I first came in contact with The Mission to Seafarers when I was an undergraduate at Oxford and needed a job during the university long vacation. The Secretary General offered me a clerical position at the Victoria Docks in the east end of London. It was a mighty experience and one which I have never forgotten. The hours were long and the work hard, but the fellowship of the staff and the contact with Seafarers was a daily adventure full of moments of great excitement.
In 1978 the Synod of Bishops of our beloved Anglican Church of Southern Africa invited me to become the Liaison Bishop for the society and I immediately accepted the invitation which added to my other responsibilities as Suffragan Bishop of Johannesburg and then Bishop of the Free State, but SO WELL WORTH all the tedious travelling and the responsibility of another diocese. I loved it all.
The Mission to Seafarers is a society within the Anglican Communion and identified by the Mission’s Flying Angel flag.

It has chaplains working in 250 ports around the world to support the practical and spiritual wellbeing of the planet earth’s 1.25 million seafarers and their families.
It was founded in Britain in 1856 after an Anglican priest and his son had been taking a Sunday afternoon walk along along the edge of cliffs south of Bristol and the little boy, looking out to sea, gazing curiously at a whole fleet of ships riding at anchor asked his father how the ships crews’ managed to worship God on Sunday. His father, completely taken aback by the question, went on to think deeply about it. The Society was established soon afterwards.
Today the Mission provides Flying Angel Clubs in one hundred ports. A Christian welcome in a safe haven.

Each station offers hospitality, affordable communications, chapels, warm clothing, refreshments, counselling, advice and spiritual support.
In a further 150 ports, local honorary chaplains and volunteers undertake invaluable ship visiting, transport and support services. The ship visitors take phone cards and interlinked laptops on board so that seafarers unable to go ashore can contact their families.
Around the world and around the clock, the Mission is there to care when ships enter port. Meals are provided and presents at Christmas, visiting Ship’s crews, some of them left in hospital or prison, giving clothes and friendship, or simply being a listening ear or a helping hand, the Mission and its people are often the only help on offer.

As Written by: Bishop Tom Stanage