Plenty of activity at Mission to Seafarers

This story was submitted by Mission to Seafarers chaplain Russell Cunningham. If you have a story you'd like to share, click here.

DURING the Sea Sunday Service the Anglican Bishop of Rockhampton, Bishop David Robinson, presided over the commissioning service in the Mission Chapel to formally recognise me as the Mission to Seafarers' chaplain to the Port of Gladstone.

We also hosted the inaugural meeting of the Gladstone Port Welfare Committee, with UK deputy chief executive of Merchant Navy Welfare Board Peter Tomlin speaking at this world first International Seafarers' Welfare and Assistance Network initiative.

We are negotiating with the Work for the Dole program to begin a revitalisation of the Mission, starting with extensive garden and grounds beautification works beginning at the end of the month.

Our dedicated team of volunteers enables us to open the Mission seven days and nights a week, and without their help none of the seafarers would be able to get a break from what is essentially a steel prison.

Three months ago I was at the Newcastle Mission to Seafarers, and now I am starting to feel like I have always been part of the team in Gladstone.

Last week, Captain Eduardo Almaquer of the MV Pos Esperance, a ship berthed at one of Rio Tinto's wharves, presented me with a fully functional exact scale model of his ship.

He constructed it out of biscuit boxes and scrap plastic during his journey from Indonesia to Gladstone as a gratitude for picking them up, allowing them to get a reprieve to buy some necessary supplies and to enjoy unfamiliar faces.

That is just petrol in my tank.