Citizenlink - Jan 2005
|
|
Citizenlink - Jan 2005
|
|
A friendly face about the place
Selby District Council has its very own Industrial
Chaplain. Linking Church, community and workplace, the Reverend Jonas
Mdumulla offers spiritual ministry, practical support, advocacy and counselling
to staff, managers and councillors alike. He opens some Full Council
meetings with prayers, attends the annual Civic Service and provides ethical,
moral and spiritual guidance to both our senior managers and local politicans.
The Reverend Jonas was called out from his theological studies in Africa by the Church Missionary Society just over two decades ago. He travelled thousands of miles with his young family from tropical Tanzania to a cold, grey and wintry Britain to tend to the needs of deprived urban communities in North Hull. However, he longed to get back to his rural roots and eagerly accepted the position of Vicar at the country Church of St Peter and St Paul in Drax back in 1996. The Reverend Jonas deftly puts creation theology into practice by balancing the particular needs of the farming, mining, local authority and power generation communities with those of his parishioners in Carlton, Camblesforth, Newland, Hirst Courtney, Drax and Long Drax. Particular challenges for the Church recently have been the catastrophic floods, the Selby train crash and the recent ragic deaths in Camblesforth. However, the Reverend is reassuringly optimistic about the future of the District and its Council, advises the Archbishop of York on ethnic relations in Britian and always manages to be a friendly face about the place. |
