W O R L D :
MERCY SHIPS MARKS TWO DECADES AFLOAT WITH "TWO-HANDED GOSPEL"

AN INNOVATIVE MARITIME ministry that some people said would never float is celebrating 20 successful years at sea.

From what skeptics dismissed as a wild dream, Mercy Ships has grown into an internationally renowned Christian relief organization that has won government commendations and invitations from around the world.

Led by the 11,700-ton Anastasis, a converted cruise liner, the Mercy Ships fleet takes the "two-handed gospel" - God's love in words and actions - to the developing world by twinning evangelism with free medical care.

Since 1978 the Anastasis and her three smaller sister ships have seen Mercy Ships workers visit more than a dozen countries and:

During that same time evangelistic teams have presented the gospel to more than a million people, with several thousand conversions and a number of new local churches established.

Each ship is manned entirely by volunteers and equipped solely through donations, with Christians from local churches joining as short-term crew for outreaches, which typically last for three months.

The seeds of the Mercy Ships ministry were sown in Don Stephens, then a young Youth With A Mission worker, in the Bahamas in 1964. A hurricane had battered the islands, and during a YWAM prayer meeting a young woman said how good it would have been if God had equipped a ship with people and supplies to help.

The idea stayed with Stephens, who went on to lead YWAM ministries in Europe. A first attempt to buy a ship failed, and Mercy Ships was not finally born until 1978, with the purchase of the Victoria, a retired 520-foot cruiser, for $1 million.

The ship did not sail for another four years, during which time volunteers completed a massive upgrading to earn the renamed Anastasis - "resurrection" in Greek - oceangoing status. Since then the ship - now fitted with operating rooms and a small hospital ward - has sailed throughout the world on missions of mercy.

Currently completing an outreach in Benin, West Africa, the Anastasis sails to Europe this month for a goodwill visit. The Latin America-based Caribbean Mercy and Pacific-based Island Mercy each has been fitted with an on-board eye surgery, to perform cataract operations.

In addition to the on-board care, Mercy Ships workers also run mobile clinics in outlying communities, and help with community development projects from building schools to providing fresh water.

Last year Mercy Ships launched Operation Sea Legs, a unique mobile prosthetics unit providing lower limbs to the victims of landmines. The custom-built unit, the only one of its kind, is currently based in Nicaragua.

Around 800 people from some 30 countries serve with Mercy Ships, at sea and at land bases in almost a dozen countries. Fund-raising campaigns have begun to add ships to the fleet from the United Kingdom and Korea, with plans for ten vessels to eventually be at sea.

"As we travel from country to country, we see how great the needs are," said president and chief executive Stephens. "The problems of water-borne disease, poverty, hunger and lack of healthcare can seem overwhelming, but over the years we have seen how we can help people one by one."

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