March has been an extraordinary month.
For me, it started in Dubai, where we were joined by our President, HRH The Princess Royal, for a series of important events, including a port visit, a Women in Shipping conference, and a marvellous dinner, which drew together some of our most important partners at a critical time of our development in the United Arab Emirates. Next came our Europe Region conference, which brought together our teams from right across Europe. There was a great programme, with many external speakers and a number of internal ones.
Amongst the most memorable of these was that of Ruth Campbell (Chaplain in Tilbury and London Gateway), who inspired us all with an account of her work on cruise ships. It is a critical area that we are committed to developing. It can be difficult to get on board cruise vessels. Ruth has been among those who have “cracked” this difficult nut, and we are determined to work with the industry to ensure welfare access more widely – and also to create specialist workers in this area, especially women.
While there are many wonderful and highly experienced players in MtS across Europe, especially in the UK, the last few months have seen a period of very significant recruitment, particularly of new chaplains. The Europe Region Conference was a vital opportunity for building friendships and delivering key training. It was also an opportunity for thoughtful worship, properly underpinning the Christian purposes that continue to guide and inform all our work and values.
I came away inspired.
From there, it was off to the USA to see some of our new work in Texas and to explore further partnerships in Florida. In the latter, I was very glad to visit the ports of West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, both places where we enjoy close relationships with maritime welfare teams and where we are looking—with partners—at ways in which we might support. Of interest, Fort Lauderdale is one of the world’s largest cruise ports, and I was particularly interested to learn of their experiences (positive and negative) of an area of work (as above), which is currently high on our global agenda.
In Texas, I visited three ports: Corpus Christi (where we are working on further partnerships), Point Comfort, and Houston (where we have built strong new partnerships). It was great to see just some of our new work in the USA and to meet (again) so many dynamic friends and partners. March was also the month when we brought together all the statistics for 2023. These are deeply encouraging, showing very large increases (more than double) in the case of Centre visits and seafarer transportation. Ship visiting numbers also continue to rise. This has all been a great encouragement.
Throughout March, I reflected on heroism. The heroism of the seafarers we encounter in such large numbers, of course. But also, the heroism of so many of our current teams—chaplains, staff, volunteers. I have recently been rereading some of the early stories of the Mission. The Mission has been built on the shoulders of giants, of heroes and heroines, some of whom are no doubt difficult and unpromising characters, but people with the most extraordinary passion for their work and always going the extra mile.
These were people like Jim Fell, who pioneered amazing work in the Port of San Francisco in the most difficult of circumstances. Then there was Alfred Goldsmith (who carried out incredible work in Hong Kong), Stanley Treanor (who worked the anchorages off Kent in the UK from 1878 to 1910), and so many more besides. Their stories are worth looking up. Reading about them still inspires me. However, throughout today’s Mission – including in some of those newly involved in our USA work – I see heroes and heroines who stand in the very best traditions of those big names of our Mission past.
I see them at the front line, I see them in the London IHQ, I see them amongst some of our supporters. So many of them work with extraordinary love and passion, often making significant sacrifices in serving the needs of seafarers and in expanding current work or pioneering new areas of work. They too inspire me and challenge us all to aspire to heroism in our lives and in our daily acts of service.
It is such heroism that changes the world.
