HISTORY

33 visits covering over 2 years of time are almost impossible to condense in to a web page, so a lot of this will be chronological.

Pat made her first visit to India in 1990 as part of a YMCA delegation

However, the "story" started long before that - when she was 9 years old. Pat attended St. John the Baptist Church in Bathwick, Bath and it was there that she heard a missionary from India speaking, and felt a definite sense of calling to do the same thing. She actually wrote to the then Bishop of Bath and Wells, who invited Pat and her mother to tea and told Pat that she should become a nurse. That was the plan throughout her childhood. However, as a child she was afflicted by Stills Disease and spent several months in hospital. With a bad medical record it was difficult to find a hospital to accept her for training but she eventually joined the Queen Alexandra Nursing Corp (shortly after enlistment she was on parade for Winston Churchill's funeral). After training she applied to the Church Missionary Society, was accepted (and it was still India in her heart), but, just before she was due to start training a severe flare up of her illness put her in hospital for several months again, at the end of which she was considered too weak to go to the CMS college and India and even to continue nursing. After a spell as a hospice counsellor she moved to Norfolk to work as Assistant Entertainments Manager in a holiday camp (where she played trumpet with the dance band and acted as MC for dances). Pat met and married Brian and applied for Deaconess training in the Anglican Church and India seemed a dream too far. After qualifying Pat worked for 7 years as a Chaplain at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital and left to work for one year with Norwich YMCA as a care training tutor. Within months of starting her work she was asked if she would like to be part of a YMCA delegation to investigate a proposed project in…… India!!