(Fun pictures of the kids at the end)
By Aaron Koerner
Well, it’s that time of year again. The leaves are starting to turn, and the boats are starting to flood through Elizabeth City. The water is getting too cold to swim, and we are trying to keep the boat warm, not cool, and so it’s time for the Koerner’s to start preparing for another season out on the waters.
As I have prayed over and over again about our old boat, our list of upgrades and repairs, and our struggle to find the time for all of it, I have continually contemplated the Lords will for our family. As with most people, when making decisions, ones that involve personal risk to your entire family, I want a sign from God, a finger pointing south, a word from a friend, but, those don’t always come. And when they don’t, I can only turn to His Word.
This year I have been reminded many times of the promises God has made. Some of the promises were decades and even centuries in the making. Many of the heroes of the faith suffered when waiting on those promises and some chose to stop trusting God’s direction. Some took matters into their own hands (like Abraham and Sarah) and some refused to continue on (like the spies in the wilderness). As Laura and I have prayed and wrestled through a difficult season out of the water, we believe we need to trust God with his last direction for us: a call out onto the water.
And so, we are gearing up to head south again. We are praying that the Lord will work all things out so that we can leave Elizabeth City around the first of December and return by June ’27. Hopefully we can make it to south Florida by the beginning of January so we can be looking for a good weather window to cross over to the Bahamas. This time we have an opportunity to travel with two families. The first family is training in maritime missions and also has three kids and is connected with many ministries in the Caribbean, especially the Bahamas. The other family is a couple, a pastor and his wife (a gifted teacher of young people with disabilities.) It is our hope to meet together in Florida, and travel to the Bahamas together. We our currently working with these two families to develop an action plan for ministering to cruisers along the way, and ministering to locals when we reach the Bahamas. The Koerners will be primarily focused on trying to work with the church we connected with in Green Turtle.
We are in Need of Support
At this point in our ministry, we have become confident that there is no shortage of funds in God’s piggy bank. We have also been shown that prayer is just as valuable as things or money, because apart from Jesus we can do nothing! We know that when people pray, God does big things. Below is a list of our prayer requests and things we need. As you read our lists below, we would ask that you consider helping us in one of three ways.
- Praying for us regularly. (see our three prayer points below)
- Giving a one time gift now to help us cover the cost of going south again for the season (see our needs list below)
- Signing up to give monthly. We are partially supported currently. We need an additional 40 people to give $50 a month, 20 at $100, or ten at $200. Any combination of this would work. An increase of about $2000 a month in giving.
*(One recent blessing: we were gifted about $4,000 worth of slightly used lithium batteries that will substantially increase our storage capability for our solar system.)
Our Prayers
- That we would get the things we need to finish our projects on the boat, or be content that we can do the Lord’s will without those things.
- That the Lord would close this door and open another one if this is not the direction that we should be going. This training could lead to anything! And we are excited for whatever that is.
- That if we go, that we would be content with the amount of funding the Lord provides. We don’t want to constantly be burdened with meeting our basic needs, but we can also see how God uses that to create greater dependence on Him.
One Time needs Before We Go
- Fuel- We plan to spend about $2000 in fuel while we are traveling. The better we get at sailing and the better equipment we add to Selah this cost can go down. With gas prices currently very high, it may actually be higher this season.
- Entry costs- Getting into the Bahamas and staying for several months cost around $700 for our family. This includes permits for having our boat in Bahamian waters and immigration fees. We normally add to that a fishing license so that we can supplement catching fish with the expensive Bahamas meat prices.
- Food- We would love to stock up Selah with as many dry goods as we can before leaving. While food is easy to find. Getting that food into the boat while traveling is often quite a chore. We would like to be able to spend $1,000 at Costco before we leave to provision with basic essentials like rice, oil, peanut butter, canned goods, etc.
- Equipment- Selah needs some stainless cookware ($100), new blocks for our dinghy davits ($200), a new furling line ($100), a longer main sheet ($150), some electrical fans ($60), an inverter ($600), another 200w solar panel ($120), a small 12 volt freezer ($300), some back up engine parts (filters, starter rebuild kit, impellers, and some other little things equaling to about $500) Equaling to about $2,000 roughly.
If you’d like to give monthly or towards our one time needs, the link below will take you to our Maritime Ministries support page. Use the drop down box to select “Aaron & Laura” and if you want your money to go to a specific one time need, you can note that in the “comments” box. There is also a box to check off if you’d like to make your gift monthly.
As always, thanks for following along on our journey. We covet your prayers and would love to share more! you can use the contact form below to reach out.
Blessings, Aaron and The Crew
Contact Form
After watching mom go up the mast to remove hard wear, Everett was excited to give it a go too. He like it, but did note that it feels higher than it looks.
Rielle made good on a long overdue promise to take a friend sailing for her birthday. Laura and Rielle hosted a mother-daughter sailing at the beginning of the month in honor of the birthday girl.
Abel, who always has too much energy for the rest of us, decided that organizing old sails was the perfect opportunity to relax on the lawn.