Our ministry’s newest generation shared a week of discussion, worship, and fellowship at NAMMA’s school in the Houston International Seafarers’ Center (HISC) this February 12-17, 2023. This was the second in-person course since the COVID-19 lockdowns, and the first ‘normal’ one, with last year’s having taken place in sweltering June due to Omicron postponements. It is always encouraging to see new workers in seafarers’ welfare and hear them talk about their work with colleagues, many for the first time. 

The course material covered the unique challenges of seafarers’ welfare: religion and seafaring, working with union partners, ecumenical relationships and the organizational side of maritime ministry, and a detailed exploration of the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, among other things. Dcn. Jeff Willard, a former student of the school, spoke on counseling and active listening, and Capt. Mahesh Bedre of GMB Shipping spoke about working with NAMMA and the HISC to get thousands of seafarers affordable vaccinations. 

More so than in previous years, there was also a focus on the pragmatics of supporting a ministry: on Monday, anthropologist Jeni Brett presented on the nature and motivations of voluntary work in seafarers’ welfare; and on Friday, HISC’s Dana Blume and NAMMA’s Jennifer Koenig presented on fundraising strategy. 

Worship and fellowship remained important cornerstones of the programming as well, giving students an opportunity to build relationships between their organizations and to reflect on shared purpose. This also took the form of recreation, with a trip to the Sam Houston Monument and a boat tour of the port, along with several group meals. Tex-Mex, Cajun, local seafood, and (Texas) BBQ were all on the menu – Dcn. Willard, discussing the role of health and diet in a chaplain’s self-care, noted that the Houston School is always a bit of a ‘cheat week’ for him.

Students came to the HISC from near and far. A majority were from NAMMA’s core of Canada and the US, but along with them was the new director for the Bermuda Sailors Home (also a NAMMA member), and three of our partners through ICMA from the Mission to Seafarers UK. As the HISC is an important ecumenical hub in a busy port, many were also with local ministries, including the Chinese-language Lifeline to Seamen and the brown-water ministry of the Seamen’s Church Institute. Volunteers with HISC itself were also in attendance, and they, along with the HISC chaplains and staff, took good care of the rest of us with a place to meet, transportation around the area, and of course food.

On a personal note, this was also my first time sharing leadership of the course with NAMMA Executive Director, Jason Zuidema, who had to leave early to prepare for another course and left me to wrap things up – I am particularly grateful to the students, and to the HISC staff, for making it all so easy. This was a good, thoughtful group of students, with interesting questions and careful engagement with the material. We look forward to hearing more from them, at the Seattle conference or through the NAMMA network, and we look forward to meeting yet more next year.

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Stella Maris North America Regional Symposium

This August, Catholics of all vocations involved with people of the sea gathered in the Baltimore-DC area to share thoughts on their past and future. Topics included the different ministries of different workers, the life of servant of God Capt. Leonard LaRue, a new Stella Maris app, and the joys and struggles of this unique ministry.

Perspectives on Stella Maris

Stella Maris is diverse: bishops, priests, religious, deacons, and lay Catholics, lifelong and converted, all minister to peoples of the sea and play leadership roles, and the symposium considered all these different angles. Dcn. Paul Rosenblum (Charleston SC) opened the proceedings with a look at the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium and its call for holiness in every kind of vocation, and throughout the symposium all had opportunities to present on their work and praise each others’.

One of the most important ways Stella Maris workers rely on each other is in providing Catholic seafarers with the sacrament. Doreen Badeaux (Port Arthur, TX) recalled learning about maritime ministry after growing up in a maritime parish: “It’s as if I was rewinding a film in my head, and I could see the countless ships sailing past my childhood home, and only now realizing how many Catholic men and women must have been on those ships without access to the sacraments, though they were literally passing the churches themselves, but could only wave.”

In his presentation on diaconal work, Dcn. Jeff Willard (Galveston, TX) supplied a maritime metaphor for the kind of cooperation this challenge takes: ‘I may not be the cargo ship that can take the Mass to the seafarers myself – that has to be a priest – but I can be the tugboat that takes the cargo ship to them.’

Bishop promoters Brendan Cahill (Victoria, TX) and Thomas Dowd (Sault Ste. Marie, ON) – talked about how they advocate for people of the sea within their national conferences: raising awareness, creating supervisory committees, and securing funding. International director Fr. Bruno Ciceri (Vatican) talked about doing similar advocacy work within The Dicastery for Integral Human Development.

National director Sr. Joanna Okereke (Washington DC) spoke about mediating between bishops and chaplains, fostering unity, and the importance of being at once a leader and a servant. de facto national director for Canada Dcn. Dileep Athaide (Vancouver BC) echoed these same points and talked about keeping up with Stella Maris workers across the country. Others, like Andy Middleton (Baltimore MD), Dcn. Jose De Leon (Seattle, WA), and Fr. Peter Lin (Ft Lauderdale FL), told stories of conversion and prayer in their ministries. 

A New App

Also significant for the future of Stella Maris, Doreen Badeaux and developer Ryan Kreager announced the impending launch of a Stella Maris app 2.0. There are some new features, including the ability for seafarers to request emergency help, but just as significant is the complete overhaul of the underlying code. 

The original app was built ‘on top’ of the phone-based prayer app Laudate, which required different code for different kinds of phone and made it cumbersome to use and update. The new app, however, is based on just one set of code usable by phone or computer. Not only does this make the app much easier to use, it also will make it easier to update and to add features to moving forward.

Ecumenical Partnerships

The symposium piggybacked off of the North American Maritime Ministry Association (NAMMA)’s annual conference, which many of the attendees had also been part of earlier in the week. In fact, the two organizations have a shared leader: Dcn. Paul Rosenblum, also serves as the president of NAMMA. Several of the symposium’s presenters had already presented at the conference, and NAMMA also lent staff to Stella Maris as tech support for the weekend.

Bishop Dowd also talked about his work with NAMMA in developing a report on Stella Maris ministry in Canada, noting both its value in explaining the ministry to outsiders and in clarifying for Stella Maris ministers themselves what was going on in what ports. As this piece is being written, a similar project with NAMMA is beginning for the USA with Bishop Cahill’s blessing.

Working with ecumenical partners is a rewarding path to walk, but not always an easy one, and time was taken to reflect on that too. Gratitude was expressed for ecumenical partners and good communication with them, but there were naturally also moments of frustration. Fr. Ciceri reiterated the importance of the ICMA Code in handling sensitive issues with partners: all members are to ‘show […] a sincere respect for [seafarers’] personal values and beliefs;’ and ‘respect the loyalty of those engaged in maritime ministry to their particular ecclesiastical discipline and tradition and refrain from proselytizing seafarers’.

Seafarers and Br. Marinus

The symposium was held primarily at the Baltimore Maritime Institute of Technology and Graduate Studies (MITAGS), a training and conference facility operated by the International Organization of Masters, Mates, & Pilots (MM&P). Fr. Sinclair Oubre (Beaumont, TX), happened to have a presentation on one very special member of the MM&P union: Capt. Leonard LaRue, also called Br. Marinus, whom there is a growing movement to have canonized. 

Oubre’s presentation focused on Marinus’ role as an example for seafarers. “When I ask seafarers whether one of them could ever be a saint, they laugh. When I ask them if a 19-year member of this union could ever be a saint, they roar.” 

Recognized by his crewmates both as a skilled merchant mariner and a devout Christian, LaRue is most famous for his role during the Korean War’s Hungnam Evacuation, the  ‘Christmas Miracle’, when he led the SS Meredith Victory to rescue a record-breaking 14,000 refugees. Afterwards, LaRue took vows as a Benedictine and lived out the rest of his life praying and working in the gift shop at St. Paul’s Abbey in Newton, NJ.

