Last year, Kirstin began ship visiting in Cork port with Colin Jenkins. It has become a family effort, with his daughters Nika and Alisa also volunteering. His wife, Serita, had the wonderful idea of embroidering the Gospel colours onto woolly hats. Here’s her story!
One morning I had a random thought about how we used to use the Wordless Bible many years back to explain the Gospel, and how easy it was to do so. After explaining the Gospel and leading someone to Christ, you then also leave the person with a constant reminder and a “tool” to also share the Gospel with others. To share the Wordless Bible I know that many people use bracelets. I used to use beads, but I felt that Seafarers perhaps need something different, something special. While I was chatting to God about it, I thought: what practical gift can I give a ship crew member that will always be at hand and not a hazard in their work? Then the idea of knitting the Gospel colours of the Wordless Bible into woolly hats came to mind.
That same morning, I bumped into Colin and I shared my idea with him. He thought it was brilliant, and said that he had just received a donation of a 1000 hats! What a confirmation! Not only did I get the idea that morning but God already provided the woolly hats. Colin promptly sent me some of the donated hats and I started to embroider or crochet the Gospel colours into the hats.
For those not familiar with the meaning of the six Gospel colours, here is a short summary:
Since I started, these woolly hats have been used many times as a tool to start conversations about Jesus and to share the Gospel of Truth on ships.
You can see the explanation of the colours by scanning the code or using this handy link: https://bit.ly/gospelcolours.
(Interestingly, they are also the colours in the S. African flag!)
