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By Loren Hagerty
Jesus combined teaching and boating on at least
a few occasions. He told meaningful stories and parables while sitting in a
boat to escape the crowds standing on the beach (Mt 13:2). He calmed a
storm (Mt 8:26), showing his mastery over the weather. He called the
apostle Peter out of a boat to exercise his faith by walking on water (Mt
14:25).
The Sail and Life Training Society (SALTS) of Victoria
B.C. also believes that great life lessons can be learned at sea.
SALTS is a Christian charity that builds
traditional tallships and teaches young people (ages 13 – 27) to sail
them.
Voyages range from five days to 12
months. Two thousand young people take part annually, and the program fills
up quickly. The goal is growth – spiritual, physical and relational.
Crew-members share stories with the young
people on board which – like Jesus’ parables – are
designed to reveal important lessons to those who seek to understand.
The two SALTS schooners are 138’
and 111’ in length. Each has space for five professional crew-members
and 30 young trainees. Many trainees have little or no sailing experience,
but from the moment the ship leaves the dock, they take the helm. The role
of the professional crew is to instruct them, and lessons include all
aspects of sailing the ship, including navigation, rope work, sail handling
and the language of the sea – nautical terminology that is, not
cursing like a sailor!
The ships travel to the Gulf Islands of
B.C., circumnavigate Vancouver Island, and occasionally travel to ports
around the world on offshore voyages. A 12 month voyage is currently
underway, with stops in Hawaii, Tahiti, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Japan and
China.
What life lessons can one learn on a
ship? The challenges of the sea provides wonderful opportunities for
learning and growth. Sailing through storms is good motivation for prayer!
Witnessing the power of nature as the
ship rises and plunges over mountainous ocean swells is a wonderful time to
recall Psalm 93: mightier than the breakers of the sea, the Lord on high is
mighty.
A ship encourages genuine community, because you share
every moment together in confined spaces.
It is hard to pretend to be someone you
are not! Sailing the ship requires teamwork and a strong work ethic.
Physical challenges stretch people beyond what they thought they could
accomplish, and build confidence.
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Travel to distant ports is an eye-opening
experience. Last October, I was aboard the SALTS ship Pacific Grace as she arrived one
morning at Ambrym Island, Vanuatu, in the South Pacific. A beautiful
sunrise lit up a puffy pink cloud above the island, which I discovered was
smoke from an active volcano.
We were welcomed by the people at a small
village, and visited their school where we played soccer and volleyball
with the children. We gave the school a full set of soccer uniforms,
donated from a soccer club back home in Victoria.
We hiked through the jungle in the
gruelling heat to another village about half an hour away – and found
out that most people from the first village had never been to the other
one!
We drank milk from coconuts, watched the
elderly village men dance in traditional costumes and saw their beautiful
wood carvings.
Our young men joined the locals to hunt wild
boar, chasing them down with clubs like a page out of Lord of the Flies, and we had a
pig roast on the beach.
At one point I was alone on a beautiful
coral beach and I was approached by young men with machetes. I feared for
my safety, but ended up having a long, pleasant conversation.
The grandparents of these young men were
cannibals up until the 1960s, when Christian missionaries came. These young
men told me they now attend church services twice a day, every day! I
laughed at myself for having felt in danger among my own brothers!
Mark Twain once declared: “Travel is
fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people
need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men
and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the
earth all one’s lifetime.”
Loren Hagerty is executive director of the Sail And
Life Training Society (www.salts.ca)
Photography: Antony Dickinson, Jose Larochelle
Options Spring 2008
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