Of course there was also much fun and fellowship had at the symposium. On the first day, attendees toured the magnificent Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, where a bas-relief illustrating Lumen Gentium overlooked them in the nave. At the end of the tour, the attendees received Mass together in the Basilica’s Our Lady of the Rosary chapel. There was worship the following day at MITAGS as well, and plenty of time spent enjoying each other’s company over meals.

All left the symposium glad to have spent time in worship and thought together, and no less excited for Stella Maris’ future than they were proud of its past.

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Maritime ministry has all too many open questions at the moment. Many of our most experienced chaplains and volunteers have retired, and we have new ones who have never served in normal times. Even what ‘normal’ should mean going forward is uncertain: for the better, the ILO has renegotiated the MLC, 2006 to include internet access; for the worse, shore leave still hasn’t come back to nearly 2019 levels, the Black Sea has become a warzone, and thousands of Ukrainian seafarers have seen their homes invaded and families threatened.

All of this takes the work of heads as well as hands. We meet challenges better when we see how our colleagues are meeting them in their own contexts and think about how today’s decisions affect the longer term. We need to learn resilience, prepare for uncertainties, and – just as important – know and support each other in our shared ministry.

‘Encouragement’, ‘education’ and ‘spiritual and professional development’ are explicitly named in NAMMA’s mission, and every year making these available through programming and subsidies is the focus of most of my and Jason’s work.  We continue to work with the ITF Seafarers’ Trust to sponsor summer interns at ministries, and are very happy with this years’ group. We do in-person training for new maritime ministers once a year in Houston, Texas; we work with members and friends to develop online courses; and we regularly publish books, send out surveys, and report on important issues in maritime ministry. And we are always available to talk – if you have not taken advantage of one of these, would like to learn more, or have an idea of your own, please reach out! 

Online Learning: MNWB Ship Welfare Visitor Course, MARE Training

One of the most exciting projects we are involved in this year is working with the UK’s Merchant Navy Welfare Board (MNWB) and our videographer Noah Leon to revise the Ship Welfare Visitor Course (SWVC), which can be found online at https://shipwelfarevisitor.com/. The course has long been a staple of many maritime ministries’ training for staff, interns, and volunteers alike, covering such topics as safety when ship visiting, crew structure and how to talk to seafarers, and seafarers’ rights and complaints procedures.

The updated course will feature a greater emphasis on video, with text lessons that are smaller and more easily-digestible. It will consist of 7 units, each about 20 minutes long, with a structure that prioritizes the information that is most basic and valuable to ship visitors and work outwards from there into greater degrees of detail. 

The information has been updated to reflect newer developments, like port welfare boards, and includes input from the current experts and leaders in seafarers ministry – Generalsekretär Matthias Ristau of Deutsche Seemannsmission, President Mark Nestlehutt of the Seamen’s Church Institute, and Stuart Rivers, Sharon Coveney, and Neil Atkinson of the Merchant Navy Welfare Board, among others. We’re very excited for the new course’s debut.

Besides the SWVC, we continue to work on smaller, more focused courses on MARE Training. The next one we expect to release is on safely using gangways, the most dangerous areas of ships in terms of number of injuries suffered. We are always looking for more ideas and contributions as well, so if you have an idea please let us know.

Surveys and Reports

Education consists not only in teaching what we already know, but adding to what we know through research. We have done two surveys this year, and have shared at different times our findings both with NAMMA members and the larger maritime community in the interests of advocacy. 

The year’s first survey was on the state of seafarers’ welfare in 2021, including information on shore leave, vaccinations, ship visits, and Christmas gifts. The results highlighted the pressing need for shore leave, both for the immediate wellbeing of seafarers and for COVID-19 safety: more than 50% of ministries reported that lack of shore leave was a major obstacle to seafarers who wanted vaccinations getting them, with the median reported rate of crews taking shore leave in ports being less than 20%. More than 50% of ministries identified restrictions put in place by the shipping company as major obstacles to shore leave, compared to just 33% for officers, and less than 10% for port state and terminal restrictions.

In preparation for the ILO’s discussion of the MLC, 2006 in May, NAMMA also distributed a survey among its members’ networks of seafarers asking about how much they used the internet and how happy they were with its availability and quality on board. The results of that survey, which is still ongoing and we encourage you to share with seafarers, are published in more detail elsewhere in this issue in the article ‘Internet for Seafarers’, but we found almost universal support for a right to internet among both ratings and officers, and we are glad to see that something like this has been included in the amendments to the MLC, 2006 that will come into force in 2024.

Return of the Introduction to Seafarers’ Welfare and Maritime Ministry Course

After two years of isolation and online meetings, it was an absolute pleasure to return to the ‘Houston School’ this June for a week of training with new ship visitors. We had a full class of 15 students, and a wonderful diversity of Christians young and old; Anglo-American, Latin American, Caribbean, Korean, and Taiwanese; Southern Baptist, Episcopalian, and Franciscan.

As in years past, the course followed a hybrid online/in-person model, with students coming to Houston having already been provided a few short online lessons, and then spent a week together in lecture and group discussions. Lesson topics included intercultural communication, the business side of shipping, seafarers’ rights, seafaring as sacred work, and the history of seafarers’ welfare. 

Guest speakers included Phil Schifflin of the SCI Center for Mariner Advocacy, US Coast Guard Commander for the Galveston-Houston Sector Capt. Jason Smith, and Mission to Seafarers Latin America coordinator and chaplain in the Port of Panama Fr. Ian Hutchinson Cervantes. Dcn. Jeffrey Willard, a student at the course who has begun ministering in the Port of Galveston, also gave a lecture drawing on his experience as a certified counselor.

Fr. Michael Enright, the newly-appointed Stella Maris chaplain for Chicago, was directed to the Houston School by longtime NAMMA member and friend of the school Marshal Bundren. “I wasn’t sure what it was going to be – he just said I should come to it, so here I am, and I’m just amazed by the amount of information.” New to maritime, but with decades of experience in ministry, Enright brought a combination of wisdom and curiosity to the course: 

One of the things I have found as a chaplain working in prisons and hospitals is that the person you are visiting is one population you are caring for – the other population is the guards, the doctors. They are human beings too, and the way we interact with the people at the bottom of the hierarchy often has an effect on them. I want to make sure that I talk to the officers on board as well as the ratings, as I am assuming we do.

Another newcomer to our community is the Rev. Joshua Messick, an Episcopalian priest and young father who has recently been hired as the new executive director of the Baltimore International Seafarers’ Center. He brought with him a deep desire to help, expressed both in his contributions to class and in the wool hat he was knitting for a seafarer while he listened. Messick is taking over in Baltimore from Mary Davisson:

I have a wonderful predecessor with 18 years of experience in the Port of Baltimore who is teaching me an awful lot that I would not have been able to find out on my own. She is transitioning me into all of the connections that she’s made, and leaving me a wonderful ministry and group of volunteers. I am absolutely in awe of what Mary has done over the years. And I am very excited to learn how I can build on that – for instance, the Port of Baltimore has offered us a new space for our center, and I really want to learn some of the best practices for how to use it and what seafarers will want from it.

Fortunately for Messick, a great deal of time was spent on excursions to seafarers’ centers and locations of interest for seafarers’ welfare. Besides getting to know their colleagues at the wonderful Houston Center very well, the students also visited the Houston Norwegian Seamen’s Church, with its swimming pool and traditional Norwegian church layout, the star-studded Texas Port Ministry in Freeport, and the refurbished post-hurricane Galveston Seafarers’ Center, with its bike rentals and shelves of Amazon packages for delivery to seafarers. Students also got to visit the Seamen’s Church Institute’s Center for Maritime Education and  the Seafarers’ International Union hiring hall.

