Silence can scream. The boundaries that we build with care around our hearts, to stave off attacks from outside, eventually become prisons for our voices and souls. Silently we conduct our daily business and tasks. With pious faces, pacing ourselves and convincing smiling masks we convey that all is well. For the unpractised eye, the silence seems like calm and peace... 'He said nothing, therefore there is nothing', never realising that the silence is screaming...

The young man from the Philippines has a mask smile. He is quiet and quickly says that all is well. But, in the silence, Danie hears the screams as he visits the ship in the PE harbour. Danie asks carefully, first this way and then another, but the walls are high and the gates locked. Eventually Danie asks if there is anything that he could do to help. ‘Batteries for my torch’, is the shy answer. Unbelievable how something that is so commonly available on land could cause a crisis at sea. Four batteries delivered a little later, break the silence and it is like a red ripe pomegranate...

It is only his second contract. The Captain is new, the crew is foreign and there is not a single friend among them. Insecurity, constant longing and emotions that threaten to swallow him are locked in the silence. For a moment he lowers the walls that he built so carefully. He allows Danie to see behind the protective layers. The silence screams for help, but no one on board seems to hear. 

This is a universal story. Men working at sea, passing like ghosts without reacting to greetings or making eye contact. Their eyes are focused somewhere beyond, on an unknown destination. When the silence takes hold and the passers-by confuse silence with peace - that is when everything is most fragile. At the CSO we try to listen to the screams. It is not psychology or based on our own power, it is from the Word of God. We believe and know that the Holy Ghost can break up silences when we bring the Word on board the ships. 

After talking for a long time there is a moment of hope and light in the man's eyes. That is how it should be. It may feel as if light and hope are dying, but then the Bible in the young man’s own language, that Danie places in his hands will be a reminder of Him that gives hope and light - and that He never takes it away. 

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