Editor’s Preface – This essay is the continuation of an ongoing memoir series by Bishop Graham Kings
Background
In 1980, as a curate at St Mark’s Harlesden, London, I heard a BBC Radio 4 interview with Jean Waddell. This British missionary had been taken hostage during the Iranian revolution and then released, through the work of Terry Waite, adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
In the interview, Jean recounted how she answered a knock at her door and, seeing three revolutionaries, invited them in for a cup of tea. She was tied up, interrogated, and finally shot. Church Missionary Society (CMS) colleagues Paul and Diana Hunt and their two small daughters lived in the flat below. Diana and the children came to take Jean on a picnic, but there was no response to their knock. A determined 3-year-old Rosemary continued to hammer on the door, finally to be met by the gunmen, who pushed the trio into the bathroom and fled. I learnt of these details from Rosemary, 35 years later.
But for this interruption, Jean may well not have survived. They left her lying on her bed, soaked in blood, shot through her lung. An Iranian surgeon saved her life. Inspired by her loyal heroism, faith and determination to forgive, Ali and I immediately joined CMS as members.
Call and Response
In 1983, we were considering our next move — whether to serve in Africa with CMS or in an inner-city London parish. We had a summer holiday staying with friends in Jersey. One evening, alone saying Evening Prayer in the local parish church, I was struck by the Old Testament lectionary reading, Genesis 12:1-6, the call of Abraham: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” It seemed to Ali and me that God was calling us too.
This was difficult for both our sets of parents, as we were planning to live in Africa for two tours of three years each, with six months in England in between. At first, I did not tell my parents that we really wanted to go, and merely stressed that we were answering what we believed to be the call of God. This was to avoid upsetting them by implying that we were happy to leave them, with the added consequence of their not seeing their grandchildren for a long time. My father and mother did not understand. Both were upset and angry — especially with CMS — and tried to dissuade us.
My training vicar, Terry Nottage, and his wife, Eve, invited Ali and me to lunch to discuss this. Over coffee Terry said, “You know what, Graham? I don’t think you’ll ever go.” That evening, I postponed my meetings for the next day and arranged to have time with my father and mother in Chigwell, northeast of London. I explained that God was not dragging us to Africa through a hedge backwards, but that we really wanted to go.
That changed everything. I never asked Terry whether he had deliberately provoked me, but his question proved crucial in transforming our relationship with my parents. Dad and Mum joined CMS as members, and during our seven years in Kenya, Dad would visit some of our link churches in Essex, showing our tape-slide presentations. It seemed like a replay of Dad’s reaction to me changing from law to theology after my first year at Oxford: resistance, then backing, which was fulfilled in commitment. Ali’s parents were also worried and troubled to think of us going so far away, especially with small children, but were actively supportive of us making our own decision.
Following interviews, and then a CMS weekend selection conference, we had a farewell service and party at St Mark’s Church. We sold or gave away almost all our furniture. Friends and family kept a few items for us.
Training
With Rosalind (three years) and Miriam (six weeks), we moved to the CMS training college, Crowther Hall, Selly Oak, Birmingham, for two terms, September 1984 to March 1985. Maurice Sinclair was the new principal and Paul Kybird and Joanna Cox the tutors.
Crowther Hall was part of the ecumenical federation of missionary training colleges in Selly Oak. Our courses included theology of mission, cultural studies, communication, and historical and geographical studies of particular continents. In private, I studied John V. Taylor’s CMS newsletters, written when he was General Secretary of CMS (1963-74). 16 years later, this provided background for my chapter “Mission and the Meeting of Faiths: Max Warren and John V. Taylor,” in the CMS bicentenary volume.
I enjoyed attending a seminar at the home of Walter Hollenweger, inaugural professor of mission at the University of Birmingham, and pioneer of studies of Pentecostalism. One of his doctoral students gave a paper on white working-class men in Erdington, a suburb of Birmingham, and how, although most did not attend church, many would pray to God. In 1997, I invited him to give the Henry Martyn Lectures at the University of Cambridge on “Pentecostalism: Promise and Problem.”
Looking at the desk of Lesslie Newbigin in the library of Selly Oak Colleges, I was amazed at the extraordinary range of philosophical, missiological, and ecumenical books. These were the foundation of his prolific writings at that time, on the gospel and Western culture, which have influenced me. We only met in January 1996, when he attended the opening of the Henry Martyn Mission Studies Library at Westminster College, Cambridge.
I met up with Roger Hooker, interfaith adviser in the Diocese of Birmingham. While serving with CMS at Varanasi, India, he had a weekly correspondence (1965-77) with his father-in-law, Max Warren, then a canon at Westminster and former General Secretary of CMS (1942-63). These letters formed the basis of my later Utrecht doctoral thesis and were published in 2002. I was intrigued by his concept of a “theology of loitering,” the key to getting to know people of other faiths in the parish by “hanging around and chatting.”
I played squash regularly with Christopher Lamb and learned of his depth of insights into interfaith relationships. Christopher was then coordinator of the Other Faiths Project of CMS and BCMS, and was also writing his Birmingham doctoral thesis, which was later published as The Call to Retrieval: Kenneth Cragg’s Christian Vocation to Islam (1996).
Most of all we learned from profound relationships with new friends and colleagues in training, especially Carole Fallows and Hilary Green. Forty years on, we still see them both regularly. Carole later trained teachers in Juba, Sudan, and would stay with us in Kenya on holiday. She married Mike Boardman and they both went to Pakistan with CMS. Hilary did not work in Nepal, as planned, but married Tim Naish and they worked with CMS in Zaire and then in Uganda.
Carole and Hilary were immersed in John V. Taylor’s The God-Between God: the Holy Spirit and Christian Mission (1972). They came to dinner at our house with Simon Barrington-Ward, general secretary of CMS. They asked Simon if he could arrange for us to meet Taylor, his predecessor. Carole, Hilary and I had a memorable tea with John in the Royal Commonwealth Club, London. It was a generative meeting, full of probing questions and fascinating answers which, typically, led to further ponderings. Many years later, in retirement, I coedited Exchange of Gifts: The Vision of Simon Barrington-Ward (2022) with Ian Randall.
Two possibilities arose for a location for us in Africa: a theological college in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and St. Andrew’s Institute for Theology and Development, Kabare, Kenya. We were relieved that CMS decided not to send our young family to Sierra Leone, which was in the middle of a civil war, and so Kabare became our vocational location. Ali and I met Dr. David Gitari, Bishop of Mount Kenya East, at CMS’s Partnership House, London, in early 1985, and were fascinated by his vision and wisdom.
Moving
We filled nine reconditioned oil drums with our goods and books — disposable nappies proved excellent packing materials — which were sent by ship to Mombasa. Paddy and Eleanor Benson, mission partners with the Bible Churchman’s Mission Society (now Crosslinks), had been teaching at St. Andrew’s since its foundation in 1978. By letter, we discovered that Eleanor’s mother, Nancy Silver, had taught Greek to Ali at Henrietta Barnet School, London. We visited Paddy’s parents in Derby before traveling.
Ali, Rosalind, Miriam, and I stayed with Ali’s parents in Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, over the long Christmas vacation and during the month of April, before flying to Kenya on May 5, 1985. Our farewell, at Heathrow Airport, with family and friends, was a mixture of sadness and the excitement of beckoning adventure.
