Why we should remember seafarers on Sea Sunday ˜ July 12th
Although we all depend on seafarers, it is very easy to forget the role they play in our lives. How many of us, for example, think of ships, and the people who crew them, when we are eating our breakfast, doing our shopping, filling our cars with petrol, or putting on clothes that have come from some far-off country?
Seafarers spend much of their time isolated at sea "out of sight". But to make sure that they don't always remain "out of mind", The Missions to Seamen asks us to remember them, their families, and the Church's care for them, on Sea Sunday.
Seafarers need our prayers, and so do their families. To bring us so many of our daily needs they have to leave their homes, wives, children, relatives and friends, and face the dangers of the sea for months, or even years.
The Missions to Seamen, a missionary society of the Anglican Church, is at work in some 300 ports around the world. Its chaplains and staff visit seafarers on their ships to offer them a welcome, and practical and spiritual support. In over 100 ports it runs seafarers' centres close to the ships where seafarers can relax, meet people other than their shipmates, get any kind of help they may need and, most important of all, telephone their families.
Just recently Angelo, a Filipino seafarer, rang home from a Missions to Seamen centre to hear the news that his wife had given birth to their first baby - a daughter. To support the new father and to try to lessen the pain of separation at such a time, a surprise party was held at the Mission to celebrate the event. Because of the length of his contract, the seafarer said he would not see his daughter, apart from in photographs, during the first eight months of her life.
On Sea Sunday please remember Angelo, and other seafarers like him, and the welcome and care that The Missions to Seamen offers them on behalf of the Whole Church.
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page last updated 6 JULY 1998