Mission and Overseas Development

The parish has two main on-going involvements in mission overseas:

• Christian Aid
• Church Mission Society (CMS), and particularly our link Partner in Mission in Nigeria

An agency of the churches in the UK and Ireland, Christian Aid works wherever the need is greatest, irrespective of religion. It supports local organisations, which are best placed to understand local needs, as well as giving help on the ground through 16 overseas offices.

Christian Aid believes in strengthening people to find their own solutions to the problems they face. It strives for a new world transformed by an end to poverty and campaigns to change the rules that keep people poor.

Out of every pound received, 75p is spent on tackling poverty on behalf of the poorest people in the world; 11p is spent on campaigning and education, to change the structures of inequality that keep people poor; 12p is spent on fundraising; 2p is spent on administration.

More information may be found on the Christian Aid Home Page

CMS is a mission agency working in partnership with churches in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Established in 1799, the Society's goal remains the same - to spread the Gospel to every part of the world.

CMS six main priorities are:

• leadership training and theological education;
• support for small and struggling churches;
• evangelism and church planting;
• dialogue and witness with people of other faiths;
• community development and health care;
• work among refugees and migrant peoples.

You can lean more about CMS at the CMS web page.

Susan Essam, our Link Partner in Mission

Deaconess Susan C Essam Susan has been working in Jos since her arrival in Nigeria in December 1983. For some eight years Susan travelled widely, teaching and preaching and leading TEE (Theological Education by Extension). When the Rt. Rev Dr Benjamin A Kwashi was consecrated and enthroned in February 1992 as Bishop of Jos, he asked Susan to work with him. Under his leadership the church has taken on a new lease of life, and God can be seen working in and through his people in amazing ways.

Susan is the Bishop’s Administrative Chaplain and also finds herself involved in many aspects of church life including teaching, preaching, writing and editing. Music has come to the fore again in recent years and she is Director of Music at St Luke’s Cathedral, and Head of the School of Music at the Diocesan Christian Institute. Since February 2000 she has also been Acting Dean of the Christian Institute.

Susan was born and brought up in Northamptonshire. She read music and gained her teaching qualifications at Southampton University. On leaving University she taught in Norfolk. From there Susan went to Lincoln Theological College, and later worked in the Diocese of Worcester, becoming an ordained deaconess in 1980.

The CMS Link Scheme connects congregations in Britain with world-wide mission through a CMS Partner in Mission.  It brings British churches into closer partnership with churches in another culture.  It also brings the experiences of Christians of other cultures into our worship and witness here in Britain.

Through our link with Susan, we gain a greater understanding of God’s work in the Jos Diocese of Nigeria, a very different culture from the Diocese of Coventry!  We contribute to that work through prayer, letters and financial support.  We are challenged in our own mission and learn much from Susan and her colleagues through both Susan’s letters and her occasional visits to the parish.

The Rt. Rev Dr Benjamin A Kwashi is now Archbishop of Jos.