Partnering with Operation Mobilization
 In
March of this year, Maritime Ministries held a joint mission/prayer
conference with World Horizons at the "River's Gate"
(international headquarters located in Richmond, VA). We had the privilege
of having two very special guests at that conference--James Fox from Long
Island, Bahamas, and Rex Worth from England. Rex (now retired) served for
decades as the Chief Engineer of both of the Operation Mobilization ships.
Rex and Roy Armstrong (MMI president and founder) have been close friends
since the late seventies. In fact, it was Rex who was one of the driving
forces for the formation of Maritime Ministries. He has been an advisor
and a special friend of MMI from the beginning.
Operation Mobilization is an interdenominational para-church organization
whose central mode of ministry is Christian and educational book
distribution. They use two large passenger ships as huge mobile missions
bases and book distribution centers. OM regularly carries massive amounts
of Christian literature into countries which have almost no access to such
material otherwise, and they sell it at prices that the poorest people can
afford.
During the conference, James not only had the opportunity to speak about
and lead prayer for the great mission field of island nations, but also,
an important coalition was forged between James, Rex, MMI and Operation
Mobilization.
Several months before James came to Virginia, he knew the Lord had been
speaking to him about leaving his full-time fishing occupation and
becoming available to God for mission work. Specifically, James was being
led to open a Christian bookstore on Long Island. As far as we knew, there
was no other source for Christian literature in all of the out-islands. If
you lived on Long Island and you wanted to buy a study Bible, the only way
to get it was to buy a round trip ticket ($150+) to Nassau. Then you could
pay up to $90 for the Bible. Christian literature was simply out of reach
for many out-islanders, especially the poor. James obeyed the Lord's
leading and opened "Out of Zion" Christian bookstore. However,
even at James's discount prices many people still could not afford to buy
the life-changing books they desperately wanted. James would lower his
prices and even give books away at his own expense, but he longed for a
way to sell the books at a price that anyone could afford. He specifically
prayed that God would make a way for this to happen. In a very short time
God answered that prayer by bringing James to the conference, and, through
the new alliance with OM and Rex Worth, James can now get Christian books,
Bibles, and materials for pennies, compared to what he was paying! The
Lord provides!! As James leads the way through his bookstore, we will set
up satellite bookstores in Long Island, especially in the poorer areas.
Our long-term goal will be to set up small satellite bookstores in the
other out-islands of the Bahamas, using our MMI boats as miniature OM
distribution vessels.
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