Faustino is the second mate onboard a ship. He is a Christian, along with Rolando, the ship's Bosun. Faustino told me that last voyage his wife Regie traveled from their home in Iloilo in the southern Philippines to Manila so that she might be with him while the ship was in port. Unfortunately the ship was only in Manila for eight hours and for six of those Faustino was working on deck supervising the loading of cargo!

I asked Faustino how his wife passed the time while he was working on deck. He told me that he gave Regie two DVDs to watch that I had loaned to him the last time he visited Port Botany. The DVDs were evangelistic films provided to SCFS Australia some time ago by the Film Ministry of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. It is of course a great disappointment that Faustino and Regie were able to have so little time together but I was pleased to learn that our DVDs were used to good effect. (more…)

I was speaking to a Christian on a fuel carrier who had not been ashore for 7 months. The ship comes in, loads and unloads, and is off again. He has probably stood on the dock side – but often the docks are too far from the towns and there is no time to go ashore. He was very grateful for the visit and the encouragement plus literature and Bible study.

Other times there is the equipping of the Christians on board to be a witness to the rest of the crew. There was one Indonesian crew who had just joined the ship with only 2 Christians on board. Their gentle witness would do far more good than my efforts. So I left literature to equip the Christians and encouraged them in their walk with God and for the praying for the rest of the crew.

Alan Offord, Falmouth.

While on vacation Jimmy told his family about his new faith in Jesus. He was surprised by their reaction as they told him that they had noticed a change in him and wondered what was happening. Jimmy told them that he couldn't fully explain to them what was happening. But he said "Here is a Bible and the books that helped me. Read them and they will answer your questions regarding my change." (more…)

There are many ships that are known as a 'tramp' ship. Tramp ships are those that are chartered (hired), often at very short notice, to carry one-off shipments of cargo from one port to another. As a consequence tramp ships do not have fixed schedules or published ports of call. This in turn means that the crews onboard these ships often do not know which countries or ports their ship will visit beyond the next immediate port. (more…)

Crystal Cruises and Princess Cruises have given a very favourable response to SCFS visiting their crews again this year.

Another company that has been very supportive of our visits this year is Fred Olsen Cruises. They have given SCFS Belfast permission to visit their ships. It was a pleasure recently to visit the Captain and crew of the Black Prince when they were in Belfast and to explain to them how we conduct our visits.

The DVDs are of the film "Jesus" and each DVD can be played in any of 32 different languages. The DVD's are being distributed to our port chaplains at the moment, but we have plenty more if anyone else would like a copy. (more…)

SCFS HQ Director Michael Wilson was invited as the main speaker. About 240 seamen and families, friends and guests came to witness God's faithfulness. Rev. Abraham Candiasan SCFS port missionary in Bacolod and Rev George Totica, SCFS port missionary in Iloilo together with their wives also came to share their ministry to seamen. (more…)

A few weeks ago John took the time to write and tell me that since 2004 he has been onboard ships trading to Europe and has been regularly visited by Keith Oliver in Felixstowe and Martin Otto in Hamburg. He also mentioned how Keith had written to him on two occasions. (more…)