As in years past, the most valuable part of the course was getting new maritime ministers worshiping, talking, and spending time together. As President Paul Rosenblum taught in his lecture on the ‘ecology’ of maritime, it is through networking and communication with each other and the rest of the maritime world that ministries can make a large-scale difference. We are thankful to have in our classroom a network that spans from Quebec to Argentina, and we look forward to seeing some of them at the 2022 conference.

Photo: students gather for Houston training program on June 5, 2022

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In January of 2022, the North American Maritime Ministry Association (NAMMA) distributed an online survey to its members, asking about the state of seafarers’ welfare in their ports. Responses were received from 38 ministries in Canada, the USA, and Puerto Rico from January 26 to February 7. The results show an encouraging persistence of ministry in difficult times, with many vaccinations and other services having been provided, but also a disturbing lack of access to shore leave for many seafarers. 

North American ministries did much in 2021, and play a key role in the welfare of seafarers: they organised thousands of seafarer vaccinations, often under difficult circumstances, while still managing ship visits, transportation, centres, thousands of Christmas gifts, and the new reality of shopping on ship-bound seafarers’ behalf. From their comments, it is also clear that many ministries are stretched quite thin, working with less support from volunteers and churches even as their work increases. We hope to do what we can to support them, and that the rest of the maritime community does the same.

Onboard, wifi is increasingly common, although seafarers’ use of it is often limited and costly, and many still buy SIM cards. On the port side, there are clear signs of improvement: wifi is present for seafarers’ use in a substantial minority of terminals, as are mobile wifi units in a substantial minority of ministries. Respondent comments suggest that seafarers’ desire for wifi is great, while also noting that the associated costs make it difficult for them to meet it: mobile wifi units are still too expensive for many ministries, and the cost of SIM cards is low in some places but high in others.

Shore leave was one of the most disappointing statistics, with implications that colour the rest of the survey’s findings: after all, transportation and centres are impossible, and vaccinations and internet very difficult, without it. Seafarers need more shore leave than they are getting, not only for their sanity and their general welfare, but in order to be vaccinated against the very disease that keeping them on board is supposed to protect them from. Many respondents mentioned that COVID-19 at sea and at home remain real concerns for seafarers, as does mental health; shore leave and safety cannot be an either/or.

While we are aware of the present instability that comes with a pandemic and the slow emergence of a ‘new normal’, we also emphatically hope that seafarers’ welfare is taken no less seriously than any other person’s, and that their safe access to shore leave be prioritised, in 2022.

The full report is available to read or download here:

About NAMMA: With seafarers’ welfare provider members in more than 50 ports around North America, NAMMA’s mission is to support those in maritime ministry with professional development, fellowship, and advocacy. https://namma.org/. Contact us at executivedirector@namma.org.

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Seafarers’ ministries all over the world have been deeply involved in caring and advocating for seafarers caught in the COVID-19 Crew Change Crisis, from which many touching stories have emerged in the last year. Few stories, however, compare in scale to the seafarers of Kiribati (pronounced ‘kee-ree-bahss’, adjective ‘I-Kiribati’), who have been stranded around the world in the hundreds. Predominantly employed by German shipping companies, these seafarers have been concentrated in a few major ports – first Hamburg, then also Svendborg, Brisbane, Busan, Jakarta, and Fiji – while the government of Kiribati and international partners work on their unique logistical challenges of public health and border management. 

In this time of deep duress, uncertainty, and poverty for the seafarers, an important task of caring for them has been sharing and lightening their burdens: listening to them, entertaining and encouraging them, and, when it is asked for, praying with them. In the ports where they are found, seafarers’ ministries have taken up this task, often going far beyond business as usual to do so. They have coordinated clothing deliveries, housing, church services, and outings; they have striven to form personal connections with large groups of seafarers, sometimes hundreds; they have reached out to their own governments and governments across the world. As members of the International Christian Maritime Association (ICMA), the fellowship and network of such ministries, they have also done this work in their own ports in coordination with each other and other maritime partners.

This is one part of a much larger story of the whole international maritime community rallying to help its I-Kiribati members. The ITF, ICS, ILO, and IMO have all advocated for their rights and worked with the government of Kiribati to help find solutions. South Pacific Marine Services (SPMS), the group of shipping companies that employ them, have gone far beyond their contractual obligations in paying for food and lodging. The ITF Seafarers’ Trust and The Seafarers’ Charity have provided further emergency funds to sustain them. More heroic still has been the work of the seafarers themselves and their families, both in their perseverance and in their own care for each other.

In Hamburg

Hamburg, where the majority of the I-Kiribati seafarers were staying at first, has not one ministry to seafarers but four, working independently: three Deutsche Seemannsmissions and the Catholic Stella Maris. When Matthias Ristau, of the Evangelical Church of Northern Germany’s Seemannsmission, heard about the situation in his port in the fall of 2020, he consulted with these colleagues about working together on what was already clearly a much larger project than any of them were used to.

“I think in the beginning Matthias got us together – the three different Deutsche Seemannsmissions in Hamburg and Stella Maris – to see what we could each bring to the situation”, says Monica Döring of Stella Maris Hamburg. “We realized even then that it was going to be a very big thing, and that none of us would be able to do it on our own.”  

Food and shelter were naturally the first priorities: the Altona Seemannsmission had lodging in which some of the seafarers could stay, but as more arrived, extra accommodation and food had to be found in a nearby youth hostel. Beyond those basic human needs, the ministries would check in on the seafarers and provide other forms of care. Much of this care was shared between the ministries. “We went to the youth hostel to give mental support, pastoral care, church services, and very practical things like warm clothes and Wi-Fi”, says Ristau. “We couldn’t put it in every room, but we had very good routers in the corridors so they could talk to their families at night.”

Things were very chaotic in these early days, as everyone scrambled to figure out who would do what and what still needed doing. Even then, though, Döring remembers that they didn’t know just what they were in for: “Reality overtook us a little bit. I think, without any of us talking about it, we all had assumed that by Christmas they would have been home or that the situation would have changed. Well, it didn’t. But then in the next month we really got organized. We got to see where each of our strengths were and got better at sharing the tasks.

“Some of the I-Kiribati seafarers were Catholic, so Matthias and I organized Catholic and Protestant church services for every other week. But what we contributed depended not only on which organization we were from, but more on who each of us was and what we did. Matthias did a lot of public relations and outreach, Jörn [Hille] from the Seemannsmission handled the finances, I’m good at meetings so I helped organize those, we had some younger volunteers who knew the seafarers from quarantine; and another volunteer who organized recreational activities. And by the way the people from the youth hostel were great, and really, really helpful.”

Döring also expressed appreciation for the great variety of people involved pastorally. “In welfare visits, too, we all had different personalities and different approaches to talking with people. I’m a little bit older, and have children of my own, so some seafarers who were fathers appreciated talking with me about that. Meanwhile there were younger people who had really good relationships with the younger seafarers.”

Later on, most of the seafarers were relocated to Fiji. There are currently only 20 seafarers in Hamburg, all housed in the Altona Seemannsmission, which along with Ristau has taken over the larger part of caring for them, although other ministries are still involved as needed. “We are still in contact with them,” says Döring. “The other day the volunteer organizing recreation borrowed bicycles from us, but mostly now we just provide for their religious needs as a Catholic organization: shuttling them to church, confession, things like that.”

