Fall 2025 Update & Fundraising

First I just want to say a big thank you to all who prayed for our fundraiser event! We had a full house and exceeded our fundraising goal. Two weeks ago we were able to take Selah down to the small town of Belhaven, NC to be hauled out of the water for her bottom job. See our fun time lapse video below.

What’s New

At the end of the summer we temporarily moved off the boat in anticipation of our haul out and bottom job. We also needed to put the back half of the boat back into construction mode in order to fix the rotten bulkhead we found while traveling south. A couple from our church is letting us stay in the upstairs portion of their house while we work on these projects.

Although our original plan was to head south again this winter, the tentative plan now is to stay put for the winter, make more repairs and upgrades to the boat and head back out on the water come late spring.

Aaron started taking seminary classes online. Aaron’s currently taking three online courses. This is something he’s thought about doing for years now and at the end of the summer things aligned for him to start pursuing a masters degree part-time.

Our ministry just got done hosting another Kings Fleet Conference. If you remember from a few years back, Kings Fleet is a network of Christian boaters and Christian maritime organizations that serves to connect and encourage one another other. This is always a treat to be a part of.

Laura finished a series of 12 paintings that Maritime Ministries is turning into a calendar for 2026. Each painting is based on a picture taken by a Maritime Ministries team member while traveling on the water. See some examples of the paintings below, or if you would like a copy of the calendar, you can get one for free by signing up to support us on a monthly bases. Which brings me to our final point…

We Need Your Help!

We are fund raising! Some of you may have thought we were already funded. God has mostly supplied our needs so far through one-time gifts, the selling of our resources, side jobs and a handful of monthly supporters. But at this time we feel led to raise regular full-time monthly support.

After leaving our short term calling in Costa Rica in 2017, we felt that maybe God was leading us into full-time ministry. When covid hit, we set out on an adventure that eventually brought us to Elizabeth City. As we have served with Maritime Ministries, God has made it abundantly more clear that the most fitting purpose in life for us is to serve in full-time ministry. Because of the lack of a clear vision, over the last three years, we did not feel it prudent to fundraise. We wanted to be able to cast a clear vision for how God was leading us, but often he was only leading us a month at a time and asking us to trust him with the future. Recently though, while Laura was reading the book of Nehemiah, she felt like God gave her a clear image of what fund raising looks like in the church. The part of Nehemiah’s story where half of the servants worked on rebuilding the broken wall, while the other half held spears and weapons in defense of their enemies, has became a picture for us of how Jesus is furthering his kingdom on earth through both the funded and the funders. It is no secret that one of the hardest aspects of going into missions is support raising, but we feel strongly now that in order to do the work God is calling us to, we will need other people and churches to ‘hold the spears’ for us. This is not just an image of financial giving, but also of the need for prayer, intercession and encouragement. We would like to offer you the opportunity to give some of what God has given you in order to be a part of the work the Lord will do through us.

“From that day on, half of my servants worked on construction, and half held the spears, shields, bows, and coats of mail.” – Nehemiah 4:16

Maritime Ministries in conjunction with the Christian Boaters Association and Hope Fleet, are hoping to create greater connectivity between Christian boaters on and off the water. The hope is that in drawing Christian boaters together into deeper community, we will accomplish three things. The first being that Christian boaters traveling on the water will feel more confident about sharing their faith. Secondly, we hope to identify mature believers who will want to help facilitate on the water Bible studies and fellowship gatherings. The third hope is to make more Christian boaters aware of needs and rolls they can help fulfill within international maritime missions organizations. Our family will help when here in Elizabeth City by identifying, meeting with, and training potential future maritime ministers. When traveling again on the water, we hope to find and connect with churches and individuals who are also interested in helping us further these goals. Aaron’s seminary education will give him the opportunity to speak at churches and share the vision of these organizations and also to build up and encourage local churches in the small island communities where we travel.

In order to cover our living and housing expenses, Selah’s travel expenses and Selah’s maintenance costs, we need to raise about $5,000 a month. We currently have $600 in monthly support.

