Dear friendsThank you for the warm welcome that we have received, at the service at Offenham last week, and as we walk around the area. David and I are so pleased to be here, and very much looking forward to all that lies ahead. It has been such a long wait before I could come and I am so grateful to the East Vale ministry team and colleagues who have been taking services in the meantime. I am originally from North Devon, where my school friends were from the local farms (beef or dairy mostly), so the seasonal rhythms of rural life are very familiar to me. After university, I worked for a couple of years as a secondary school teacher in a Methodist-run secondary school in Zimbabwe before returning to the UK and the Midlands, where David and I raised our children, and I worked as a Careers Adviser in Northamptonshire. I also trained as a Lay Reader and was taking services in Leicester Diocese for some years. In 2004 we moved to Dunedin, South Island of New Zealand, where we had 15 very happy years. I joined David (a professor in Development Economics) at Otago University where I found work as an administrator for some years, before returning to Careers Guidance work, this time with adults, helping them to retrain and find new direction after life-changing injuries. In 2012 I was ordained, and by 2014 I was serving as vicar for a large rural area (the Otago Peninsula) on the outskirts of the city. As far as I know, I am the only vicar in the world to have had an albatross colony in her parish; we used to ring the church bell when they returned to the headland each Spring. In 2019 we followed our daughter Anna (who was a postgraduate in London) back to the UK to be nearer our families again. There were also so many aspects of life in Britain that I missed - people, places, ancient buildings carrying such deep history - and being able to get mushy peas with fish and chips! David was offered a post at Manchester University, and we moved to West Yorkshire where I have served as Associate Priest in the Colne Valley near Huddersfield for the last 3 years, giving me some familiarity with working within the English parish church world again! We lived near Marsden Moor, with beef, dairy and sheep farming neighbours (can you see a pattern here…..?) who became our good friends too. We enjoyed our time in Yorkshire, but I saw the advertisement for the East Vale vacancy and …here we are! “My lot has fallen in a fair and pleasant land” (Psalm 16 v6) and I keep thinking of this verse as I explore the Vale. It is so beautiful here, and I am so pleased that I have been able to come and share and explore this shared life with you across our parishes. Advent and Christmas are just around the corner, with all its special seasonal events and services. Please come and say hello if you see me at your church, in the school, shop, or out and about (with or without Lilyru our cockerpoo). As your Priest in Charge, I hold you all in my prayers each day, and I am very much looking forward to getting to know you better over the coming weeks and months. I wish you an expectant Advent full of hope for the future, and a joyful Christmas as we celebrate God’s Son dwelling among us as Love, here with God’s people in this beautiful land. God bless you Joanna
