Students visit college in Sudan
31 March 2010
This Easter a group of students and staff from Trinity is going to Sudan to visit a newly re-opened theological college.
Six of our students training in context (in the J18 team), including the tutor, Dr Eeva John who has worked in Sudan, and Revd Jenny Lowe, the context supervisor, are visiting Bishop Gwynne College in South Sudan in order to learn about the situation of the church in a country that is just emerging from a long and devastating civil war that resulted in the death of millions of its people.
Bishop Gwynne College is one of five Anglican training colleges in South Sudan. It survived the decades of civil war by moving to the capital, Juba, but was eventually closed last year. It has now been re-opened with 15 students; all of them are ordained.
The visit is being facilitated by Revd Trevor Stubbs (right in photo above) and his wife Tina who were sent out by the Salisbury Diocese Sudan Link to help re-establish the college. The Trinity group aims to give encouragement as well as practical help. The Trinity community helped to raise money for books for the library which is being restocked; the Trinity group took 100 volumes out with them.
Other groups will be involved in outreach and visits over Easter to widen their experience:
• Church missions in Dorset and Gloucestershire.
• A 10-day study tour of the Holy Land led by Dr Gordon Wenham.
• A long weekend in Amsterdam (organized by a current student who was in Christian work there before coming to Trinity), to observe a variety of cross-cultural ministries including the Anglican chaplaincy. [This did not in fact take place, owing to the grounding of planes after the Icelandic eruption.]
• Ministry in Horfield Prison in Bristol, working closely with the chaplain Revd David Powe, visiting inmates and helping to lead chapel services and Bible studies.