Connor Diocese :: Bishop Alan in the Holy Land

Mission

Partner Links

The Diocese of Connor has established a link with the Diocese Yei in southern Sudan. A 10-year link with the Diocese of Linkoping in Sweden has recently ended.

Yei

Archdeacon Stephen Forde with Bishop Hilary of Yei.

At the Connor Diocesan Synod in October 2006, delegates agreed to form a partnership with the Diocese of Yei in Southern Sudan.

This is a diocese in an area which is emerging from a brutal civil war

At Diocesan Synod in 2007, members agreed to further the partnership with Yei in a practical way by launching the Yei Schools Project. The project will mean better education and a better future for young people in and around the rural village of Mongo.

Between then and the beginning of September 2009, Connor parishes raised a total of £101,500 to fund the building of an entire school. This will be officially opened by Canon Cecil Wilson of CMS Ireland when a Connor team led by Canon Wilson and Arcdeacon Stephen Forde, chair of Connor Council for Mission, visits Yei in July 2010.

But the link was always going to be about more than financial assistance. From the start of 2009, parishes and individuals have been strengthening the ties between Connor and Yei.

Election in Southern Sudan during April 2010 passed off peacefully, and the people of Yei and the rest of Sudan are now anticipating the outcome of a referendum to take place early in 2011.

A small Connor team comprising Archdeacon Forde, Diocesan Accountant David Cromie and Diocesan Communications Officer Karen Bushby, visited Yei in January 2010 to lay the foundations for the META in July. They visited the now complete Mongo school, and met with Bishop Hilary and Diocesan staff to establish the skills and experience needed for the summer META. This trip is reported extensively in the Mission News section of this website, and also in the February 2010 isssue of Connor Connections which can be downloaded here.

Linköping

Canon Walter Lewis, Mrs Evelyn Lewis and Connor Diocesan Training Co-Ordinator Peter Hamill with clergy in Sweden for the service marking the end of Connor's link with Linkoping. After a decade, Connor’s link with the Swedish diocese of Linköping ended at a service in Linköping Cathedral on January 10.

Linköping was Connor’s first diocesan link, and although it is now formally over, friendships forged over the years between parishes and individuals will continue.

As chair of the Partnership for World Mission Committee back in 1996, Canon Walter Lewis was one of those behind this link. Canon Lewis recalls. “This was an excellent committee operationally. This was all new and there was tremendous interest. It was a fascinating operation for us to get to know each other and achieved the objective of widening horizons almost immediately. The initiative was warmly welcomed across the diocese.”

There followed many twinning projects at diocesan, youth and parish levels, with trips to Sweden, and visitors from Sweden.

A total of 14 Connor parishes established links in the early years with parishes in Linköping. All Saints, Antrim, maintains its link today while St Cedma’s, Larne, has an active link with the parishers of Väderstad. Canon Lewis’s parish of St Thomas’s was twinned with Linköping Cathedral, and a curate from Sweden is currently working in the parish.

Canon Lewis said the Swedes loved to come to Northern Ireland. “They love the people and they love the church. We are the one church and they feel very much at home here.” He added that the Bishop Martin Lind of Linköping had a particular fondness for the north coast.

Canon Lewis, his wife Evelyn, and Connor Diocesan Training Co-ordinator Peter Hamill travelled to Linköping for the service in January to celebrate the partnership and give thanks for all it had achieved. Despite the formal end of the link, contacts that have been established and projects that were initiated over the years will continue.

Canon Lewis said: “There is a lot to be gained from positive partnership. It gives us a global perspective of the church and while it can challenge us it allows us to come home mutually refreshed.”