Tuvalu...Where's that?

Do you know where Tuvalu is? I didn't till I met these sailors you see on the pictures. Tuvalu is a small group of islands between Hawaii and Australia. There are only  10.000 citizens who are of Polynesian ethnicity..  Because of the countries' remoteness there is very little tourism. Most jobs are government jobs.   Wikipedia tells us that 500 Tuvalu men are employed  as sailors, primarily on German owned ships. The Asian Development Bank assists the Tuvalu Maritime Training Institute which trains young Tuvalu so they can work aboard foreign vessels....... Back to the Mission; The ones I met were big but very friendly men. One went to the bible section and I asked him if he was a Christian? He said yes! I asked if he was a Roman Catholic, a protestant, baptist etc. he said, " No I'm a Christian!"   Noticing his irritation, I decided to look up Tuvalu on  Wikipedia where I discovered that 97 % of the Tuvaluans  are members of the Church of Tuvalu, a Protestant Christian Church. No wonder he couldn't answer my question!  When it was time to leave, they loaded up on bibles, devotional material and lots of Christian music. And yes the owner of the ship is German with a crew from Poland, Tuvalu, The Philippines and Bulgaria!....... a mini United Nations!

S.A.R. ( Search and Rescue )

We find S.A.R. teams all over the world. The newly wed prince William is even  a member of a S.A.R. team in England.
The main purpose of S.A.R teams is to save lives!
Last week I visited the ZIM Ningbo. The captain showed me pictures of a crew member who was airlifted somewhere  off the Japanese coast. It was a medical emergency for someone  who needed an  immediate operation otherwise he would have died within hours. Airlifted to a hospital he was operated on successfully. He is now recuperating in Bulgaria.
In earlier days at sea the seafarer would not have survived and even nowadays the result is not always positive. ( Read my blog; MV Vancouver Express )  

May 5; Liberation Day

Sixty six years ago The Netherlands was liberated by Canadian forces from the Nazi German occupation. Five years of fear, hunger and death had come to an end. Born and raised in The Netherlands I've heard many stories of people who experienced that incredible moment of freedom.

It's hard to imagine for post - war children like me who have never experienced war,what war and occupation was like in every day life.  How is it that  people can be so wicked towards each other?  It is hard to imagine since I meet German seafarers on a weekly basis with whom I have very good relations and who are very hospitable. It is hard to imagine that their grandfathers' minds were poisened by a false ideology/philosophy of  'ubermensch vs untermensch '. An ideology of the ' super race ' which would rule the world for a thousand years! The result was a bloodbath of  more than 50 million casualties of war and damage beyond human imagination.

I am writing this blog a few days after the death of Osama bin Laden. Another tragic figure who tried to change the world through  hatred, fear and death. The civil war is still going on in Lybia and scores of people are being killed in Syria. All these people long for freedom! Freedom from oppression, something we are so blessed with in Canada and which we often do not appreciate.

I do know about one kind of peace and freedom. A freedom that sets us free from the bondage of sin, death and hell and comes only through faith in Jesus Christ as described in the Bible where we read:

" It is for freedom that Christ has set us free " ( Galatians 5:1 )
" Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God
   through our Lord Jesus Christ " ( Romans 5:1 )
" Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus be-
   cause through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law
   of sin and death " ( Romans 8:1,2 )