Texas
Bishop Stephen Bayne, the first Chief Executive of the Anglican Communion, initiated MRI (Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence) in 1962 and suggested to John Hine Bishop of Texas that Nyasaland might be a possible partner. In January 1963 we stayed with the bishop, who had taken an uncompromising position on racial equality.
Diocesan Convention
We arrived just as their Convention began. John’s stance on racial issues had provoked stormy opposition. I was on the floor with convention members and found myself in the centre of a small group of very angry laymen advancing on John and chanting, “You communist! You Communist!”. After that, I wondered how people would react to the proposal that the dioceses of Texas and Nyasaland enter into a companion relationship. After introducing the motion John invited others and me to speak, after some discussion there was a unanimous vote for a companion diocese partnership for the next three years.
First time
I believe this was the first time that any American diocese had formed a companionship outside the ‘Jurisdiction’. Such links were for three years and could be renewed once only. It brought an immediate grant, backed and doubled by ECUSA (Episcopal Church of USA) headquarters in New York, which enabled us to wipe off past debts and to move the Diocesan Office from Mponda’s to Malosa.
The three years grew to twelve and, in an unofficial way, the friendship still exists 40 years later. The real credit for the companionship getting off to a good start goes to a priest, George Carlisle, secretary to the link, and to Milton Richardson, the Suffragan Bishop who made Malawi his special cause, and who later became Diocesan Bishop. They both visited Malawi.
Renewing the link
The renewing of the companion diocese link coincided with the creation of the new Diocese of Lake Malawi in 1971 comprising the Central and Northern Regions, and the ECUSA allowed a new link to be formed with them. Somehow, this continued until the early 1980s. The Diocese of Texas underwrote the building of a new diocesan centre in Lilongwe, which had become the capital of Malawi in 1972. They rightly felt that the diocesan bishop should not have his headquarters one hundred and twenty miles from the capital.
A Texan on the Lakeshore
In November 1963 at Nkhotakota we were joined by George Carlisle, the new Malawi secretary for the Diocese of Texas and chaplain to the NASA space station near Houston. I had met him in Texas and now he had been given the job he longed for. George was a heavy weight in every sense and I warned him that the parishes we would be visiting involved considerable walking but he was determined to come. We travelled to the Bua River in a pick-up and crossed over in canoes.
The next twenty miles – and back again – would be on foot. By mid-morning the group had split into small parties and someone came running up to say, “The bwana from America has collapsed!” We rushed back a quarter of a mile and there was George on the ground with three or four people fanning him hats and grass. I was beginning to think this was the end of the Texas link when one of our party arrived with a cup of tea. By an extraordinary chance, someone had started a tea-shop on this path. We were perhaps the first outsiders to use it. The tea restored George, but he looked relieved when I suggested he should go back at his own pace and cross over the Bua to Nkhotakota where we would meet up again in a few days. George dined out on the story back in Texas and became a dedicated promoter of the Malawi cause, doing much to help the new diocese of Lake Malawi.
Birmingham
Our link with Birmingham, where Leonard Wilson had been Bishop since 1953 was a creative one for both dioceses. Most valuable of all was the wisdom and experience and the new ideas that poured out of Leonard whose deep personal faith was often at odds with authority. In 1953, when the question of a Central Africa Federation was at the forefront of colonial policy, he chaired a meeting at which Dr Hastings Banda and Michael Scott, a doughty if sometimes erratic champion of African rights, had been the main speakers. Geoffrey Fisher, then Archbishop of Canterbury, rapped him over the knuckles for doing so. Leonard’s interest in Nyasaland continued from then on.
As a result of Leonard’s interest in Nyasaland, John Parslow a priest born in
Birmingham arrived at St Paul’s church in Blantyre in 1960. John had an instinctive love for everyone and always responded gracefully when I asked him to move to parishes that needed special care and understanding. He died in Malawi in 1995 after thirty -five years of dedicated service there.
Leonard’s daughter Susan Cole King attended her father’s meeting with Dr Banda in 1953 and later met him in London when he was practicing there as a doctor. These meetings resulted in Susan training as a doctor and arriving in Malawi with her family in 1964 to work in the government health service. Susan and her family often stayed with us at Malosa.
Bishop Wilson visits Malawi
Leonard and his wife Mary visited Malawi in early 1965 to stay with Susan.
Leonard was wondering whether to establish a companion diocese partnership between Birmingham and Malawi and asked me to show him around the diocese. Together we visited several of the lakeshore centres.
While they were with us informal discussions were held with members of the Diocesan Standing Committee about a possible companion diocese partnership.
Soon afterwards came an invitation to stay with him and Mary. We stayed with them for two weeks of almost non-stop meetings, visiting schools and colleges in the daytime and spending each evening with a parish or deanery meeting.
Partnership agreed
In June 1966 the Birmingham Diocesan Conference unanimously agreed to form a companion diocese partnership with Malawi and set up a committee to develop the partnership.
One immediate result of our partnership was a grant of £5,000 from Birmingham to SPCK, publishers throughout the world, to set up a CLAIM (Christian Literature Association in Malawi) a Christian book distribution network in Malawi known as Mabuku (books). The Catholics had two printing presses in the southern Region alone; CCAP one in the central Region and ourselves had nothing. Maxwell, Zingani, our Literature Secretary, had devised a box which displayed whatever we had – mostly New Testaments and Bibles – which I took with me wherever I went. My driver – often a Muslim – was an enthusiastic salesman. But we had little to offer. Now there was a challenge to set up Christian bookshops in the major centres and to find authors who could speak to literate young people. This was followed by another £5,000 to build a church at Biwi – a traditional housing area on the southern edge of Lilongwe, which was to be the new capital of Malawi.
Leonard Brown succeeded Leonard Wilson as bishop and was equally involved in the Malawi link and equally forward looking. Ecclesia reprinted part of a letter to his diocese, suggesting topics for house-groups, their answers to be passed on to Synod members: “Do you wish to see women as priests and bishops? Should divorcees be entitled to remarry in church? At what age should children be admitted to communion? Is confirmation essential at that stage? Can the Church still afford full-time paid clergy? How should voluntary priests be trained? These were new and relevant questions for both sides of the partnership.
Strengths of partnership
The lasting strength of the ongoing partnership has been developing personal relationships with Malawians visiting Birmingham, several studying at the ecumenical Selly Oak Colleges and people from Birmingham visiting and coming to work in Malawi, including John Workman in 1980 as treasurer of the Anglican Council in Malawi. Forty-two years later it is stronger than ever. (editor: celebrations were held in 2016 for the 50th anniversary.)