In Fiji

The first group of I-Kiribati seafarers to be repatriated to Kiribati were housed in Fiji, as are 150 of the roughly 250 still abroad. There they pass their days in its Melanesia Hotel, staying safe and waiting to complete their journey. “After Fiji started closing its borders, me and many others were stranded in Hamburg since the beginning of December last year”, says Capt. Tekemau Kiraua, a de facto spokesman for the group. “Then they got an agreement with the Fijian government to enter, so we entered Fiji on March 18 and that was supposed to be our last stop. But when we heard the Delta Variant had been discovered here, we locked ourselves down at the Melanesian Hotel – that was April 18. It was very sad for the hotel staff too, because they have not been able to go back to their families either.”

While there is no ministry to seafarers in Fiji itself, Ristau is still doing his best to care for them all the way from Hamburg. “I and others are in regular contact with a few of them, including Capt. Tekemau”, he says. “When we heard they were running out of money, we contacted the ITF Trust and the Seafarers’ Charity, and every ten or so days we send money for SIM cards and other basic needs. Capt. Tekemau also told us their families are also running out of money, so we’ve contacted the Trust about that too.” Ristau has also been in some contact with the seafarers being housed in Jakarta and their agent, though this has been more limited as the ministry connections are fewer.

As a captain of his own crew when he was on a vessel, many of Kiraua’s compatriots now come to him with their burdens. “My crewmembers’ mental health is out of control. Lots of them come to me asking me when we will be coming back, or about their problems supporting their families. They’ll ask me, ‘Captain, I have a problem, I have no more money to support my family. Can you find me another agency or other work for me to support them?’”

Like a good maritime minister, Capt. Tekemau looks for ways to lift their spirits even in the face of great discouragement. “We play games to entertain them. I use some of the money we get from the ITF Trust, maybe $200 Fijian a week, as $5 prizes to encourage people to play sports and forget about what is going on. But some of the guys still want to stay in their rooms.”

He also expresses appreciation for the work ICMA maritime ministries are doing for I-Kiribati seafarers. “Our communication with the German Seamen’s Mission has been very good, and it has been very helpful that they have been with us all the time and supporting us in these hard times we are going through. In Brisbane, the Mission is doing a lot of activities to make things fun for the seafarers there. That is very good, and that is what the German Seamen’s Mission did for us too.”

But in the meantime, things are still difficult for Kiraua and his fellow I-Kiribati seafarers. Like so many migrant workers, their primary motivation is not their own welfare, but that of their families, and Kiraua worries about their future: “Just without financial income it would still be possible to survive. But our wives cannot go fishing, because they are staying with our kids. That is our biggest concern: we are worried about providing for our families.”

In Busan

Twelve I-Kiribati seafarers continue to wait in Busan, South Korea, where they have been since April. They are served there by the Anglican Mission to Seafarers in Busan and its chaplain, Monica Kyongok Park.

Park has been working with Mission to Seafarers since 1993, and was appointed chaplain in 2018. In addition to her duties serving other seafarers in the port, she meets with the I-Kiribati seafarers three times a week to check on their status. She has also met online with Matthias Ristau, comparing notes and getting news from Germany about SPMS.

Whenever the seafarers make a request, Park and the Mission’s staff do their best to meet the need. They help with buying medicines at the pharmacy and purchasing items through the internet, and are also working on access to vaccines. Park has also reached out to three I-Kiribati seafarers in Incheon, on the opposite coast of South Korea, to offer the Mission’s services and let them know that support for them is also available if they desire.

“I-Kiribati seafarers are very kind and humble and do not complain,” says Park. They seem satisfied with their accommodation and meals, but she worries about what it really means when they report that everything is ‘okay’. The I-Kiribati seafarers remaining there are receiving their basic monthly pay, accommodations and meals through their shipping company. Although much less than when they were working, it does help them to financially support their families. 

Even with quite a serious situation of COVID-19 in Busan, which is dominated by the Delta Variant, the seafarers are free to go out, albeit with strict health and safety measures. Public gathering is limited to four people with social distance,  two people after 6 PM, and everything closes at 9 PM. The seafarers try to keep themselves busy, taking long walks, fishing, going to mountain parks, shopping, and watching movies. The Mission has supplied more than 570 KF-94 masks since July to protect them on these outings. 

The Mission also transports seafarers from their hotel to the seafarers’ center, where table tennis, billiards and a dartboard are available. Games like Jenga and jigsaw puzzles are also provided for the crew. The Mission also searches for other activities to help the I-Kiribati seafarers pass the time in the evenings after closures. The center also provides religious services, including an English Sunday service twice a month.

For the I-Kiribati seafarers in Busan, as with their colleagues around the world, contact with family is the primary concern. They are able to use the free hotel Wi-Fi to contact their homes frequently, and the Mission helps them transfer money back home. Though there is nothing the seafarers or their families can do to speed the process of their return, they report that their families are waiting for them.

In Brisbane

Ross Nicholls, chair of the Anglican Mission to Seafarers in Brisbane, was caught off guard when he first heard there were stranded I-Kiribati seafarers in his port. “One day someone in Australia said to me, ‘Oh, I think there are twelve or so seafarers stuck in a hotel here’. I asked for how long, and they said, ‘I can’t remember’! 

As a former marine pilot of 15 years, Nicholls knows the maritime world, and the challenges of serving it, well. “I understand how that comment could happen, because from a public health perspective it’s an ongoing task of bodies in, quarantine, bodies out. But for us, taking care of those seafarers is what we do, and if they are stuck all alone in a hotel they need support. So now whenever new seafarers arrive, the government has gotten a lot better about keeping us informed.”

Currently, the Brisbane Mission is caring for 35 I-Kiribati seafarers, and Nicholls expects more. “The first ones arrived in May, and the number is growing as more vessels with crewmembers from Kiribati come by Australia. Word has gotten around that there are problems with repatriation, so these ships are repatriating their Kiribati seafarers, and that is being centralized here in Brisbane.”

Nicholls is proud of the care the Brisbane Mission is able to extend to seafarers in need. “Having them centralized to Brisbane is a positive for us, because we know we can care for them and we have welfare services on site.” The Mission to Seafarers does everything it can to keep the I-Kiribati seafarers engaged and comfortable. “At the centre we have a pool table, table tennis, and an outdoor area with birds and trees. And obviously connections with home are key, so we’re providing them with Wi-Fi and phone cards to help them with that. 

“In terms of outings, we’ve taken them to the park, the beach, and up into the mountains. Sometimes it actually gets a bit overwhelming, though, with people coming and saying ‘We want to take the seafarers here, we want to take them there’. A lot of the time they just want to go home and to be in a space they’re comfortable with.” 

Beyond what his mission can do for them, however, Nicholls seems most taken with what the I-Kiribati seafarers are doing for themselves: “They are such a great bunch of guys, typical islanders. They sing and dance every time they come out, and we have space and stereos and guitars for them to play their traditional music. When they are playing their music at the centre they really lose themselves in the moment, playing and singing like they were under a palm tree back at home.”

The Mission also makes itself available for the I-Kiribati seafarers pastorally, especially in the hardships of life far from home. Here, too, Nicholls highlighted the importance of the I-Kiribati seafarers’ own contributions. “There are a few leaders among the group of seafarers who are typically the ones we talk to, and they help us by pointing out who is withdrawing more and who might be in trouble.”

Exemplary of the ICMA network, Ristau and Nicholls’ ministries are sharing resources and information with each other. “We’re in contact with Matthias, so we’re fully aware of what’s happening in Fiji and Hamburg, and that the Mission to Seafarers is supporting those that are in South Korea. We really don’t have any connections in Jakarta, though, for making sure that those seafarers are receiving similar levels of care.”

Some of the Hamburg and Brisbane missions’ closest collaborations have been in media outreach. This is made possible in part by the work of another member of Nicholls’ team: “We’re very lucky to have a volunteer, Abby Williams, who is an investigative journalist and researcher with Human Rights at Sea, so she’s been able to put out human interest stories about this in the Australian press. We’ve been in touch with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation; I and Matthias have both done interviews with them. Matthias also has been in contact with Agence France-Presse, and they’ve gotten in contact with me too.”