How To Find Out More

We’d love the opportunity to share more with you about our desires for the future and how we feel God is leading us. We can set a Zoom call or can meet in person if you’re local. Feel free to reach out to us directly or use the link below to contact us via our contact form. Or, if you’re new to our blog, you can keep scrolling down to read more about our journey with Maritime Ministries and our sailboat Selah.

How to Give

If you’d like to be a monthly supporter, you can use the link below to set up giving through Maritime Ministries. Any new monthly supporters who sign up before January first will be automatically mailed a free copy of the 2026, Martitime Ministries calendar containing pictures of Laura’s paintings!

Support Us Monthly

How To Pray

We continue to long for your prayers as we journey. Please pray for lots of hands to join us in completing Selah’s bottom job. We are anxious to get her sanded, repaired, painted and back in the water before the weather gets too cold. Please pray also for Aaron as he learns to balance his new school work load with boat work and ministry work.

Thanks as always for following along on our journey, your support means so much!

– Laura & Aaron

Sample of Laura’s Calendar Paintings

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January 17, 2025January 18, 2025

1,000 Miracles – January 2025

About six weeks behind our latest timeline and two years behind our original timeline, Selah is finally done! A week before Christmas, we moved aboard and early this week, in the wee hours of the morning, Aaron and Captain Dan, left our home port of Elizabeth City, NC aboard Selah and started a long journey southbound.

A video of our “finished” boat below (as many already know, a boat is never truly finished)

The emotions I’ve experienced these last few weeks are unusual to me. Not ones I often feel. “Surreal” is really the best word for it all. For two years it felt like there was a giant mountain in front of us and more times than not, the thought of having to climb it was overwhelming. And then, almost as if overnight, we came to find we were standing on top of it! It feels unbelievable that we actually made it! It doesn’t seem to calculate, all those small steps and days of work, don’t really seem like they would equal this beautiful, functional boat we now live in. I feel like a proud mama who’s just given birth (without an epidural) or maybe this is what it feels like to win an Oscar (there are so many people that I would like to thank.)

I think it feels surreal because of the supernatural element of it all. The logistics and finances that have worked out to make it here are worth marveling at. What lies before my eyes today, is the culmination, I believe, of a 1,000 miracles. No single one significant alone to impress, but the consistency with which they appeared, for me, has been the proof that God has been working with us too.

Each miracle often connected to a person. A person who brought a tool, a supply, an encouraging word. Some people gave money, some gave their time, others their knowledge. Some came to help for an afternoon and others came weekly. Some were strangers who remained strangers. Many have become friends, and a few were old friends, who have been around long enough to hear Aaron talk of dreams of sailboats and ministry for over 20 years now.

I am super excited to live out these next few months, slowly moving south aboard our boat as a family. I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited and yet scared. I’ve talked to enough boaters at this point to know sailboat life is a lot of work. I am nervous for the trials I know will come, but I’m equally as excited to see why God has had us walk this path these last two years. I must believe that these last two years are just the beginning of a new chapter for the Koerner family.

THE BOATS DONE, NOW WHAT?

Even though we have been at this for over two years now, we still see ourselves as “in training.” We have learned so much about building and maintaining a sailboat, but there is yet another list of things to learn and experience that can only be done by living aboard a moving boat. In about a week, the kids and I will meet up with Aaron and Selah and take Dan’s place as crew aboard the boat and continue to head south via the Intracoastal Waterway. This initial winter and spiring season, we plan to be on the move a good bit. We have many friends and some churches we would like to connect with in Florida, and we anticipate many divine appointments with people in need of the love of Jesus along the way. We hope to round the tip of Florida and make it up the Gulf Coast of Florida to the Tampa area and maybe even cross the Gulf Stream and spend a few weeks in the Bahamas if things go according to plan. But just getting the boat off the local ministry docks already feels like a major win. When the spring comes to an end, we plan to head back up to Elizabeth City for hurricane season. We are already excited at the thought of being back in this small city with a fully functional boat.

