The ship is rickety and rather modest. It is without pomp and glory, nothing luxurious and no glitter. A weathered rope lies on the deck and it seems as if the rust and dust that stick to everything have won the battle forever. The dining area is poorly lit, with a single globe that desperately tries to dissolve the darkness. 

This is where Danie is called aside, urgently by one of the men. His story is just like that of thousands of other men working at sea. He has the lowest rank on board. He is a nobody. He has no voice. No one sees him. He is not important. He has an anonymous face that does not warrant being named by most of the crew members. His story is about abuse and torture. On the open sea, there are no eyes watching whether rules are being adhered to. There you are the doormat, you do as you are told, because you are nobody. 

Similarly, the stable is rickety and quietly modest. There is also no pomp and glory, nothing luxurious and no glitter. A weathered rope lies on a bale of hay. It seems as if the rust and dust that stick to everything have won the battle forever. A single candle desperately tries to dissolve the darkness. But, that night was significantly different. A child was born and it is told that His mother wrapped Him in cloth, settling Him in a manger. 

Many probably walked past, because who pays attention to an unobtrusive stable? Could we hold those looking down at them responsible? They would have thought that someone born in a stable is simply a ‘nobody’. Who could have known that the Child is the Saviour and Prince of Peace? Who could have guessed that the Child in the simple stable would make each nobody a somebody?

Just so it is for the man sitting in front of Danie. The Child of the manger made him someone of value too. He is valuable enough for Danie to stop and not simply walk past him. It is necessary to stop in humility and empathetically to listen and remind him that the Child of the manger made him someone too. 

Now, with Christmas around the corner, our wish is that you experience love, care and empathy. You have value because the Child in the manger made each of us somebody. We, at the CSO, will continue without interruption, to remind those working at sea that feel they have no voice and consider themselves without value. Please consider helping us with this. A financial contribution can help strengthen our hands to reassure and remind each man working at sea, feeling like a nobody, about the Wonder of that night in the stable.

Blessed Christmas!

PS. Here is the link for the debit order: https://bit.ly/43khwDO  Please fill in and email back to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Our bank details are: Christelike Seemansorganisasie. ABSA. Current. 1520-230-226. Use your donor code as a reference. We keep praying for each other.

Danie is still catching his breath after climbing the stepladder to the deck of the ship when the young man joins him. No one knows whether the young man’s quick and eager reaction is due to the jacket with the embroidered Cross, or the loud announcement that someone from the ‘mission’ is on board.

‘I miss my family’ are his opening words, without any introduction. Those are his only words, fired like a gun salvo into nothing. There is nothing else. There is no context or explanation. It is an emergency call.  It is raw. It is as if he has kept it inside, silently and heavy, like a glowing coal that threatens to destroy him for months. It is as if he cannot endure it for one second more. The four words unmistakably expose his dejection and brokenness. 

Danie’s practiced ear needs no context. ‘I miss my family’ says everything. What could be worse? Put it in the context of working at sea and the story writes itself...

Danie thinks the young man is only about seventeen, eighteen years old. He has just grown out of complete childhood, but only just. As they find a quiet spot, Danie’s suspicions are confirmed. It is the first ship that Carlos works on. It is the first time away from home. Home is far away and it is a long time to be separated from friends, family and all familiar things. It is overwhelming. Each day the longing etches deeper. 

That is why the CSO is here - for Carlos and other men like him. Each Carlos that we meet in the harbours needs someone to listen, to pray with them. They need to hear that God holds them closely in His hand. It is for each of these men that the CSO exists. 

Carlos and Danie talk for a long time - about longing and belonging, about breathing deeply and also about the God that transcends all. Eventually Carlos finds a little more courage and straightens his shoulders. He returns to the inner workings of the ship holding a Tagalog Bible that Danie could offer.   

Let us not pretend, for a moment, that we are saviours. What is true, is that sometimes, we are in a God Moment at the right place at the right time to help the men working at sea to breathe once more. Another breath is everything. A single breath is often all that we need for life.  

Your donation allows us to care for each Carlos working at sea, every day. Thank you so much for that.       

In more than two decades of working on ships, Nico has seen the heart-breaking story repeatedly, perhaps hundreds of times... The mixed emotions of a man working at sea that becomes a father while doing back-breaking work on a ship somewhere, thousands of kilometres from home. He works to provide for his family. There is nothing strange about it and it is nothing new. Yet, each time, even after twenty years, the situation touches you deeply. 

With the arrival of a new baby far away, while you are working at sea, there is always euphoria and tragedy in the air. It is a fight to the death between powers that compete for the heart of a seaman. Nico has seen victims of both possibilities. Sometimes the euphoria of the moment is enough to carry the man through the situation, but at times tragedy wins and then the man finds himself in an existential crisis. In the midst of such a spinning situation you often ask yourself, ‘Why am I doing this work?’ or, ‘What kind of father is not there for his wife and child?’ These questions tend to draw you deeper into the spinning and dangerous spiral of thoughts. Oliver is a third officer. His travels through this work at sea are marked by a certain inevitability. It was definitely not his first choice. Just like many others that try to eke out a life in a country with limited options, you have to find something within those limitations. You take what you can get, irrespective of the price. 