Nicholls has hopes that international collaboration can help the situation, so the Mission to Seafarers in Brisbane has been asking the Government of Australia for help: “This is right in the Australian and New Zealand governments’ back yard: they have all kinds of agreements with Kiribati for labour, medical support, natural disasters, &c. So our governments need to be aware of this and to take it seriously at the highest level. 

“Brisbane has been the focal point in Australia for crew change, and has a very good record: 10,000 seafarers have successfully crew changed here without significant incident, and there is a really robust program for managing crews. I’ve been in touch with our Federal Maritime Task Force, and they have a charter flight all sorted out to bring them from here to Terawa. I’ve also heard a communication that the government is working rapidly on setting up a vaccination hub for seafarers. So the logistics are all in place, and it wouldn’t be hard to bring them together.” 

Conclusion

For now, though, the I-Kiribati seafarers remain where forces beyond their control have left them, continuing on in what ways they can. “The seafarers are trying their very best but they are not doing that well anymore”, says Capt. Kiraua. “They are frustrated, they are tired, they cannot think about tomorrow because there is no future to think about.”

The ministers involved in serving the seafarers have no illusions about how difficult the situation still is for everyone. As Döring says, “For us, now, they have become close acquaintances and friends, at which point it’s not just a number any more. It’s a person, and a family, that is being hurt.”

Ristau is pragmatic about what can and cannot be done for them. “A lot of the seafarers I talk to in Hamburg are just weighed down by how crazy everything is. They don’t know how long it will be before they come home. The Deutsche Seemannsmission can’t fix all that, but we are doing our best to give them coping strategies and some kind of normalcy.”

Ministers like Ristau, Döring, Park, and Nicholls have done great things for the I-Kiribati seafarers, as have so many others, including the ITF, ICS, IMO, SPMS, the Seafarers’ Charity, not to mention the staff of the many hotels and hostels where they have stayed. All have been moved by sympathy, care, and a sense of obligation to them. But, as with so much in this pandemic no outcome can be promised to them yet; for now those involved can only continue to do their best to help and to cultivate the sympathy that moves them in themselves and others. The members of ICMA, in Hamburg, Busan, Brisbane, and elsewhere, remain committed to that mission.

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Prayer together is central to what NAMMA is.  Ministry to seafarers, like every work of love, begins and ends with the love of God; likewise, our ecumenical collaboration begins and ends with our shared supplication, in spite of our differences, to God’s love for seafarers.  Therefore, whenever NAMMA members are gathered, we make a point of not only talking together for the sharing of ideas and resources, but also worshiping together for the sharing of our devotion.  That we were not able to gather and worship together, then, has been one of the more poignant losses for NAMMA as an association.  But it is so encouraging to see many NAMMA members sharing meditations and praying for seafarers together through ‘Maritime Prayer’, our monthly online worship service.

“Sometimes we forget that an important part of our mission is supporting each other, because only when we are strong can we give the seafarers what they need,” says NAMMA President, Deacon Paul Rosenblum. “Maritime Prayer is a wonderful resource in that regard. It gives us a way to pray together, but more than that, it lets us know that we care about each other. We all need that kind of strengthening in these difficult times.”

How Maritime Prayer Started

As early as Summer 2019, Jason Zuidema had been wondering with Kevin Walker about how NAMMA’s values of faith and fellowship could be reflected in what it did between conferences.  Worship services via video chat seemed like the way to do it, but there were obstacles, too: NAMMA already had plenty of projects on the go, and preparing a service was a task in itself, not to mention finding people to preach and read and making sure all traditions were included.  So these services were thought of more as a longer-term goal, for some time in the distant future.

When COVID-19 hit in full force, however, much of everyone’s thinking needed to be reordered: the annual conference was cancelled, and many of us were cut off not only from the rest of NAMMA, but even from our own local co-workers and places of ministry.  While we all continued to look for ways to be present for seafarers in isolation, being present to each other took on a new importance.  So plans were formed for bi-weekly services, particularly as a support each other through the lockdown.  

Rev. Gary Roosma, as chair of the NAMMA Ecumenical Committee, willingly took the lead.  A former missionary and teacher of theology in Indonesia, now a Christian Reformed chaplain in Vancouver, Gary has been coordinating with NAMMA members of all sorts and drawing up interesting and challenging liturgies.  

Gary says of his experiences with Maritime Prayer: “Leading these services over the past months has been a real pleasure and joy.  I’ve been especially blessed by those praying alongside me from other confessions, right across the ecumenical spectrum.  Most importantly, we’ve shared experience, encouragement, and God’s Word, and we’ve held each other and our ministries up in prayer. I’m glad we are carrying on in this spirit of mutual care and comfort. To God be the Glory!”

Attendance at the beginning of the pandemic was usually about 20 people for both weekly sessions, with lots of volunteers to preach and read – the spirit of supporting each other in hard times was felt also in the homilies given, which often took on a Lenten theme.

“The Maritime Prayer has been such an anchor for me during these turbulent seas of the pandemic,” says former president Rev. Marsh L. Drege.  “Each time we gather I receive encouragement, hope, and the assurance that as maritime ministry personnel we are together in God’s faithful hands.” 

NAMMA Vice-president, Chaplain Michelle DePooter, too, commented on the power of regular prayer together to give comfort in the pandemic: “It’s been wonderful taking space regularly, even twice a week, to relax the mind and concentrate on coming together as a community to pray for each other and for seafarers. Being able to participate as a preacher and hear others from diverse backgrounds each week was a good reminder that we are a community.  This was especially important at the beginning of the pandemic, when everything else was changing rapidly and we had to adjust to different realities on an almost daily basis.”

The Present and Future of Maritime Prayer

Services are held on the first or second Wednesday of each month, first through GoToWebinar and then uploaded to NAMMA’s Youtube channel.  One volunteer composes and delivers the homily and chooses a set of scripture readings and a hymn to go with it; another composes and delivers an intercessory prayer and reads the scriptures and hymn.  Both are in coordination with Gary Roosma, who composes the liturgy and reads the opening and closing prayers, and Kevin Walker, who runs the slides and the webinar itself.  The services run for about 15 minutes and typically are attended live by more than a dozen NAMMA members.

We look forward to continuing with Maritime Prayer, even as new stages of this crisis along with many other challenges has made us busier than ever.  We look forward to trying new things in Maritime Prayer as well: services that are more “flavoured” by individual traditions, services that showcase recent Houston School graduates and other new faces in maritime ministry…maybe even a hymn that is actually sung!  Most important to us, however, is that we not cease to listen to each other, build friendships in our shared calling, and uphold each other and seafarers in prayer. 

“I’m glad that Maritime Prayer is one of NAMMA’s regular programs going forward,” concludes Michelle DePooter.  “So many of us feel isolated in our ministries where we are, even with local church colleagues who don’t understand our work. We do each other such good when we connect in shared worship, and I’m glad we’re continuing.”

If you would like to participate in Maritime Prayer, please register here: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/2458501809987157773

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In July and early August of this year, the International Christian Maritime Association (ICMA) surveyed its members about how COVID-19 had affected seafarers’ welfare in their areas, what kinds of services they were offering them, what approach they were taking to protecting seafarers from COVID-19, and how COVID-19 and emergency funding had affected their finances. We received 95 responses. These are the results of that survey, with a regional comparison included at the end.