Our goal for the next two years will be to gain lots of on the water experience as a family while being in tune to the leading of the Holy Spirit to minister to those in and out of the boating community. Beyond that, Aaron still has a heart to be able to disciple and encourage young men through on the water experiences. Even further beyond that, we are already aware of needs for sailors and sailboats to reach the lost on islands communities mostly in the Pacific Ocean. But as continues to be our story, it’s all in the hands of the Lord, and all one step at a time.

As always, thanks for reading and following along. Feel free to reach out to learn more or if you’d like to be apart of our support group and get more updates or hear about more real time prayer needs.

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March 31, 2021March 31, 2021

In The “In between”

Last time I shared before and after pictures of our RV renovation. And although it was fun to share those picture with you, renovations are not fun to live though. Pictures that took you minuets to appreciate, took us months to create. I’ve never known as much stress as I have during our renovation. There is a picture from our renovation that I didn’t shared last time, it’s what I call the “in between” picture. A picture mid renovation where the wall paper had been removed and all the ugliness of our water leak damage was on display. I didn’t share the picture partially out of embarrassment. It just felt a little too ugly, a little too real at the time. As people in the renovation world know, things usually look worse before they look better.

The “In Between” picture – When things got real!

The good thing about a RV renovation though is that one day the project is over. Eventually you patch the walls up, pick out a paint color and hang your curtains and enjoy the “after.” The thing is though, I still find myself sitting in an “in between” stage. The life of a Christian is always in process, in progress; but these “in between” seasons are sometimes so hard to accept, so hard to rest in.

In lots of ways our lives have settled from the storm of Covid, we have somewhat settled back in our home city and my husband has been able to return full time to his previous career as a musician, but life still feels very, what I like to describe as “ewey gooey.” We still aren’t sure where we are headed in life. We are still living in our RV, very comfortably, but still, it doesn’t make one feel settled. I find it really hard when someone ask what our plan is or where we will live next to just say, “I don’t know.” The conversation feels awkward unless I follow it up with, “here are some possibilities,” or, “here’s some places we might go,” as if to justify my situation. But the best answer is still just “I don’t know.” We are in the waiting. Praying and seeking but still the forecast ahead just looks foggy. We are doing one of the hardest things for anyone to do, wait.

While driving down a back road a few months back, I spotted a little old shed and although I only glimpsed it for just a second, I knew instantly that I loved it, that I had to draw it!

I knew almost instantly that I would recreate it as a garden shed. I think gardening can teach us so much about life. Oh the analogies I could make about pruning or good soil, but recently I’ve been thinking about spring. Specifically early spring, before the baby plants poke out of the soil but after the seeds have been planted. That time when, if you are still a beginner gardener like me, you hope and pray that something is brewing beneath the surface, that you didn’t screw something up. Plants in this stage need time and water but there really isn’t much you can do but wait. Everything in culture has the appearance of happening so fast that sometimes we forget that things take time, that renovations take time, that people take time. Sometimes its ok to wait and see what the Lord will bring about. Because I am confident that he is always at work in his children’s lives, even when on the surface it seem like time is wasting away.

I’m confident that one day God will give me the “after” picture of this season for our family. I hope and pray that at any moment we will see the new plants break free from beneath the soil and we will praise God for his goodness, for his wisdom to unroot the old plants, till the soil and replant on our behalf, knowing that we needed new plants, even if we didn’t want them. One day I hope to fully know the purpose of all life’s difficult seasons and to say, “now I see what you were planting there Lord!”

