There is one mess, one dining area and one TV room. Yet there is a silent dividing line that shouts that all people on board are not equal. The stylish, soft, white upholstered chairs are for the officers' mess, with hard, rickety plastic chairs for normal seamen. The soft chairs are in front of the screen. The hard chairs are like wall flowers along the edges. Chairs arranged according to value... unambiguously also an indication of your value on board.  

Let me explain. An ordinary seaman earns mostly a minimum wage, barely covering the breadline. Rand for rand the difference between a Captain's salary and that of an ordinary seaman is as far apart as the East is from the West. That is one aspect, but what is worse is that the men are often treated accordingly too. It is as if they are the dreck without any value and are simply on board to serve others.  

Loffie, of course, is invited to sit on the white comfortable chairs, but he walks on. He purposefully walks to the rickety chairs and sits down next to a man that is probably not noticed very often. He asks his name and listens to his story. With empathy he shares the Word that cannot distinguish, on any level, who or what you are. In the context of the Cross, the chair you sit on remains irrelevant.  

During his daily work Loffie meets the world. He meets men from the poorest parts of India and the Philippines, but also from Bangladesh, Thailand en Myanmar. Over the past years the sea also brought more men from Russia and the Ukraine - caught in the grip of war, afraid to go home. Today there is a new stream of men from Eastern Europe - all ordinary seamen from Croatia, Bulgaria ... most of them driven by need. 

They sign contracts for nine months. It means nine months away from their children. Nine months without the voice of a dad, making the voice a mere memory. Poverty forces them to the seas, but it leaves a gap that can only be filled by God. 

This is exactly where remarkable things happen. 

Every new nationality is accompanied by another language, a new language and every new language opens the door for the Word. The love and mercy of the Man of the Cross is whispered in passages where it had never been heard before. Chinese literature is distributed. Prayers are mouthed silently. Hearts are opened and become receptive. 

Thank you for being part of this and for your financial support. Thank you for helping us carry this silent, but deep work. Please pray for the 'ordinaries' of the seas. Pray that they will experience the bigger Truth than the chair on which you have to sit - that a chair does not make the man. Also remember Loffie and each of our Chaplains in your prayers, pray that they will continue to sit where others do not want to sit - until every man knows: He is seen and he is loved. God's love and mercy is for him too.