Tomorrow I am flying out to Kuala Lumpur to begin a three week visit to our companion Dioceses of West Malaysia (the area sometimes called Peninsular Malaysia, south of Thailand), Kuching and Sabah (both part of the island of Borneo).

My brief is to assist in devising a programme for a two day conference later in the year, timed to take place just before the Archbishop’s Lambeth Conference.  The conference I am involved in organizing will draw together something like 70 delegates from our own Diocese and 70 delegates from our companion Dioceses.  Most of the latter will be from Malaysia, but some will also be from Qu’Appelle in Canada, from Matsolane in South Africa and Mecklenburg in Germany.  This ‘Cross Talk’ conference is intended to help us to discern what we can learn from each other about our shared mission, about the work to which we have been called by God the Father, in God the Son, by God the Holy Spirit.