Slowly I am realizing though that life on earth is all one big “in between.” One issue is resolved, one “after” picture is taken, just to have God reach for the his gardening tools again and say “now let’s work on this section of your garden.” Half way through working on this drawing I scribbled “heaven” in the corner. I imagined that if this shed could be brought to my backyard in heaven, this is what it would look like. The more I live, the more I find myself longing for heaven, when we will wait no more. Until then, I am learning patience. As one country song puts it “the longer the waiting the sweeter the kiss”*

“…do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”**

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Thank you for your response. ✨

*Josh Turner’s “The Longer the Waiting”

**2 Corinthians 4:16-17

January 19, 2021January 20, 2021

RV Reno – Contrast

The concept of contrast has been a topic i’ve pondered over many times in my life. As an artist contrast is everything. You can’t make a picture without a black line to stand in defiance against a white background. As an art student, you are told that the more contrast a drawing has, the more it will stand out from other drawings. When I thought I was all done with a drawing my teacher would say, “Now go back and make your highlights even brighter and your shadows even darker.”

I can’t help but think about how these lessons in art relate to life. Contrast not only makes for a good picture but also for a good life story. We love to hear about a person who has over come a dark valley to stand in the light shining on the mountain top. We don’t like to see a man kicked down but we find joy in the news that he got back up, more joy than in the man who stood all the while. No one makes movies about the man who always stands, no one remembers him.

But alas, to be the man who has fallen down. To stand in the valley and not see the light or to wonder if we will ever see the light this side of heaven. We all know the movies will have a happy ending, but sometimes for us we are not so sure.

This year has been a valley for our family. Like many many others this pandemic has taken our lives from plan A to plan B, C, D, only to eventually land on plan Q. At the start of 2020 my husband and I were looking to buy our first house. With my husband being self-employed, this was a big deal for us, but when we both lost our jobs to the pandemic we were left to do our best to make lemonade from our lemons. It would take me a few months after we settled into our plan Q to admit to myself how disappointed I was that we could no longer buy a house. Even though it feels petty to say, because I knew people would lose their life to this thing, I often found myself angry at how much the pandemic had taken from me. As ugly or ungrateful as my emotions may have been. I knew the need to be honest with myself that I was upset.

So what does this all have to do with before and after pictures of your RV your asking by now. I want to share with you the contrast of my RV reno, and I hope in a small way it brings you joy. But I was hesitant to share these pictures at times because it adds to the “Hey look at me I posted a cool picture” world we live in, which leaves many of us feeling jealous, left out, or less than.

This is just one contrast of many in my life. One way that God has given me some light in my dark valley. But in other areas of my life I, probably like you, am still in the valley. Waiting on God’s timing to lift me up. I don’t claim to have the strength to rise again, but I live daily by God’s grace. I hang on to my mustard seed of faith and say, “I believe you are good and totally in control God, but help my unbelief!” May my valleys be used to show how great a God I serve!

I’ll close with lyrics from a song by Hillsong (dont worry more RV reno pictures below)

“In the crushing, In the pressing, you are making new wine, In the soil, I now surrender, You are breaking new ground”

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Kitchen Tidbits – Although I told myself I would take good before pictures as soon as we bought the RV, I failed. The one picture below was the only true “before” picture I took. The kitchen photo above was half renovated before I took this picture. At this point I had already painted over all the wall paper and laid new flooring.

This picture was taken the day we moved full-time into our RV, as you can tell from the picture the weather was rainy which delayed our departure. The window coverings in this thing drove me crazy and didn’t even last 24 hours before I got my screwdriver and took them down. Even fully drawn, the original shades covered a good 6 inches of the window. I need me some sun shine!

My curtains we originally white, but then I remember I had three kids…so I painted my white curtains in the design you see above. It was bit of a risk but I loved the end result!

I also reupholstered the couch (which may or may not be held together mostly with hot glue…but hey 6 months in and we are holding strong!) I chose what I have discovered to be the most ideal couch fabric for kids – Faux leather vinyl! This wonderful stuff doesn’t absorb any liquids your kids may spill (or pee) on it!

The faux ship lap wall behind our dining table was actually my husband’s idea. We did not set out to rip out the original banquet but after discovering an active water leak behind the built in benches we came up with this design. My husband also build these benches and found this table for us for only $38 at an antique mall! I hate to admit it, but sometimes his ideas are better than mine!

the end! Go find your own contrast!

-Laura