When Nico meets him, the weight of the grim reality bears heavily on his shoulders. He tells how the combination of long, merciless hours and the fact that he has not been able to hold his two-month-old baby often threaten to pull the rug from under him. His expectations are almost tangible. He makes no secret of the fact that he now wishes for the end of his contract.  But he already thinks about the next farewell. The Christmas and New Year celebrations will be short indeed. He will have to pack and prepare for joining a new vessel. He will miss hearing the first words of his son. He will miss the first steps. Yet, he knows he has to provide for his family. He has to do what he must...

This morning, in the Durban harbour, Nico’s visit is a miracle. The timing is perfect. There seems to be a bigger Hand operating here. Oliver needs, at this moment someone to care for him with understanding and Christ-love. That is why Nico is there, at the right place and time, ‘by accident’. At the CSO we care for seamen whose lives on board the ships are grim realities. We do this every day. They cannot escape from their realities. 

We care, knowing that there are no ‘coincidences’. We know that those that cross our paths need to experience the love, hope and mercy that the Cross brings.  Your financial contribution can help us to continue serving and caring for the men working at sea every day. Our plea is that you consider supporting us with what we do.

PS. Here is the link for the debit order: https://bit.ly/43khwDO  Please fill in and email back to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Our bank details are: Christelike Seemansorganisasie. ABSA. Current. 1520-230-226. Use your donor code as a reference. We keep praying for each other.

What does it mean to be free? Is it not to be locked within four grey walls? Or perhaps it means not to be suppressed? Perhaps it is when life has you in a vice grip from which you cannot escape in spite of a desperate struggle. Can you be free in a jail cell? Could you be free, even if you are not free? 

This is the confusing wonder and search discussion Danie has with Xavier on board a majestic container vessel anchored at a quay in Gqeberha.  In spite of the ship that towers imposingly over everything else in the harbour, like a huge mountain, it symbolises jail for Xavier. Yes, he is free - or is he?

He is not under arrest and he has not been sentenced to isolation in a jail, but he is caught between the invisible borders of the wide-open oceans and the limits of the ship itself. When you walk to the left, you can see the sea. Walking right means the same, but also when you walk forward or back ... the sea is there too. 

Covid killed the seamen adventure of getting to know unknown shores and cities over the globe. Although most people have forgotten about the pandemic and the virus is under control, men working at sea can still not disembark freely. They can only stare at the people on the quay and admire the skyscrapers of the city from the confines of the iron deck. In the past six months, Xavier left the ship only twice. 

In these months the limits on the ship became the limits in his head. He feels alone, isolated and cut from reality. As the days drag by, the loneliness increases, it becomes more serious and now he sits in front of Danie, sharing his emotions and feelings. Danie can, with more than twenty years of experience in visiting seamen, help Xavier to become more aware of another reality, other than the mere confines of the ship. 

When Xavier finally says goodbye, he mentions what the CSO visit meant to him. He mentions that the discussion released him. He says that he had not talked to anyone other than his fellow crew members in months. For a moment Xavier realises that he is free within the plan and love of God.

The CSO missionaries break invisible chains on ships every day. These are emotional, spiritual and psychological chains.  Your donation makes this possible. Please help us break chains on board ships visiting our harbours.

Your donation makes this possible. Thank you.

PS. Our bank details are: Christelike Seemansorganisasie. ABSA. Current. 1520-230-226.  Please email your details to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. – we would like to thank you.

It has been reduced to a mere footnote. Somewhere on the back pages of today’s news, hidden between small notices to fill the page is a small heading that you may miss if you do not look for it. Even when you read the notice, the information no longer shocks you. It is common. New news and new suffering appear in bold letters on the front page. 

But, it is not so for the officer that sits in front of Danie in the Port Elizabeth harbour.  The destruction remains as real as the first day. He talks without emotion. His eyes are cold and hard when the words are spoken. The words are about death, destruction and pain. The war in the Ukraine is far removed from Coega, thousands of kilometres away, but it pressed the last bit of life and hope from him and left his heart cold. As the words tumble from his mouth, we see the same picture that we at the CSO see every day on our visits to the ships. The house where he grew up is a pile of rubble. Children died. People walking to work, paying the highest price - a missile from Russia. It is different when you read about it on the back pages. It is far from sight and so, far from the heart. It is radical when you hear this man naming names of those whose lives were stolen. Friends, family, acquaintances - dead.

Danie feels that mere listening cannot be enough. When the man’s words dry up, Danie does not try to cover the wound with a little plaster. He also does not try to make it better by saying a few nice words and sharing wisdom to brighten up his day. No, he asks if the man would mind if he prays for him. From the Bible he tells them about those that suffered too and how they eventually found God in the most unexpected places while they were suffering.

Much later, as Danie prepares to leave, a rare smile appears. ‘Thank you for what you did for me today’, the man says, now very emotionally. He also takes a Bible and asks Danie if he would mind very much to continue praying for him. 

As Danie walks away, a few thoughts remain. The first is, how we can never become used to pain and suffering in this world and to reduce it to the back pages of newspapers. The second is, that we should have a deep awareness that we are not powerless. The Man of the Cross gave us all hope, mercy and love to share. Simply listening often brings hope. The third is, to know that we at the CSO are privileged to have donors that make it possible to support the men working at sea each day with the love of the Man of the Cross. Won’t you consider it, also in prayer, to support us financially? The needs are real.

PS. Here is the link for the debit order: https://bit.ly/43khwDO Please fill in and email back to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Our bank details are: Christelike Seemansorganisasie. ABSA. Current. 1520-230-226. Use your donor code as a reference. We keep praying for each other. 

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