Bishop leading mission to Pakistan

The week-long trip is the culmination of two years work to build bridges between the faiths both at home in West Yorkshire and in Pakistan following a Foreign Office funded peace mission that brought three imams, three priests, three police officers and three lawyers from Gojra on a fact-finding tour in the Diocese of Wakefield to learn from their English counterparts about justice, policing and interfaith relations.

This mission to Pakistan, which is called New Horizons, was organised by the Bishop of Pontefract, Tony Robinson and Canon Yaqub Masih, a lay canon at Wakefield Cathedral and a Pakistan-born Christian from Huddersfield.

It was backed by the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, and culminated in a pledge between these two far flung corners of the world to work together to provide clean water for Gojra as a common project that could unite the faiths and improve relations between Muslims and Christians.

And this week Bishop Tony and Yaqub will fly out to Gojra to lay the foundation stones with the Governor of the Punjab and see the start of the interfaith project to provide clean water for the 3,000 people living locally.

Bishop Tony said he was looking forward to going back, meeting old friends and talking about such a good news story.

“I am excited to be going back to meet friends in the town of Gojra and to continue the important work that we began many years ago.”

He added: “The laying of the foundation stones for the water filtration plants will benefit Christians and Muslims in that town and they will know that it is their brothers and sisters in Britain both Christian and Muslim – who have raised the funds to give them clean drinking water.

“This is a good news story and one we need to keep telling in all the places where there is tension between different groups, different faiths and different cultures,” he said.

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