not with the software...but sometimes I wonder.

Mike

March 2010

HI everyone, surprised to hear from me after....10 months of blogging. Too long...too busy I guess. Truth is I don't often think about updating this but will try and make this more regular.

We are just West of Melbourne, Victoria Australia at the moment. The ship, M/V Pacific, is on a 16 port tour of Australia before going to Papua New Guinea later in the year for medical outreaches. We've been to Newcastle, Sydney, Ulladulla, and now Geelong so far...four down, twelve to go.

We have a facebook page that you can follow the ship tour from week to week. We have a PR team who update often with articles and photos.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/I-Want-To-Live/194122848779?ref=ts

Lots of sailing this year so pray for calm seas and strong stomach's. Here are a couple of photos from the tour so far.



Blessings Mike & Jeannie

Hi everyone,
I'm back from Fiji after being away...just about one month. We sailed up to Fiji in early April and was onboard the M/V Pacific Link for our first outreach of the season.

As you may know, Fiji had a military coup a few years ago, and is now being run by the head of the Fiji Military...Commodore Bainimarama (CB). There has been great pressure exerted on CB to schedule elections and put Fiji back on the road to democratic rule, however, CB has said no elections would be held until 2014.

In the meantime CB has thrown out the Constitution of Fiji, and fired all the justices. The result is the economy, which was already struggling, has entered a downward trend. Fiji's economy, heavily reliant upon tourism from abroad, has suffered huge losses as a result of the world-wide economic situation as well as tourists having chosen other, less politically troubled, destinations.

The Fiji dollar has dropped in value by around 20% in just a few short weeks.

HOWEVER, the ship has had no troubles at all. In fact getting into Fiji was quite easy for us this year, and we've had no issues with any government agencies we've had to deal with. With us providing free medical services at a time when the Fijian population is really struggling economically, is a major blessing to the people of Fiji...and the government knows this.

On the trip to our first outreach location we had to anchor outside of the reef until high tide the next morning. At 6am we began to pull up the anchor, but found it was stuck at the bottom. The captain drove the ship from port to starboard, forward and aft in an attempt to dislodge the anchor. Finally things freed up, however, we soon discovered that the swivel which connects the chain to the anchor had broken in the dislodging attempts.

Inside the reef, the captain was going to use two anchors due to the sandy bottom; so now we were faced with having to choose another location due to only having one anchor now.

We gathered the team together and spent some time praying. We had a few options, one of which was to travel a few hours further to Kadavu Island...to the region of Vunisea where there was a wharf we could tie up to. We decided upon Vunisea.

Upon our arrival we met the local Provencial Administrator. We sat down to explain who we were and why we were there. About thirty seconds into my presentation he stopped me and said, 'I know all about Marine Reach. This very ship came here five years ago and I was one of the patients who received a free cataract surgery. ' He added that he still had great vision in that eye and that whatever we needed while in Vunesia he would provide. He was indeed true to his word as he took us to see the local chief and acted as our protocol presenter of the Sevusevu (arrival gift). He daily provided transportation for our Primary Health Care (PHC) teams to and from the villages in the region. He helped to organize those visits with each village council. Such a God event.

So, despite having no advance notice of our arrival, and having lost one day switching locations due to the lost anchor, we were able to treat over 900 people.

Several people gave their lives to Jesus while we were there, and many responded to a challenge to become great commission christians after viewing "The End of the Spear", a movie re-enacting the story of Jim Elliot, Nate Saint and others who died in the jungle of Ecuador in the early 1960's...and the subsequent inroads into a stoneage tribe for the gospel.

The team that joined our crew and medical personnel were from a church in Melbourne, Australia. What a great team onboard for the
outreach which included, doctors, nurses, dentists, Physio Therapists (Physical Therapist), a construction team that did all kinds of repairs at a local medical center and at a primary school. Evangelism and discipleship is always a major part of each outreach.

More pics later...reaching my GB limit for the month.

Thanks everyone for standing with us in prayer & Finances.
Blessings,

Mike & Jeannie

April 2009 Update

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Autumn 2008 Newsletter

Greetings from New Zealand.

We are back on NZ soil, although the ship, floating in Tauranga harbour is still our home for now.


We departed New Zealand for the remote areas of the Pacific in April and returned in late August.

The past five months have literally sailed by (no pun intended), as we have facilitated five different groups on their mission outreach adventures in Fiji, Rotuma and Western Samoa.


As directors of the ship, Mike and Jeannie oversee all the teams and the outworking of Marine Reach’s vision as conducted from the ship to bring medical relief in various forms to the remote areas of these South Pacific island nations.

The outreach destinations were to the Lau group of island in Fiji, and the island of
Rotuma (a part of Fiji, however, very far removed from the ‘mainland’ of Fiji). The people of Rotuma have their own language separate from Fiji and as well are much more Polynesian than are the Fijian people.


