from Paul Cave at The Lighthouse Seafarers Mission
After a great Christmas and New Year, it’s back now to the normal ship visiting routine.
Following the distribution of the Christmas parcels to seafarers we have received a number of letters of thanks.
Here are some extracts:
“We like to thank you very much for the presents. Special thanks to the people who made the caps and scarves. My colleagues and me really like them… Personal note: It was the best present to me at Christmas for six years. I had to stop some tears.”
“I’m writing to thank you for the gifts you sent to seafarers, this was my first Christmas away from home and having something to open on Christmas morning was a really nice surprise.”
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank you very much for the presents that were given to Maersk Lins during her recent call to Tilbury. These were much appreciated by all on board and particularly by our Filipino crew who find our winters to be rather extreme and therefore make full use of the woollen hats and scarves”
Leading up to Christmas we were also able to conduct several Carol Services on board ships. This also included two all Chinese crewed ships (see photo). We were assisted with this by a group of young Chinese (mainly university students) from the Chinese Church in Soho. It was great to hear familiar Christmas Carols being sung in Mandarin. The crews of these ships really appreciated the visit from these young people and of course being able to converse freely in their own language. Apart from the Christmas parcels, Chinese Bibles were also distributed to all crew members on each vessel.
We hope to be able to continue to work with this group on other Chinese crewed ships in this coming year.
Thanking you for your support and prayer.
Wishing you a Very Blessed & Happy New Year.
Paul & Sheila
