“Safari” is the Swahili word for ‘journey’, and the prayer safari started three years ago. Initially, the most intrepid participants were encouraged to walk between all of the circuit’s ten Methodist and united churches in a single day (though there was a minibus to cover the longest hop). As the westernmost church at Virginia Water is some ten miles from the eastern extremities of the circuit in Feltham this was a physical as well as a spiritual challenge for some, particularly in temperatures of 30 Celsius in 2006, followed by monsoon-like conditions the following year!

Each year, there has been a pause for prayer at each of the churches visited, to bring before God the needs, activities and aspirations of that congregation and their community. The jigsaw idea complemented this in 2007, when each congregation filled a large piece of cardboard shaped like a jigsaw piece with a collage of their church’s life and activities. When the puzzle was completed- at the end of the safari at Laleham Methodist Church- it then made its way round each church for a month at a time so that the congregations could take a closer look at what their fellow Christians were doing elsewhere in the area, while on the reverse of the puzzle piece a prayer for each church allowed an opportunity to pray for them regularly.

For 2008, it was decided to rest the Prayer Safari idea, to encourage participation in ecumenical, Hope 2008 events, but the jigsaw has certainly attracted a great deal of interest and attention”