Submitted by philip on
By Mark H. Hunter, Regional Reporter
GONZALES – The traditional view of international missions is to go out to all the world but at the Gonzales Seafarer’s Center, a ministry of the Baptist Association of Greater Baton Rouge, men – and occasionally a few women – from all the world come in through the front door to hear about Jesus.
The Center’s visitor log book shows names in many languages from dozens of countries and hundreds of ships that ply the Mississippi River on a daily basis. Last year’s annual report showed 885 visitors from 24 countries who heard the plan of salvation presented 631 times and who took 154 Jesus film dvds in their own languages back with them.
“We average about 150 seafarers a month,” said Director Sylvester Wilson. There could be many hundreds more if it weren’t for strict post-9-11 Homeland Security and Customs regulations prohibiting most foreigners from disembarking.
“They are from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Korea, Russia, Latvia, Ukraine,” added assistant director, Jeremy Starnes, who also is Minister of Family discipleship at First Baptist of Gonzales. “They are always gracious; they are always willing to listen.”
There are over a million seafarers worldwide, Starnes said, and about a third are from the Philippines. “Most of them can speak a ‘working’ English so we‘re able to share the gospel with them or someone in their group who can translate for the rest of them.”
The Center is located across a parking lot from a Wal-Mart Super Center. Many other stores and fast food restaurants are within walking distance for the seafarers who are glad to be on terra firma – if even only for a few hours.
The 4,000 square-foot Center includes a small kitchen where free sodas, coffee and snacks are served, a small chapel, and a game room with pool, foosball and air-hockey tables.
In the media room visitors make phone calls from seven booths or get on three computers to e-mail, Skype or otherwise have ‘face-time’ with their families at home.
While the crew may be mostly Filipino, the ship could be owned by an American or European business and sails under the flag of another country, such as Liberia or Panama, Wilson explained.
Each day, Starnes, or Wilson, receives two or three phone calls from dozens of docks along the river. They then drive 10-20 miles to the particular location in a 13-passenger bus to give the seafarers a free ride back to the Gonzales Seafarers Center.
Upon arrival, Starnes or Wilson present a brief salvation message.
Starnes and Wilson sell the men international phone cards at cost and assist them, sometimes just by listening to their stories, until they return the men a few hours later to their particular dock.
Many men accept New Testaments or tracts in their own languages and at least one Jesus film dvd, (which is produced in 50 languages) is sent along to each ship.
Wilson said he knows of at least two men who professed salvation; one from Chile in the last few months, and a Filipino perhaps five years ago. Another Christian seafarer, with whom Wilson stays in regular contact, says he wants to return home to India to show the Jesus film in villages.
Starnes said most of the men are “very receptive” to the gospel, but Wilson said he’s had two ship captains prohibit Bibles. One captain claimed, “the men all have to get along and Bibles cause disagreements,” Wilson recounted.
Along with gospel tracts and Bibles, hundreds of the seafarers have also received sock hats lovingly hand-knitted by the ladies of First Baptist of Baton Rouge, Wilson said.
On one recent evening, Starnes made two trips to pick up men from the Sentinel II, an ocean-going cargo ship unloading alumina ore from South America at a riverside plant.
Socrates Rocaza, a Filipino security officer, said he and his crew were all Christians and he pulled a worn New Testament from his jacket pocket to prove it.
They had been away from home for nine months and he won’t see his wife and child until September, he said.
“I feel homesick but I have to work hard to help my family,” Rocaza said. “I trust Jesus 100 percent. We are surrounded by evil spirits. Jesus protects us from them.”
The greatest need, both Starnes and Wilson said, is for volunteers. Because the two men work alone on alternating days, whenever they have to pick up or return seafarers and there are other men are at the Center, Starnes and Wilson have to ask them to wait outside until they return.
“We need someone with a heart for missions and who would be available to be here and see these people not as foreigners, but as people God has created in His image, people who need a safe place where they can unwind, call home and get into conversations about Jesus Christ,” Starnes said.
A retired couple – or two – would be ideal, Wilson added.
For more information visit the Gonzales Seafarers Center’s web page at: www.bagbr.org, or call 225.647.1617.