View or download the report here:

About ICMA: The International Christian Maritime Association (ICMA) is a free association of Christian not-for-profit organisations working for the welfare of seafarers around the world. Founded in 1969, ICMA currently represents 27 members who provide seafarers’ welfare in more than 450 ports in over 100 countries. ICMA is registered as a Charity in England and Wales (charity number 1176633). For more information, contact ICMA General Secretary, Dr. Jason Zuidema, gensec@icma.as or visit ICMA at icma.as.

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More than a month into lockdown, COVID-19 and the safety precautions necessary to contain it continue to take their toll on seafarers’ welfare.  Seafarers looking forward to relief have faced extension to their work terms, while those who minister to them face reduced work and feelings of futility.  Isolation has increased for all, as have uncertainties about money, vulnerable friends and family, and what kind of future we can expect.  

The more seafarers’ situation changes, however, the more our God’s command to love and serve them as ourselves remains the same, and chaplaincies all over have innovated to fulfill it as best we can.  The Houston International Seafarers’ Center (HISC), a model of seafarers’ ministry and ecumenism to many of us, has been one such innovator.  We talked with some of the people at the HISC as an example both of new approaches to seafarers’ ministry and new challenges for it.  If your ministry or the seafarers your ministry is working with are trying other things or facing other challenges that you want to tell us about, please get in touch – the more information and ideas that get shared, the better.

“We want to keep this going as much as possible, but there’s a definite desire to keep everybody safe, limit the exposure, and keep the ministry going as well as we can.” – David Clark, Board Chairman

David Clark’s first few months as chair of the HISC Board have been eventful, to say the least.  A veteran of the Port of Houston, he remembers the upheaval after 9/11 and finds that the international dimensions of this crisis make it even more complex.  Without the possibility of in-person meetings, he has had to adapt his agenda of closer relations between the board, chaplains, and staff, and since cancelling the HISC’s annual fundraising gala he and the rest of the board have been busy planning an online substitute.

When Clark first took leadership earlier this year, he had made it a priority to bring the HISC closer together: “A lot of times, it seems like the board and the chaplains can have a pretty wide gulf between them.  But scripture says we have the same boss, we’re different members of the same body, and we need each other.  So I really want us to be seen and to work as an integral unit.” 

Originally, the hope was that this integration would take the form of spending more time at the center, having chaplains participate more in board meetings, and maybe even board members coming along on ship visits.   Now, it takes the form of video conferencing: “I’m meeting with them, and certainly praying for them.  I’m encouraging them to use conference calls as a way of meeting with each other, and I’ve been attending their meetings along with Dana.  We need to stay connected about what kinds of stumbling blocks they’re encountering, and what we can do to help.  Sometimes they just need someone to talk to, so we can do that too.”

On the fundraising side, the HISC board is worried about finances but hoping to supplement them with an “e-gala” that will run over a month: “We’re not the first ones to do that, so we’ve been able to pick up some best practices from others who’ve done it in the past.  Instead of being a one-night deal, it will be going on for a month, starting on U.S. National Maritime Day, May 22, and ending Summer Solstice on June 22.  We’ll have sponsors; the folks who would have been table sponsors will be other kinds of sponsors, and they’ll be able to invite as many people as they want.  We’ll have electronic testimonies with pictures of seafarers from chaplains and gala committee members.  We’ll have silent and live auctions electronically.  A lot of industries are doing pretty poorly, and it will be a while before that gets better, but we’ll save some expenses on the facility and food.  It should be a lot of fun.”

“Every facility here takes its responsibilities very seriously” – Dana Blume, Executive Director

Where once she was occupied running the center, planning for fundraisers, and managing volunteers, Executive Director Dana Blume has had to adjust to relocating work to home, managing chaplains remotely, and hunting for new sources of funding.  She’s grateful for the center’s partners in the port community, which have been key to supporting the ministry and keeping the center in the loop.

The HISC began taking COVID-19 precautions fairly early: “In our chaplains’ meeting when we were just aware of COVID coming from China, we decided we would leave it to the individual chaplain to decide whether they were comfortable visiting a ship that had come from certain areas” she says.  Soon after, however, it became clear that more steps would need to be taken.  The center closed, ship visiting of any kind drew to a temporary halt (chaplains now go to ships’ gangways), and she comes in just to pick up mail and man the desk.  

While seafarers cannot come to the HISC, Blume has coordinated with the chaplains to bring a little bit of the center to seafarers: “We deliver plastic bags to the gangway, with puzzles, magazines, and daily devotionals, and a flyer that tells seafarers to go to our facebook page.”  The flyer is key to helping seafarers access other services through them: “Most of them communicate with us via facebook or call our number directly.”

While in the early days of lockdown many seafarers’ chaplains in North America faced heightened security and even denial of access in some terminals, Blume says that the Port of Houston has been a faithful supporter of seafarers’ chaplaincy: “The biggest blessing has been that the Port Authority considers us essential.  It’s good to know that, when push comes to shove, we are allowed to be out there for seafarers.  They won’t be forgotten about that way.”  

While everyone in the Port of Houston takes its role as a lynchpin of the world’s oil infrastructure seriously, that seriousness also extends to the health and wellbeing of the seafarers who make up that infrastructure.  “Through West Gulf Maritime Association, the Port is very aware that we’re still here and of what we’re doing.  I also have the Chief of Port Security, Marcus Woodring, and Captain of the Port Kevin Oditt on my board.  We’re part of people’s lives, and when things are changing they think ‘‘Oh, we need to make sure that the Seafarers’ Center knows.’”

One unusual upshot of close relations with the port community during the lockdown has been an influx of laid-off people offering to be volunteers – while there’s nothing for them to do now, Blume’s grateful for the connections: “I’m really glad we’re popping up in people’s minds.  I’m hoping that when we are opening up again we can keep up our relationship with these people who’ve contacted us so that they can help when they do have spare time.”

The greatest challenge Blume identifies for the HISC is finding funding: “With my board’s support we’ve continued paying my staff’s salaries and insurance.  We’re applying for governmental and ITF loans and programs too, but I’m not experienced with these kinds of applications, so I’m kind of diving in feet first.”  She thinks that one of the biggest helps seafarers’ centers could get is advice about how to apply.

“They want to talk, but they’re scared to get close.” – David Wells, Chaplain

Like many who make the sacred task of human connection their occupation, chaplain David Wells struggled with the lost conversations and  with seafarers when the lockdown started: “I’m angry because seafarers are neglected.  I’m angry that I can’t do what I want to do.  I need to direct my sadness, anger, and frustration in the right place.  That’s what I really need to be careful about.”  In his ministry, he wonders about the value of the small connections he is able to make with seafarers and the pastoral value of being open with seafarers about his own need for connection.

At the beginning of the lockdown, Wells made gangway deliveries on special request, taking advantage of the opportunity to talk at a distance.  The conversation was often good, but he also worried about safety: “The thing is, everytime we go out we are running a risk for ourselves, and for others.  I try to practice social distancing, but I’ll admit it is very difficult since you hand them something or they hand you something.  Walking on a gangway means touching things.”

Since April 9, gangway visits have switched from by-request to regular for all ships.  Wells and the other chaplains have been given masks by the pilots along with hand sanitizer for personal use, and they practice social distancing consistently with all the resultant awkwardness.  He values the visits, but has also observed a change in seafarers’ attitude as the lockdown goes on: “We ask if there is anything we can help with and if everything is going OK.  Seafarers still truly need that contact with us and they are very appreciative.  However, they seem to have shut down emotionally with all this COVID-19 stuff.  They’ve lost a lot of their bounce and joy.”

Another way of ministering to seafarers for Wells and the other chaplains has been facebook, both by conversations through messenger and through the HISC’s page itself, posting verses and words of encouragement: “I like to post a verse and maybe a comment with some sort of activity or level of comfort that we can bring them to.”  Since then the other chaplains and some volunteers have joined, making a daily rotation of posts.  Here, too, Wells struggles with the limits of this connection: “I’m finding seafarers are not responding a lot.  Some will share it, or some will comment ‘Amen!’ or ‘Thank you for caring for us’, but very few.  We have to be attuned to what we think seafarers are struggling with, and how we can give them something to provide comfort.”

