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Brechin-Iowa-Swaziland: Walking together in companionship

Every Sunday friends on three continents pray for each other. They have done so for nearly 20 years as partners in a three-way companion relationship that brings together the dioceses of Brechin in Scotland, Swaziland in Africa and Iowa in the United States. The places and people on the Joint Intercessory Prayer List become real as companions visit one another in Dundee, Mbabane, and Des Moines.

The Scots and Iowans were already partners when Walter Righter, then Bishop of Iowa, and Edward "Ted" Luscombe of Brechin met Bernard Mhkabela of Swaziland at the Lambeth Conference in 1988. A three-way partnership took shape with emphasis on person-to-person contact, laypeople as well as clergy. Arrangements were finalized the following year when the three bishops visited Des Moines for the consecration of C. Christopher Epting as Bishop of Iowa. The partnership was reaffirmed in 2004 when Bishop Alan Scarfe succeeded Epting with new bishops from Brechin and Swaziland participating.

Full story at Episcopal Life.