The Word on the Water: The Flying Angel

by Janice Seto
Fujairah in the Middle East
March 2008

Marking my nine months here in the Middle East with this article, I am pleased to re-connect with St John the Divine through water. Like Victoria, Fujairah is known for its port, and Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, is becoming more popular for cruise ships, as veteran cruise passengers look at less familiar destinations for their holidays.

Fujairah needs no introduction to those on the merchant marine circuit. As the second largest bunker port in the world (after Singapore, which is 4 times its size), Fujairah has about 200 ships anchored up to 10 miles offshore at any day swapping cargo and containers. Many tankers also transport Middle East petroleum all over the world. Because Fujairah is located outside of the Straits of Hormuz and south along the coast to the Indian Ocean, its costs are lower. If you think of the Straits of Hormuz like the Persian Gulf version of Gibraltar, through which lie Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and other Gulf states, shipping companies appreciate a port on the other side. Insurance companies do too; their premiums are much lower for ships that do not sail into the Persian Gulf.

In a few years, the pipeline from Abu Dhabi to Fujairah will be completed, allowing more oil to bypass the ports on the Persian Gulf. With that, Fujairah’s port will become more popular with ships, and where there are ports, there are sailors.

The Rev Stephen Miller explained to our Anglican congregation on our February visit to his mission ship, the 27 meter The Flying Angel (http://www.angelappeal.com/) that the days of long shore leave and "a girl in every port" have passed. This amused our congregational group of 14 from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK, and India. With advanced transportation technology, stops that used to take 7 days to unload cargo with manual labor now are as fast as 12 hours, he explained. Unfortunately, that comes at the expense of seafarers. Crews are isolated on their ships for months on end with only very expensive ship-to-shore communications to keep in contact with the outside world.

In "Fly, Angel, Fly," an article in The Gulf News, author Karen Ann Money gives examples of victimization of crew: being paid late, stranded aboard vessels with financial issues, and instances of 'bait-and-switch' where crew members are promised training but get only physical labor.

The Rev Stephen Miller arrived in Dubai, in 2002 with the aim of providing for seafarers on shore. Raised in a port town in the south of England, Stephen spent time as a parish priest in the interior before going back to the sea. His first posting with The Mission to Seafarers (MTS) (www.missiontoseafarers.org) , an Anglican organization founded in 1856, was in Rotterdam. During this time, he studied Maritime law, in order to understand more fully the conditions of seafarers and their work.

Realizing that many seafarers are increasingly unable to make it ashore for pastoral care, he thought; Why not bring the mission to them? (I call it a 'word on the water' moment.) So the dream of a mission boat going out to ships took form.

If that was all there is to it, then anyone's boat, like the ones at the Royal Victoria, could do, but Rev Stephen saw that seafarers need more than a visiting priest. Without shore leave, seafarers lacked access to a tuck shop, a library, and affordable Internet access to contact their families. His vision was to build a vessel, The Flying Angel, that would go out to ships and bring seafarers these facilities at affordable rates.

Fundraising was headed by Stephen and his wife Catherine and took some time with generous people 'coming on board' gradually. Several members of the royal families in the UAE have contributed to the building and operations of The Flying Angel in donations and in kind. The Fujairah royal family was also able to assist with berthing and port management. While in the library, I noticed a sign that the library was partially financed by the Al Maktoum Foundation, of the Dubai royal family. The Anglican chaplaincy of Dubai and the Northern Emirates also gave funding for startup costs, including the engines, perhaps as a tribute to its roots in MTS. In March 2007, it so happened that the Prince of Wales was able to commission The Flying Angel during a visit to Dubai, attracting much attention and hopefully more support.

To visualize a week's stint of service in 3 on board with 2 other rotating pastors, Rev Stephen and his crew of 5, from a diversity of locations such as Kerala and Tanzania, usually set off from the Port of Fujairah at 8am five days a week for their first ship, upon invitation, and often find on the way back that word has spread among other ships offshore, resulting in more invitations to visit. The following week is the turn of Steve Trayner, a lay minister, and the week after that, Father Michael, the Roman Catholic priest from India.

In the retail store on board, our group of 14 saw a variety of goods for sale from razors and chocolates to DVDs and digital cameras and phone cards. Seafarers could purchase time on any of the 3 laptops and the VOIP phone services at low cost. Five dollars (US) on their regular ship could give someone 5 minutes of talk time; on The Flying Angel, a seafarer could speak for about 20 minutes. One tale Rev Stephen shared was of a seafarer whose sister said his wife was in the hospital but everything was fine. On his next call, 3 months later, he learned he was the father of a little boy.

After our tour, Rev Stephen and the Fujairah congregation's own minister, the Rev Nelson Fernandez, celebrated Holy Eucharist with us. It was very special indeed to learn more about the need, right here in our own 'dockyard'. We asked Stephen how we can support his ministry. Foremost is in prayer, he suggested, and monetary support. A financial concern is maintenance. Doing the occasional commercial charter or ferrying personnel from shore-to-ship pays only for operations, which is why fundraising is necessary. See www.angelappeal.org. He also welcomes us to volunteer.

It looks like several members of the Fujairah congregation are ready to step on board the Flying Angel and be a part of the word on water!

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