Joining Heart and Soul
with our Companion Diocese
By Keith Osborne
Your Companion Diocese Committee has launched with enthusiasm upon a journey that may well take us to the point of seeing our Bishop visit the Diocese of Ho this year with a delegation at his side. This could then be the prelude to further personal contact in the winter of 2009-2010. At that time it is hoped we may be able to send over two volunteers, supported by the diocese and orientated under the National Church Volunteers in Mission program. These volunteers would assist Bishop Matthias in the administrative duties and ministry of his struggling diocese. He is delighted at the prospect of having some much needed help and moral support as he struggles, with almost no resources of any kind, to build a diocese. What he does have is the grace of God and the dedication of his people who are committed to the cause of their church.
We know that the real essence of our companion relationship lies not in the physical or material things we send across the ocean. It lies rather in the profound sharing of the Spirit. It is in this vein that we encourage all our diocesan family to engage in earnest intercession both at Sunday worship and through the week for the Diocese of Ho as the people there seek to grow out of infancy into a well established and fruitful family in God's kingdom.
Pray for the parish or outstation with which you have been linked, and please use the Diocesan Intercessions in order to enhance and specify your prayers for our family across the Atlantic.
As our contacts grow and develop, we hope to learn more of the personal details of those for whom we pray. At this time our desired level of communication with them is not what we would like as Bishop Matthias lacks any secretarial assistance which could support his busy agenda. The members of our committee do, however, regularly e-mail Bishop Matthias with moral support and encouragement.
We would ask also that all of you seek to discern where there may be people lurking in our diocese who might be good candidates to serve as volunteers in Ho for a six month (or longer) term, and to think of deanery or parish level fundraisers to support such volunteers. They must raise their own support, but any financial support we as a diocese can offer would make a huge difference to the success of this venture.
Use your imagination in terms of how to raise this support — you demonstrated how well you can do that in your support of our Bishop's Walk for Aids in the recent past. We know that our financial constraints are limiting to say the least, so we need to pray hard for guidance in this whole matter.
Your committee at this time also extends an invitation to anyone who may feel led to join us, any who feels s/he has something to offer as we proceed into the remainder of our five-year term that ends in June of 2012.
As we continue through Lent and into the celebration of Easter, let us truly live our celebration as we join in heart and soul with our Companion Diocese of Ho as it struggles to solve problems that we have never experienced. Pray for them and pray for us as we seek to discern the way ahead, for the glory of God's kingdom among us.
The Rev. Capt. Keith Osborne is rector of Pennfield and a member of the Companion Diocese Committee.
Diocesan Communications
03 March 2009
