Who we are

YWAM Ships Kona exists to serve isolated islands and remote shoreline villages through health and healing services. Using ships to serve is not just a good option for these locations, it is the ONLY option. Islands without airports, and shorelines with no roads or bridge access, are limited to ships able to reach them and provide services.

A primary goal is to reach remote Pacifica islands without airports.  It can take weeks to sail to remote islands across the vast ocean. The Big Island of Hawaii is ideally situated in the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean to achieve this mission.

The YWAM Ships Kona training and logistics center, known as Port YWAM, was a former hotel nestled right in downtown Kailua-Kona. Port YWAM sits across from the pier where the first missionaries arrived in Hawaii in 1820, and where in the latter 1800s, five different missionary ships known as Morning Star I through Morning Star V were sent out from Kona to serve in Pacifica. It is a historic legacy that continues today with a new generation of seafarers committed to fulfilling the great tradition of Hawaii serving the islands of the Pacific. This campus is our primary training and field support facility. We are also just one mile from the University of the Nations Kona campus, our “twin” in ministry.