Chaplain

The Mission to Seafarers’ is a Christian mission. We respect all faiths and facilitate the worship of all. But our motivation is that as Christians, treating strangers with kindness is an expression of Jesus’ command to love our neighbour, and in doing that well we are a witness for God in the lives of people. As St. Francis said, “Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words.”

I was visiting with a duty officer on a ship with Indian crew. He was saying to me, “I don’t understand it. You help us so much and you do not charge us;” you, being seafarers’ missions that he has visited across the globe.

We are part of a global Mission to Seafarers family that ministers to seafarers and their families since 1857, and here in Thunder Bay since 1962.

A seafarers’ life is impacted by many changes, largely driven by improving technology and industry’s push to keep costs down. In 1994 when I started as Chaplain, Watch Keepers dialed the seafarers’ phone calls, timed them and estimated the charge when they were finished. Now Wi-Fi is on most ships. Crew sizes are getting smaller, going from 23 to a range of 9 to 22. The Port is getting more efficient, and stays in Port are shorter.

The work of the seafarers’ ministry is rewarding because we touch strangers, who may appreciate the small acts of kindness that we offer. I have learned that seafarers share the same concerns as most of us, they want their wife to be okay in their absence, their children educated and settled in a job, and they want a comfortable retirement. We need to care about seafarers because they are human beings, just like us.

One year, I was aboard a ship with Polish crew delivering Christmas Gift Bags. The captain said to me, ‘Thank you so much. The gifts mean that we are not invisible.’

Seafarers bring value to us. Anything you purchase that was made offshore, was brought to you by transportation workers, seafarers, railway workers and truckers. In Thunder Bay, about 25% of the city’s economy is related to the Port. The grain that farmers grow and potash that is mined has an export market because seafarers deliver these products to that market. We ought to care for seafarers because they enable us to live the way we do.

As the Mission to Seafarers works within a professional industry, we ought to exhibit a degree of professionalism. We offer chaplain services in an industrial environment, and as such, facilities want to ensure that we abide by their security and safety policies and procedures.

As an organization, the Mission to Seafarers has a responsibility to maintain standards that protect the seafarers in our care and paid and volunteer staff, and ensure that financial resources, we have been entrusted with, are properly administered. This means that a portion of our energy is directed towards training and supervising volunteers.

So, I hope that as you learn about the Mission to Seafarers, you will become part of the community that supports our work.

Biography – The Rev’d Canon Ed Swayze

The Rev’d Canon Ed Swayze is the Mission to Seafarers Chaplain, working 2½ days a week and the Pastor at St. Stephen’s, working 2¼ days a week. When he works is flexible because, with his work with the seafarers, it depends on when ships need to be visited. He is at St. Stephen’s most Sundays.

The Bishop of Algoma appointed Canon Ed as Incumbent at St. Stephen’s and Chaplain to the Mission to Seafarers in April 1994. Previously he was the Pastor at Trinity Church Marathon and All Saints White River from 1989 to 1994 and Assistant at St. Luke’s Cathedral in Sault Ste. Marie from 1987 to 1989. Canon Ed has a Masters of Divinity from Huron College of the University of Western Ontario (1987) and an Honours Bachelor of Science in Forestry from Lakehead University (1983).

He served as a Canadian Armed Forces Chaplain in the Reserve Force at HMCS GRIFFON from 1996 until his retirement in 2021. He was made a Canon of the Military Ordinariate in 2013.

Canon Ed is a recreational sailor. He has taught courses with the Canadian Power and Sail Squadron covering navigation, seamanship and marine radio for recreational sailors.