We are delighted to welcome John and Hazel Reese from the UK as they join our community in September. John will be serving as our Chaplain until the end of May, and we look forward the many gifts they will bring to our community of hospitality and pilgrimage.

John has prepared the following account of the journey which now brings them to Jerusalem …

I was born and brought to faith in Birmingham. After my ordination in the Diocese of Worcester in 1976, Hazel (a Londoner) and I were introduced by my training vicar and we married in 1977. Our bishop encouraged us to consider service overseas and we served in the Diocese of West Malaysia for three years. Having arrived with one daughter, Hannah, we left with two following the birth of Julia.

Invited to serve in the Diocese of Hereford, we began 29 very happy years there. Hazel moved from nursing into Health Service Management, having a varied and fulfilling career, and I was vicar of parishes in rural Shropshire and the city of Hereford. I also served as Area Dean, Chairman of the House of Clergy and on General Synod.

Following retirement in 2014 we were privileged to visit Israel/Palestine on a Church Mission Society study tour. Thanks to the people we met, this was a profound experience that deepened and enlivened our faith.

We now live in Leamington Spa in the Diocese of Coventry and so do Hannah, Julia and her husband Jon! Hazel is a Lay Chaplain at Warwick Hospital and I have been ministering in the church where worship, in other local parishes, and as a part-time chaplain at Coventry Cathedral.

A seemingly chance conversation at a Friends of the Holy Land meeting led us to explore the possibility of coming to St George’s College. We saw an opportunity to show solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Christ in Israel/Palestine. We consider it a privilege to be invited among you for a while to live, pray, reflect and learn with others from around the world in that place where all the narratives of the human story converged on one Man, whose death and resurrection brings hope to our broken and divided world, the Good News to be shared by us all in every land.