Wells does have some ideas for ministering in a time of isolation and shutting down emotionally.  One is thinking of activities to help seafarers open up to each other: “On one post, I said ‘On your ship, tell something new about yourself to a person.  Ask them about their dreams or their hopes in life.  And listen.  Play a game with each other.  Tell a joke.  Find something to laugh about with each other.’  That way you can get them to connect with one another, because they’re the ones stuck with each other.  It should be obvious, but it isn’t, and maybe we can help with that.’“  

Wells also works at seeing the value in the small interactions that he does have: “There are joys too, like when a seafarer says “Amen!” to what I post.  I come back for that. The other day I responded to a seafarers’ comment with ‘We’re here for you,’ but I probably should have said, ‘That means so much to me.’  I didn’t say that, but it did.  Why didn’t I say that?”  He sees a tension in his ministry between making sure that seafarers know he is there to serve them and showing them their value to him: “I think I don’t want to show my vulnerability, but that is where we really find God’s grace.  Maybe that’s what this coronavirus will teach us, getting us to the point that we’re so vulnerable we have no choice but to show it.  But we’re also good professionals and we hide behind our professionalism.  It’s tricky.”

One challenge Wells identifies for seafarers’ ministry in lockdown is communication among chaplains and ministries – everything is by video conference, which has been a learning curve for everyone.  “We’re supposed to be good communicators, but I’m finding we’re not good at communicating with each other.  I know that I at least need people to reach out to to go back and forth with on ideas and to keep things rolling in my ministry.  Maybe we should be reaching out to other centers, too.”

The Road Ahead

The HISC still faces a lot of challenges, but also has been blessed with resources to address them.  Much funding has been lost, but the center has many supporters in its board and the port community, and the global experience of isolation has given everyone more opportunities to reflect on seafarers’ isolation, whether chaplain, staff, or volunteer.  One point on which everyone agrees is the importance of communication, sharing ideas, and sharing struggles – when thinking about how we can help seafarers’ ministry, or how our own seafarers’ ministries might need help, we should think about our colleagues, our partners, and each other.  Reaching out and caring helps us do ministry well, yes, and benefits seafarers, but it is also a ministry to each other.  As David Clark concluded in my interview with him, “We covet your prayers and we’ll certainly pray for all of you.”

Image: Sign-in book at entrance to the Houston International Seafarers’ Center. Noah Leon, NAMMA.

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What’s more, almost everyone who works in seafarers’ welfare has come to it from a different background – there is no universal training or accreditation system, and many organizations are too far apart to share ideas and experience with each other regularly.  Chaplains, ship visitors, academics, and volunteers have discovered lots over the years about what approaches and techniques in their work best serve seafarers, but too often this information remains inaccessible to new welfare workers.

The North American Maritime Ministry Association and some of its essential partner organizations have developed online courses to equip seafarers’ welfare workers and share knowledge across distances and experience levels.  The first such project – the Ship Welfare Visitor Course (shipwelfarevisitor.com), offered by the UK’s Merchant Navy Welfare Board and produced by NAMMA – has been a great success in giving newcomers to seafarers’ welfare some of the basics of their work, and has recently passed 500 students enrolled.  Now NAMMA has built on its mission of seafarers’ welfare education with MARE Training (maretraining.com), an online learning platform with courses for everyone in seafarers’ welfare, whether center workers, ship visitors, or board members, new or experienced.

“Our mission talks about education, encouragement, and professional development. All these aspects of the mission of NAMMA are found in MARE Training” says NAMMA Vice President Michelle DePooter.  Having sampled some of the courses, Chaplain DePooter also testified to MARE Training’s value for her own ministry: “we have been looking for training programs and courses for our volunteers for awhile, and are happy to see this training which is easy is access and all in one place, and provided and endorsed by NAMMA.”

MARE Training – A Collaborative Vision

One of MARE Training’s strengths is bridging the gap between those who want online training and those with the resources to make courses, a gap which in the past resulted in polished courses going untaken and pressing training needs going unmet.  The ideas for courses come directly from workers in seafarers’ welfare – NAMMA members, ICMA members, and partner organizations are all encouraged to host their courses on MARE Training, and we are also happy to use our team to help individual ministries turn their ideas for online courses into realities.  This all makes sure that course content is about the skills proven useful by chaplains’, center directors’, and volunteers’ experience.

MARE Training also gets support from organizations like the TK Foundation and ISWAN’s International Port Welfare Partnership Program, as managed by the Merchant Navy Welfare Board (MNWB). The IPWP program managed by the MNWB shares NAMMA’s vision of strengthening ministry to seafarers through the sharing of experience and innovation.  The joining of the MNWB’s vision and resources to members of networks like NAMMA, ICMA, and ISWAN was key to the success of the Ship Welfare Visitor Course, and that collaboration is the example after which MARE Training is modelled.

Peter Tomlin, CEO of the MNWB, said: “It was a privilege to work with NAMMA to develop the Ship Welfare Visitor online training course, an excellent example of how close collaboration can help support hundreds of Christian organisations working for the welfare of seafarers around the globe. We are delighted that the IPWP Programme has the full support of organisations such ICMA and NAMMA, who, like the MNWB, understand the benefits of partnership and how it helps to better support our roles.”

Past well-financed online training attempts have failed due to lack of connection with the learners, and other learning ideas have failed because of lack of finance behind them.  MARE Training is meant as a solution to these problems by connecting the course makers with seafarers’ welfare providers in the NAMMA and ICMA networks, so that the money and resources to make useful courses are put in the hands of those who best know where the need is.  With financial backing from these partner organizations, we also look forward to being able to take on more ambitious projects in future.  

In MARE Training, NAMMA continues its policy of collaboration not only with the MNWB, but also extends the invitation to collaborate on courses to other organizations; most recently we have drafted an introductory course for a local member mission, and hope to make similar courses for others.  One of our great hopes for MARE Training is that the one website will be able to host courses made that other organizations have put together with or without NAMMA’s help, so that all the different courses and areas of expertise the field of seafarers’ welfare has to offer are easily accessible to those interested.  We are excited that the ITF Seafarers’ Trust has licensed the use of ten modules from the MARI-Wel course library developed with the World Maritime University. As an ecumenical organization committed to improvement in welfare for seafarers, we value boosting seafarers’ welfare organizations and putting them in contact as ends in themselves.  

The courses currently on offer include crisis response, board membership, port welfare committees, and the relational aspects of ship visiting, as well as organizational intro courses to NAMMA and other organizations.  The MARE Training team curates content to make sure it is valuable and engaging, and is happy with third parties’ permission to work to improve the courses hosted.

Anatomy of a MARE Training Course

A typical MARE Training course runs is short and includes a mixture of text, video, and test questions.  This is to ensure that students with different learning styles and preferences get to learn the information in multiple ways and to demonstrate and check their knowledge.  Video lessons are usually three to ten minutes long and feature experts from the world of seafarers’ welfare – for example, the Crisis Response Course is presented by trauma expert Dr. Marion Gibson and features stories given by crisis survivors, and the effective ship visiting course features NAMMA members reflecting on how they approach their work.  Aside from benefiting from the personal touch added by presenters, a chaplain watching a course video may well recognize a colleague from a past conference or collaboration.

Text lessons usually present the same topic as videos, but in a more systematic way – items on lists are put into bullet points for comparison with each other rather than simply flashing by one after another, key points can be explained in fuller paragraphs, and links are included for sources and further reading.  Some courses include sections of the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 so that students can learn the laws and recommendations that apply to the subject.

