Dear Fr. Hayday, 

It was a great pleasure and inspiration to worship in your lovely parish in Manama.  St. Christopher’s I can see, is a special home away from home for Anglicans/Episcopalians living or traveling in the Gulf region.  Your parishioners greeted me with welcome and warmth – not the experience I had whilst visiting an Anglican parish in Rio de Janeiro a year or so ago.  I was met there with the true chill of a rainy English winter morning – on a blazing hot Brazilian morning. 

I am pleased to see that a Christian church and community appear to be welcome in Bahrain.  The cab driver ( a Muslim of course) that brought me to St. Christopher’s, not only knew the exact location of the parish, but also spoke warmly of the place of worship and asked us to pray for peace.  In fact, one of the greatest lessons I brought out of my Gulf travels was the confirmation in my mind, that the majority of the Muslim world is as much a kindly, loving, peaceful peoples as can be.  The American media (I can only hope that the British and Europeans do better) seem to only dwell on the bad, radical groups/factions and fail to report on these lovely, benevolent and Godly peoples. 

As promised, I forward to you the web links to my home parish in Washington, DC – also the Washington National Cathedral, our diocesan seat.  The links on these sites may be of interest to you and to any visitors from your region to the US.  I found your parish site via the “Anglicans Online” on our web site’s links page. 

Your parish will always remain in my prayers and I will request that St. Christopher’s be mentioned for prayer at the High Mass at my parish.

Warmly

Christopher L. Whittington
1301 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington DC