Some of you have been wondering why it is that we are having our boat hauled out for the winter. We have been a little vague on that subject because until recently there have been some negotiations on future opportunities that were not finalized yet. The time has come, though, to reveal to you what the next few months will hold for us.

Before we give you a snapshop of our future let us take a few steps back in time and remind you that from early 1995 we have felt that our great dream as a family would be to operate a large sailing vessel with the main purpose of taking groups of people on board to do leadership development programs and team building excursions, with the aim of taking teams to destinations where they can participate in outreach initiatives and missions activities. As a matter of fact, when we arrived in America our first year here, 2000, was spent predominantly interviewing boat builders to prospectively build us an 80 - 100 ft schooner.

Toward the end of that first year we felt that God was reworking our strategy and calling us to be faithful with what we had right then in terms of our financial resources and our experience level and so we purchased Jabulani, which was what we could afford at the time without getting into debt. We assumed that once we returned from some long distance sailing, we would be in a better position to raise money to build a larger boat.

Various opportunities started to become available to us from October this year that involve us purchasing a large schooner for next season. We never expected these opportunities to present themselves to us prior to us doing some long distance sailing, but they have and we would be remiss if we did not spend the time following them to their conclusion.

Having this opportunity present itself at this particular point in time has presented some challenges to us in that Philip has already resigned from his job and has been working full time on this opportunity since November 16. We always expected and planned to live off various investments in predominantly 3rd world environments, which is not going to be the case if our offer on the schooner is accepted. We will not be earning any income from the large boat initially and living in the NJ area could make the next 6 - 12 months or so financially constrained for us with regard to living expenses.

Our highest aim has always been to follow as God leads us on the journey of life. We appreciate your prayers for us during the next few weeks of decision making. Due to us leaving our apartment and living with friends for the next month or two - we have no fixed contact numbers but our e-mail is still the same. We would love to hear from you. We appreciate all those who have been following our blog and will keep you all updated as things progress.