Pause for Reflection – Glo-cal Connections: What Seafarers Have Taught Me This Year

One year into the role of Secretary General, Peter Rouch reflects on encounters that have revealed both the strengths of the Mission and the fresh challenges within the industry.

Earlier this year in The Philippines, I had an encounter that encapsulates our work. I was chatting with colleagues when a woman came over and said, “I have to tell you about my son.”

Desperate for work at sea, her son had concealed a heart condition. He became critically ill in the Gulf of Mexico and was evacuated to hospital in Houston for an emergency operation. Alone and terrified, he managed to get a message to his mother.

A ‘glo-cal’ ministry

Distraught, she knocked on the door of a neighbour connected with an organisation that supported seafarers. That organisation was our Family Support Network, and within two hours our chaplain in Houston, Thomas Morrow, was at her son’s bedside.

I said to her, “That must have been so hard – not to be there with your son.” She replied, “You’re wrong, because I was there. I was there because Thomas was there.”

That summed up for me something I have noticed repeatedly this past year. At one level we are hyper-local, meeting seafarers’ immediate needs. But we are also globally connected, which is why a knock on the door in The Philippines can change the life of a seafarer in the USA.

Systemic challenges

The challenge for us is how we connect the local, regional and global in a sector with some very clear systemic challenges.

On that same trip, I spoke with the daughter of a seafarer also involved in our Family Support Network. Her father’s income had enabled her to pursue an education and secure a good job with the provincial government. She had built a future she never thought possible.

But while we were talking, she broke down in tears. She was 21 years old, and her father had been at home for barely four of those years. She told me, “I love him, but I don’t know how to love him – because I don’t really know him.”

Finding our role

This is the reality of seafaring. Where possible, we can join our voice with others advocating for change. Yet even so, seafaring will remain a demanding profession filled with the pain of isolation. The Mission to Seafarers will continue to be there to support individuals through the challenges they face.

As a chaplaincy and welfare organisation, I always say we are in the industry, but we are not of it. By building partnerships and listening closely to seafarers, we are in a strong position to respond to whatever challenges the future holds.