Their meeting takes place along André’s Via Dolorosa. The footsteps en route lie deeply entrenched along the road, all the way from the Ukraine. If he dares to look back for a moment, seeing the suffering along the way over the past two years, he sees the horror, the heartbreak and pain. It is glowing in his soul like a burning coal, unsympathetic and destructive.  

 André’s Via Dolorosa is about loss. In a war situation, one immediately wants to jump to the conclusion that loss refers to loss of life, to the victims of bullets and bombs. Yes, it is part of it. But, it is more. It is also about loss of self, loss of humanity, loss of everything that you once thought was important or that it had meaning.  

 War strips absolutely.  It swallows your coming and going.  The horror tracks in the rear-view mirror are one thing, but the never-ending black storm clouds on the horizon are what threaten to destroy you. You want to shout: ‘I cannot go on’. For André the reality is that his eight-year-old daughter and her mother had to stay behind in Odessa. There is no other option. The money he earns is the only hope to escape. But, to leave your child and wife behind in a war is not an easy cross to bear. Which father, which man does this? This is his guilt. 

Nico of the CSO, sits quietly and listens to André’s story. Nico is deeply aware of how cheap words could be. Any advice or recommendation he could offer the broken man in front of him would be hollow and mere symbols. He knows, however much he wants to, that he cannot understand the true depths of André’s sorrow.  With great care, without prescribing or suggesting that he, Nico, has any answers, he can tell of another man that had to walk a similar road. Along the Via Dolorosa, like a lamb, the Messiah, Jesus Christ the King, came because he loved you and me. Along the Via Dolorosa, all the way to Golgotha... Now we know what lies beyond Golgotha - an open grave.

Every meeting that we at the CSO have each day with the men working at sea, is not a wonderful tale of someone that had been changed irrevocably. More than often, when we meet such a man along his Via Dolorosa, our task with the greatest of care is to help that man take a single step forward.  Sometimes it is a step away from the ‘I cannot go on’, but at other times it is a step that gives new perspective. Sometimes it lies in the smallest thing.   One step can change everything.

Do you not want to consider, praying, supporting us financially? It will help us continue being there for the men to lean on us for a moment, to enable them to take one more step.  You can change everything.

PS. Our bank details are: Christelike Seemansorganisasie. ABSA. Current. 1520-230-226.