First World Church Fellow arrives

18 September 2009

We are delighted to welcome our first World Church Fellow, the Venerable Eddie Ong from Malaysia.

We are planning regularly to invite church leaders from around the world as World Church Fellows, to join in our life at Trinity and to share with us something of the church in their country, as well as contribute any specialist academic expertise that they have. At the same time their stay with us will give them the opportunity for rest and reflection.

Eddie Ong is Archdeacon of Kuala Lumpur and Selangor in the Upper Central Archdeaconry in the Anglican Diocese of West Malaysia and pastor of the largest church in West Malaysia, St Paul's Petaling Jaya. The church has eight services on a normal Sunday, four in Englsh, one in Bahasa Malaysia, one in Tamil, one in Mandarin and one in Burmese. His wife Ruth is a deaconness in the diocese.

He is with us for three months; we look forward to getting to know him and learning from him, hearing about his experiences in the Asian church, including those of of cross-cultural mission in a predominantly Muslim country.

He hopes to spend his time in England, away from the pressures of his very busy church life, reading and studying the Bible (at least five chapters each day), seeking God as he reflects on his 26 years of ministry, and reflecting on his role as a husband and father.

We are refurbishing a house next to the college so that we can provide suitable hospitality for our World Church Fellows; it has been named Henry Martyn House after the pioneer missionary and translator.

Eddie Ong is leading a Study Day at Trinity on 17 November on 'Developing Missional Leadership'. This is open to everyone.

Our next World Church Fellows will be the Venerable Geoffrey Molokwu, Rector of Trinity Theological College,Umuahia, Nigeria (November), and Dr Atul Aghamkar of SAIACS (the South Asia Institute of Advanced Theological Studies), Bangalore, India, an urban missiologist (January).