Professional skills and knowledge helps boater with toothache

Professional skills and knowledge helps boater with toothache

Chaplain Mike Cadman writes :-

“Being a new chaplain, only commissioned a few months ago and learning the job, one never knows quite what to expect. There has been this really good conversation with boater T. He loves living on his boat, does gourmet cooking aboard and had come to moor near my usual walk, to visit the stores and so on there.

His boat has two small rum barrels on the stern and he told me it was registered on Port Royal. I had no idea where that was, yet was informed it was in the Caribbean and the most sinful place in the world at one time, until destroyed by and earthquake and tsunami and now lies under the sea.

I passed my card over and the a few days later received a phone call. “I don’t have any problems except for my teeth” My profession must have come up in our conversation and happily at over 70 the eyes and hands work well and I still so some dental work.

The outcome; the teeth are being treated and boater T is very regular with his appointments. It has been a pleasure to get to know him during these weeks.

We are to be pastorally active and spiritually reactive. I am not sure how dental treatment is spiritually reactive and yet it is, as we are to respond in the love of the Lord Jesus and serve as He served and do all we can to help our ‘neighbour’

What a joy it has been and how diverse and fulfilling it is to be being a Waterways Chaplain.”