| IT IS an extraordinary parish in Bath & Wells diocese. It is not in an affluent area, but the Vicar of St Philip and St James’s, Bath, the Revd Alan Bain, tells me that about three-quarters of the congregation have been on overseas visits to their linked churches — having raised the money for their own fares — in countries such as Uganda, Palestine, India, and the Czech Republic.
A link with Cape Town, in South Africa, goes back to apartheid times. This group of 18 teenagers (shown above with Mr Bain, centre, against the background of Table Mountain) were the latest to go. They stayed with friends in the deprived area of Elsies River, and also in the poverty-stricken township of Khayelitsha, home to more than a million black people — both places no white South African would care to go.
They visited the prison where Nelson Mandela had been held, heard about progress in overcoming racial segregation, worked in schools, and took part in church services. They also visited AIDS patients in hospitals, and it was this experience that two of the group, Joel and Emma Millard, took back to their school, where they took two assemblies, using their own perceptions of what they had seen.
Mr Bain says: “The important thing for me is that our church members are becoming global in their perspective, and have an unrivalled opportunity to experience at first hand what is happening in areas of greatest need.”
He will be taking 13 adults and teenagers to South India next month, and has plans to add China to his church’s overseas links.
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