Keeping links strong with the diocese of Albany
A group of seven made the trip to the 2014 Albany Diocesan Convention back in June – Bishop Harold and his wife Liz, Archdeacon Roderic West of Seapatrick, Banbridge, and his wife Joan, David Palmer, Rector of Magherally & Annaclone and his wife Lorna, and Jenny Smith from CMS Ireland.
Revd David Palmer shares his experiences…
Most of the party flew from Belfast International to Newark Airport on 3rd June, returning the following week. For Lorna and me the arrangements were slightly different as our hosts were Revd Tom and Judith Malionek who lived in Washington DC, much further south, and so we left a day earlier. We knew Tom and Judith as we had hosted them for a week in Magherally as part of the reciprocal arrangement.
Lorna and I arrived in Washington late Monday evening and were met by Tom and driven to their house, where we stayed for a few days. We mixed sightseeing of the city with a visit to their Church of the Redeemer, Chevy Chase, where Tom is the Associate Rector, for a midweek service and a tour around the very large and amazingly well–equipped church premises (they have an in–house chef and florist!)
On Thursday Tom, David and Lorna drove all the way up to the beautiful Albany Diocesan Retreat Centre, about a nine hour drive, where we stayed overnight. The following morning we drove to the Camp–in–the–Woods, Speculator, (pictured above right) in the north of New York State where we met up with the other members of our party.
The Diocesan Conference encourages clergy and lay people to bring families and so is held in a beautiful lakeside camp. The very full programme included worship times, seminars and meetings. Bishops Harold Miller and Darren McCartney both preached at the main worship sessions, being enthusiastically received by those present, and also gave seminars about the dioceses of Down & Dromore and the Arctic. Jenny Smith also spoke about the work of CMS and Karen McCartney spoke about living in the Arctic.
Personally, I led Morning Prayer on Saturday morning. All of the sessions were inspiring and most interesting with hundreds present at all times. There was a large youth contingent who had a parallel programme but joined us in the final worship session. They certainly livened things up. Singing ‘These are the days of Elijah’ without the actions will never quite seem the same again!
It was also very interesting to relax and talk with Albany diocese folk, and with Bishop Bill Love and to find out about life in their churches. This, of course, was helped by the presence of ‘The Tepee’ which had an inexhaustible supply of free doughnuts (sorry, donuts) and coffee.
After the Diocesan event we had time to meet local clergy and made our way back to New York for the return flight home. In our case, Lorna and I stopped off in the city of Glens Falls where I gave a talk in an outreach service designed for ‘transients’ on Sunday afternoon: basically people with housing and/or other problems. There were about 50–60 present and we had a time of singing, a short talk followed by Holy Communion and we then shared a meal. Lorna and I were able to sit and talk with some and found that although many had very real problems in their lives they nevertheless had a real faith in Jesus. After the service they were able to access five items from the food bank donated by church members. We found the service very moving.
Finally, we found ourselves in New York with a few hours for sightseeing and then onto the night flight home.