ABOUT US
Our Story
Buddy and Mary Puryear
Who We Are
We are Buddy and Mary Puryear. We met in church as teenagers and married shortly after high school. Buddy went to college on a navy ROTC scholarship and went on to a 30-year naval career in nuclear submarines. Along the way we had four children and then 15 grandchildren. The navy allowed us to travel to different countries and experience many different cultures. After we retired, God lead us to start a ministry using a boat to carry help to people in need. We sold our retirement home and went to working serving the Lord in the Caribbean.
Our Ship
Sea Hope
Sea Hope was built by the navy to train midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy. Once it was retired, it was auctioned off, and we purchased it in Seattle, Washington shortly thereafter. We sailed Sea Hope down the Pacific Coast, through the Panama Canal and onto Bayou La Batre, Alabama. We spent a year painting and doing upgrades. Sea Hope can carry up to 24 people, produce over 2,000 gallons of freshwater per day, and carry tons of food and supplies. Since June 2021, Sea Hope has been based in Puerto Rico, the Cross Roads of the Caribbean.
Our Ministries
DISASTER RELIEF
Working with Operation Renewed Hope, Anchor Baptist Disaster Network, Mission Air Care and many others, SEA HOPE helps relieve suffering caused by natural disasters. The boat carries tons of food, water, and supplies to the scene, and then produces over 2000 gallons of freshwater daily. Our efforts can help not only those directly affected, but we can provide relief workers hot meals, warm showers and a place to sleep..
Our assistance is coordinated through local churches to meet the needs of those devastated. We seek to enable the pastor to play a key role in caring for his flock in troubled times.
MEDICAL MISSIONS
SEA HOPE is honored and blessed to partner with Operation Renewed Hope and Medical Missions Outreach to provide medical help to people in the Caribbean Basin. Clinics are always conducted under the auspices of a local church pastored by either an American missionary or a national pastor of like faith.
Both of these organizations have extensive experience in providing medical clinics around the world. Temporary medical clinics provide missionaries with the tools to touch the hearts of those who are in need, and also to reach their souls with the Gospel.
EVANGELISM
In the course of all of our ministries, we distribute Bibles, New Testaments, Johns-Romans, and other material. Our goal is to come alongside a national pastor or a missionary to better equip him to serve his congregation and local comm
…The Harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few: Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.
Matthew 9:37-38