The Bishop of the Diocese Northeastern Caribbean and Aruba, the Right Reverend Errol Brooks, and Mrs. Brooks were hosts this week at St. Mary’s Rectory to the Reverend John Schild, a Parish Priest in the Diocese of St. Albans in England. He is also serving with the World Office of the Church of England building companionship links with other parts of the Anglican community. “My responsibility has been to build up links with the Province of the West Indies and, in particular, with the Diocese of the Northeastern Caribbean and Aruba as well as with the Dioceses of Jamaica, the Windward Islands, Guyana and Belize,” he said.

He explained that some of the reasons for the establishment of the links were the large number of people of West Indian extraction living in such English towns as Luton, Bedford and Watford; that the same language was being spoken and that tourism had made international travel to this part of the world reasonably inexpensive and also that it was difficult to escape the implications of the shared history of slavery. “Those who responded positively at the time to the partnership links were the Diocese of the Northeastern Caribbean and Aruba, Guyana and Jamaica,” he said. “From about ten years ago I became the leader of the Caribbean Links Group which meant that I had overall responsibility to build the sense of partnership and to see what could be done to increase our awareness of each other…”

Since the forging of the partnerships there were a number of disasters in the Caribbean region. The first one he was involved in was Hurricane Luis in 1995 which devastated Antigua, Anguilla and St.Martin/St.Maarten. He visited the islands, took photographs of the devastation and returned to England where some forty thousand pounds sterling was raised for re-development and relief work in the islands. Later he visited Montserrat following the eruption of the volcano there and was able to obtain a considerable about of relief assistance for that island.

Reverend Schild said that a few years ago he received a letter from Bishop Brooks, as his commissary in the United Kingdom, making the point that relief after a disaster had struck was not always the most appropriate way of giving aid. The Bishop asked whether the Diocese of St. Albans and the World Church Office could be committed to a programme of anticipating disasters and being more ready when they struck. Reverend Schild said that eventually his Diocese was able to form a partnership with Christian Aid and the Caribbean Conference of Churches.

Out of that came the evolvement of a programme of disaster mitigation in the Province of the West Indies as a whole but particularly focused in the more vulnerable areas of the Eastern Caribbean. He was pleased that it was possible to fund the setting up of a pilot project in Anguilla and Antigua to enable the local community to be more prepared and better equipped for the onslaught of natural disaster strikes. It is understood that the programme in Anguilla is functioning well.
Reverend Schild is one of two commissaries who act on behalf of Bishop Brooks in St. Albans Diocese and the World Office of the Church of England. He is retiring as Parish Priest in the summer of this year but will continue working as commissary to Bishop Brooks.
The English Priest originally worked as a trained physicist and development engineer and spent some ten of years developing scientific instruments. He then decided that it was enough and responded “to a sense of calling to the priesthood” in which he has been serving for the 35 years” and has found much fulfillment.
One of the reasons for his visit to the area was to determine whether after his retirement he and his wife could have a role to play in serving the Diocese of the Northeastern Caribbean and Aruba in some way when they have a greater freedom to do so.

Rev. John Schild

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