Providence's Port Ministry

The ministry of a NESM maritime chaplain always focuses on The Gospel, but the mediums through which we carry out that ministry vary with needs of the individual and the crew.

As an industrial mission, NESM meets people in the place where they live, and though assisting them in this world, we make a witness to the Kingdom of Heaven. We meet people where they encounter despair, sinfulness, and all sorts of earthly difficulty. We use our pastoral skills to introduce hope, redemption, and the promise of the resurrection and its transcendence.

Father Ashley Peckham, an Episcopal (Anglican Communion) Priest who is NESM's Providence Mission Director found that with one crew denied shore leave during an extended stay in his port, the medium for his ministry took on the form of becoming a personal shopper.

The ship was the MV Rena (Motor Vessel), and her owners had neglected to make visa arrangements for the crew, providing shore leave for officers only (most likely as a money saving measure). She was registered in The Bahamas, and she sailed with Greek officers and a Filippino crew.

Shore leave provides not only recreation for a crew but a chance to take care of necessary personal business such as sending home wages to one's family, buying necessities unavailable onboard ship, and it also provides a chance to contact home.

When you work away from your spouse for three quarters of the year or more, a big question is how do you keep the romance alive? Seafarers take the opportunity of shore leave to send home small gifts to spouse and children as well as to call home and tell their families how much they are loved and missed.

Fr. Peckham assisted the crew of the Rena to send home $2,900 in wages. He also picked up:

1. a dozen bottles of Centrum vitamins (crews work very hard, and they worry about their nutrition and their health)
2. several cases of noodle-soup (used by crews for snacks when meals are missed due to work)
3. five pairs of blue-jeans for work-clothes
4. Milo and Ovaltine for nutritious beverage snacks
5. several tubes of toothpaste
6. deoderant
7. Jergen's Lotion (salt spray and wind with constant sun plays havoc with one's face)
8. several refills for pre-paid cellphone service, because none of the crew could use the port payphones due to the visa problem
9. and he made a special trip to Victoria's Secret (while wearing a clergy-collar) to pick up and send something special for a crewmember's wife.

We're told that Father Peckham is a well recognized Customer at Victoria's Secret on behalf of the seafarers, so we know that he is doing his part to help keep the romance alive in the marriages of those seafarers who come to the Port of Providence!

Where there is isolation, the maritime minsiter makes a connection. Where there is despair, the maritime minister plants the seed of hope. Where there is sinfulness, the maritime minister points and beckons the seafarer towards redemption. Sometimes the maritime minister does this through prayer and Scriptures, but first, the maritime minister must meet people where they live and where they encounter their problems.

We are grateful for the minsitry of Father Peckham to seafarers calling in Providence and all of Narragansett Bay.