Under a cloudless azure sky, my friend Sandy and I were sitting in a 13’ Boston Whaler. It was riding on a gentle swell in the turquoise Caribbean, far out beyond sight of land.
He and I had come to preach the Word to a little settlement on Man-O’-War Cay, the last land before the Canaries on the other side of the Atlantic.
Our hosts insisted we try our hand at deep sea fishing. So, guiding our little craft to the fishing grounds was an affable old Bahamian, Robbie by name. Although it all looked the same to us, he knew just the spot.
It wasn’t long until—using only rusty hooks with conch meat and bare fishing line, no rods—we had pulled in 25-30 fish in not much more than an hour, mostly snapper and grouper. My kind of fishing!
But after a while we started pulling up some fish with everything behind the gills torn away. “It’s a shark,” said Robbie.
Time to head back? No sir! He got out the BIG hook and started fishing for shark! It turned out to be a tiger, or sand, shark, a mere 9 feet long. So he landed it. In his 13-foot boat.
I’m not really good at geometry, especially under pressure. But I did figure out fairly quickly that it was getting a bit crowded. Especially with the shark twisting and snapping in an uncomfortably wide arc. All while Robbie tried to subdue it with well-placed hammer blows.
In the end, the shark provided a meal for some grateful Haitians. We had a fish fry for the crowd back on land. And Sandy and I had a nail-biting illustration to use in our next sermon on Jonah.
However, we came home from our expedition with something even better. Robbie was a fount of homespun wisdom. He sang us old gospel ballads, told us stories about the early days, and shared lessons he’d learned about the Lord.
Here’s one I remember. He said, “When the Americans started arriving, they had beautiful yachts, fine jewelry, designer clothes, and built big homes on the ends of our island.
“We didn’t have those things, but we had the Lord. Our lives were simple, but He cared for us and we were happy and content.
“I suppose you could say we were both missionaries. Their message to us was that things could make you happy. Ours was that only Christ could satisfy your heart.
“So they had a message, and we had a message—but they were the better missionaries. Most of our people wanted what the Americans had, and went after it. But I don’t think they’re any happier.”
And then, perhaps off a semitone or two on the tune, but right on with the moral of the story, Robbie began to sing:
“O Christ, in Thee my soul hath found, and found in Thee alone, the peace, the joy I sought so long, the bliss till now unknown. “Now none but Christ can satisfy, none other name for me; there’s love and life and lasting joy, Lord Jesus, found in Thee.” (James McGranahan)
Robbie had learned what David wrote, “You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Psalm 16:11)
Article published May 17, 2025 in the Commercial Dispatch.