We also travelled to Western Samoa for two outreaches over a six week period. It has been fourteen years since Marine Reach was last in Samoa.



Our medical staffs were comprised of medical coordinators who are full time with Marine Reach, as well as medical personnel who join us from various locations for two week commitments.

Medical professionals include doctors, nurses, wound care specialists, physical therapists,
Optometrists, ophthalmologists, dentists and dental hygienists. Many days our medical





procedures were routine, while other days were life changing…even life saving, as critical situations were found that if left untreated would have led to a funeral for the
family.

Check our website for stories from 2008 Outreaches

http://mearsfamily-pacific.blogspot.com
or http://www.marinereach.com

• Read the story of the triplets, and the subsequent saving of the mother’s life, the day our ship arrived unannounced into Cicia Island, Fiji.
• Read about Joshua Timo, who suffers with a rare facial skin cancer - immune system failure
• Read about the blind man who received his sight when one of our evangelism team members prayed for him in his home.

Personal Highlights:
For me, Jeannie, one highlight would be the 19year old girl named Lemaru from Rotuma.
Lemaru is a beautiful young girl the same age as our Havalah. Lemaru has had Cerebral Palsy since childhood and is confined to a wheelchair. She cannot speak, but can communicate with her mother. She has a beautiful smile, loves her dogs, who guard her vigilantly. She loves to have people read to her.

We met her and her mother, Teriko, when we came to help do repairs on their home. No one in the village would come to help this single mom with some necessary house repairs because months earlier a brother in law had come to assist, but stepped on a rotten roof rafter which broke. He fell off the roof onto a pile of cement blocks and died two days later from the injuries.

Villagers thought that the house and family were cursed. As a result no one would come to assist.

Mike led a small team of guys from the ship in building a veranda roof so Lemaru now has a shady, airy place to sit on the long hot Rotuma days. Other repairs were done to their home as well. We had time as well to visit and pray with their family, share morning tea and give the family a bible in the Rotuman language.

Medically there was nothing significant we could do to help Lemaru, but we could share the love of God and encourage them on in Christ.

While we were working on the veranda an estranged relative who had quite a long running dispute with Teriko saw our example of serving and came to assist us, as well as settling his disagreement with Teriko.

Jesus gave Christians the “Ministry of Reconciliation”, so it was exciting to see people reconciled to God, but as well to be reconciled to one another.

For Mike there are so many highlights as well. On the outreaches we looked for opportunities to minister to, “…widows and orphans in their distress…” Jeannie’s story about Teriko was one such story.
On our travels on Lakeba island, we came across an old man named Vula. Vula had been a missionary & church planter in the Fiji islands for many, many years and was now a frail, bed-ridden old man.
He owned very little, in fact the house he lived in belonged to a relative who had moved to the mainland in search of work.

We were going to paint his house and do some work on the yard etc., but since he was bed-ridden he would never see the outside of the house, so we decided to paint the inside of his one room home.
We spent eight hours cleaning up the walls, removing spider webs and ant mud nests and painting the exposed frame walls and the inside of the corrugated iron siding.
Due to his physical condition, Vula had not been able to be at church in several years. So, on Sunday afternoon we set aside an hour to bring church to him...honouring this man of God.
Many from the Marine Reach team joined with a handful of locals with guitars in hand to have church in this humble home.
We worshiped together, shared scriptures, prayer and communion with Vula.
Vula added to the service on several occasions, quoting his favourite scriptures in both Fijian and English. For communion he struggled and sat up on the edge of his bed to receive the elements.
The presence of the Lord was so thick in the room…it was truly amazing. In fact I heard the Lord say to me that at that moment all of heaven had stopped to watch as this ‘saint’ was honoured. [I don’t say that last statement flippantly…I really believe that that was the case]
We left some timber and corrugated iron with some of the local villagers to shore up Vula’s stairs and to build a wall around Vula’s outdoor shower and toilet. In fact several in the village caught the vision for what we were doing and promised to continue looking after the widows, orphans and elderly after we left.

An older family photo









M/V Pacific Link tied up to the wharf/jetty on Cicia Island, Fiji May 2008

Jeannie, Josiah and Mike will be flying to the USA October 2, 2008. We will be visiting with friends and family travelling from New Zealand through Los Angeles to: Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, DC, Pennsylvania, Michigan?, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts and in Phoenix on our way back to New Zealand for Christmas. It will be a busy time but we are looking forward to seeing everyone and sharing some of the stories from the past few years of ministry in the Pacific Rim.

We are available to share at churches, homegroups, gatherings of mission minded people. Some of our dates are booked already, so if you would be interested in having us get in quickly.

Thanks everyone for your friendship and for partnering with us to reach the peoples of the S. Pacific. We couldn’t do this without your partnership. We love you all and look forward to seeing as many of you as we can.
Blessings in Jesus Name.
Mike & Jeannie Mears & Family