At the SCFS Conference 2025 , in June, we introduced and celebrated our five SCFS Ambassadors at an evening presentation.
The Ambassadors will serve as passionate and visible representatives, helping to promote SCFS and raise awareness. They will play a vital role in promoting our mission, expanding our reach by engaging communities, sharing stories, and encouraging others to get involved.
We are thankful for the many years of dedicated service these men have already given to the work of SCFS and for their willingness to embrace the Ambassador role.
Mervyn began visiting the Ships in Cork with Walter Burrell and visited regularly for some 17 years. He was a member of the SCFS Council for over forty years, holding various positions.
He saw many highs and lows of SCFS over the years, and at one time was even advised by some to wind up the society, but Mervyn can testify of the faithfulness of God, who sees down the road ahead of us and who has much more for this Society within His plans.
“We praise Him for the people He brought into the SCFS and hundreds and thousands of seafarers are being reached these days with the Gospel by the various actions of these faithful folk. To God be all the Praise and Glory”.
After having worked in a shipping agency for several shipping companies, God called Martin and his wife, Monika, to start a Seamen’s Mission in 1987. At first, they thought we were the only ones in the world doing Seamen's Mission. They soon discovered and got in touch with other SCFS missionaries working among seafarers. In 1991 the Ottos were asked by the Chairman at that time, Fred Hudson, if they would like to join SCFS. They became the first non-British missionaries of SCFS. Ever since the relationship with SCFS grew stronger not only in Great Britain but also in the Philippines where the SCFS has a ministry to seafarers as well.
The work in Hamburg developed by God’s grace quicker than expected. In 1991 Volker and Doris Lamaack joined the work in Hamburg, as the port was just too big to be handled by one missionary couple alone.
Martin put an emphasis on networking with other evangelical port chaplains worldwide. The next step was to write books for seafarers which would encourage, inspire, disciple, and train seafarers in their work on board ships. Presently there are 7 books available in English, some even in Tagalog.
“In 2008 God put it on my heart to start a training center for Christian seafarers where we trained them during their vacation on how to be involved in starting floating churches on their particular ships.
Last, but not least, I was invited to visit different maritime schools and manning agencies in the Philippines who all showed a great interest in the books I wrote. Up until now, about 150,000 books have been delivered to various schools, universities, and agencies.
This all was only possible through God`s amazing grace and the prayers of his people.”
Volker and Doris are very grateful to have been part of the SCFS family since 1991. In the port of Hamburg, Volker visits ships six days a week to share the gospel with seafarers. Very early on, Volker was moved by the question of how to help seafarers read and understand the Bible. “They are alone on board for many months and are usually unable to attend church services or Bible groups. Normally, none of their colleagues are experienced Christians who could help them. Our conversations on board are also rather short, as the seafarers are either working, sleeping or keeping in touch with their families via social media. As a result of this my focus for many years has been on working with Bible correspondence courses. I used good Bible courses, but I realised they were not always easy to understand for seafarers for whom English is only a second or third language.
As a result, I have gradually written both evangelistic and in-depth Bible courses. They are written in simple English and there are now 14 Bible correspondence courses. Nine of these have been translated into Tagalog. Some courses are also available in many other languages. Doris has contributed her talent by illustrating many of the courses.
Jesus emphasizes that heaven and earth will pass away, but his word will not. That is why there is no alternative for me to not only encourage seafarers to read the Bible, but also to help them to do so in a long-lasting way.
God has given grace to many seafarers through Bible correspondence courses. They have converted, grown spiritually and are now true followers of Jesus, and often their families are also reached as a result.”
Volker and Doris are very grateful to God that he has also called their son Micha and his wife, Lydia, into missionary service among seafarers.
Dave was involved with the ship Ministry in his late teens and early twenties working with Stan Sherrington from SCFS as part of his ship visiting team in Liverpool. He did this for several years before work commitments took him away.
Dave was then re-introduced into the work back in 2003 when he and his wife, Dot, went into full time ministry with Maritime Christian Ministries (MCM) back in Liverpool. This was a charity formed by Stan after he left SCFS. Dave kept close ties with SCFS, often linking in with other port chaplains. They finished their ministry in April 2020, in the middle of lockdown. Later that year Dave was asked to be a Trustee for SCFS and kept this position until summer 2024 when they moved back to York. They still continue to pray for the ship Ministry both with MCM and SCFS.
Peter has been visiting ships in Portsmouth regularly since 2012. His interest in ship visiting was first ignited by listening to David Thompson, SCFS Southampton port chaplain in the 1980s and 90s. He often came over to the island and shared amazing stories of what the Lord was doing on the ships. In December 2007 Peter went on a trial visit with a friend, John Budd, and Phil Bryan, SCFS Portsmouth port chaplain.
"I was hooked! However, I worked full time as an engineer and could not get Mondays off, which was when the ship visits occurred. In 2012 I reached retirement age and dropped one day from full time work. I therefore had a Monday free and guess what, I started visiting ships with John and Pete! This carried on for a year. I then realised that there were ships coming in on Thursday that no one was visiting. I dropped another day from work started visiting the Thursday ships on my own. It was an amazing experience because the crews were very different from the ones we had visited before.
I carried on visiting until COVID happened in 2020. Danny Yarker joined SCFS and wrote to the harbour master saying that SCFS Port Chaplains should be regarded as key workers. This resulted in me receiving a letter from the port authorities saying that provided I could get permission from the master of the vessel and was prepared to wear the necessary PPE then the docks would not prevent me coming in. Amazingly it happened and for a while I was the only person allowed into the docks.
Soon I was joined by Tony and shortly after Brian and Angela. Brian immediately set to work to get permission to visit the cruise ships which were coming into Portsmouth in increasing numbers. Since that time, we have been joined by Hermie, Phil, Sharon and Richard bringing our team of visitors up to 8.
We have now done a surprising number of visits on the Isle of Wight at Cowes, which receives small coasters in the range of 2 to 3 1/2 thousand tonnes. We look to the Lord for all that lies ahead."