The majority of test questions are multiple choice or drag-and-drop, and these are meant to quickly check student comprehension.   Other questions are short-answers, giving students an opportunity to reflect on how the content relates to their own practice. In the Crisis Response course, for example, students are asked to think about their own experiences with crises and what preparations they wish they had had.  At the end of the course, students are given a digital token representing course completion. Our hope is that they thus come away not only with knowledge of the course subject, but also with some personal engagement in the relevant questions and concrete demonstration of that fact.

Things to Come for MARE Training

MARE Training is already succeeding at providing accessible learning to seafarers’ welfare professionals – more than 100 users have taken courses, and the platform’s instructor tools are giving us feedback about how the courses are being used.  Over the coming year, we plan to develop more courses and to continue to research how to make existing courses more engaging and informative. Right now, our hope is that NAMMA members look at what is available on MARE Training and take courses that are interesting to them; long term, our hope is that this sharing of knowledge can help seafarers’ ministries make their ports better places for those they serve.

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A weeklong course on maritime ministry has once again been hosted by the Houston International Seafarers’ Center (HISC) and NAMMA with the endorsement of AOS United States and ICMA. Instructors taught on a range of topics, some focused more on connecting with seafarers, others on the organizational aspects of seafarers’ ministry, and others on religious, legal, and historical topics.  Students got chances to learn, and, as importantly, to make connections: they quickly became their own miniature network of friends, stretching from across the coasts and lakeshores of North America to as far afield as Lagos, Nigeria, Felixstowe, the United Kingdom, and Mumbai, India.  Our hope and theirs is that, through these connections, they learn from and teach each other, and we hope in years to come to ourselves to hear back from them at future NAMMA gatherings.

The ‘Houston School’ is a long-standing program for teaching and reflecting on ministry to seafarers, taught by experienced chaplains and other maritime experts.  Many chaplains currently in NAMMA’s membership are graduates of the Houston School, including some of those now involved in the course itself. Originally taught for two weeks in-class, the course has now been made more accessible by reducing the in-class portion to one week and supplementing it with online lessons on NAMMA’s online learning platform, MARE Training, which has been developed with support of the TK Foundation.

Students came to this course with all kinds of motivations: some were new volunteers, hoping to learn more about how to do ship visiting well; some had experience advocating for seafarers in other capacities but wanted to better understand the religious and ministry components; one was a recently-hired centre director; another had been asked to recruit volunteers and wants to learn about what he is recruiting them to do.  Some have been ministering to seafarers for years and were simply interested in comparing their approaches with others’. Whatever their experience level, all benefited from the opportunity to share perspectives and build relationships.

Addressing Challenges in Seafarers’ Ministry

At the beginning of the in-class course, students shared their greatest struggles with seafarers’ ministry: conversations across cultures, travelling long distances in large ports, keeping a ministry funded, and moments when it seems like seafarers don’t actually need what we’re offering them.  Many were surprised to learn that about the different problems that their fellow students faced and were able to carry on their ministries in spite of. Students shared advice with each other in that opening session, and in the sessions that followed many of the lessons taught directly pertained to those original questions.

One example of course material addressing the difficulties shared by students came later on that day, with Apostleship of the Sea US Director Sr. Joanna Okereke’s presentation on cultural sensitivity and communication.  She taught students about the differences between cultures, for instance individualism vs. collectivism and the appropriateness of humour, and the attitudes, skills, and knowledge needed to do intercultural communication well.  After the lecture component, the students gathered into groups to discuss what steps they could take to improve their intercultural skills. Important themes that emerged during the discussion included the value of “doing one’s homework” when it came to the cultures of seafarers and listening carefully for what is important to the seafarers we talk with.

Another chance to work through the problems of seafarers’ ministry came with General Presbyter of New Covenant Lynn Hargrove’s sessions.  Lynn began by sharing the doubts she had about a critical pastoral incident during her training, and then asked the class what they thought was good about what she had done, what was bad, and how they might have done differently.  The group was affirming of Lynn, while also thoughtful in discerning some of the issues at play in her story. Then, she turned the question on the class: when have you had moments in your ministry when you didn’t know what to do? Students came forward with stories of serving alcohol to seafarers when they didn’t feel comfortable with it, seafarers who had been abandoned by their companies, and seafarers who had asked them for help finding prostitutes.  

We heard expertise in these issues: a former bartender talked about the rules around serving alcohol commercially, and a lawyer talked about liability for seafarers’ centers.  We also heard differences in each others’ perspectives: we worry about personally contributing to prostitution, about talking with seafarers about their marriage commitments, and about protecting pastoral relationships with seafarers.  These differences were opportunities for us to prepare ourselves for difficult situations, change our approach, and think about how we might work with people we disagree with on them.

Houston School Quick Facts:

• Hosted by the Houston International Seafarers’ Center in Houston, Texas
• Coordinated by NAMMA with endorsement of AOS United States and International Christian Maritime Association
• $500 USD, inclusive of room and most meals for out-of-town students and $275 USD for local students
• One week in-class + online lessons via maretraining.com system
• 15 students, all backgrounds welcome
• Daily ecumenical worship

Worship Together and Seafarers’ Ministry in Religious Life

As with every NAMMA gathering, every day featured a worship service with readings, prayers, and a homily given by an experienced seafarers’ chaplain.  As homilies, these were in themselves good testimonies to the love of God expressed in seafarers’ ministry, but they were also useful instruction in advocating for seafarers’ ministries to congregations and potential donors – Fr. Jan Kubisa of the HISC related an apparent miracle witnessed by seafarers that testified to the mental and physical dangers of life at sea, and Karen Parsons of the Galveston Seafarers’ Center shared about a time when a seafarer demonstrated to her the lows of isolation and the highs of service to others.  When seafarers’ centers go looking for volunteers and sources of funding, their best resources are often churches, but it is not always so easy to find the right words to say in front of them – these homilies and other moving stories are blueprints for testifying to seafarers’ ministry.

On the second day, NAMMA’s Kevin Walker gave students another opportunity to think about preaching on ministry to seafarers during a lecture on the spiritual significance of the sea in Scripture and ancient religion.  After going through examples of the sea as a manifestation of God’s power in the Old and New Testaments and comparing the Biblical accounts with Mesopotamian and Greek myths, Kevin presented the students with Bible verses discussing the sea and asked them to consider how they might interpret them through a seafarers’ welfare perspective.  In exercises like these and in invitations to pray for seafarers, the students practiced connecting seafarers’ ministry with their own spiritual convictions and those of others.

Things to be Thankful for

The 2020 Houston School was enriched by many more lessons and activities: lectures on active listening by Denice Foose and Ted Smith, corporate efforts for seafarers’ welfare by Anuj Chopra, the MLC, 2006 by seafarers’ rights advocate and amateur svedomycologist Douglas Stevenson, and on collaboration by representatives from the Coast Guard and Maritime Association.  There were planned excursions, including trips to the Norwegian Seamen’s Church in Houston, the Seafarers’ International Union, steak dinner with the Houston Propeller Club, and informal gatherings like dinner at local restaurants and evening worship at local churches. The hospitality of the Houston port and church communities has always been excellent, and this year in no way broke from that pattern.  The Houston International Seafarers’ Center and its staff are particularly to be thanked, especially chaplain Tom Edwards, executive director Dana Blume, and perennial school volunteer and friend of the HISC, chaplain Marshal Bundren.  

As this new generation of maritime ministers enters our ports and seafarers’ centers, we as NAMMA look forward to seeing the fruits of their work, and we look forward also to continuing to partner with the HISC in equipping more people for seafarers’ welfare work in future.

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