A letter from Fred & Coralie Pole who were very active members of our congregation for a number of years before Fred’s retirement to the UK in 1997.

[In above photo Fred is in centre of back row and Coralie on right of front row beside Rev'd Victor Salve - our apologies for the poor quality of the picture!}

“St Christopher's will always have a special place in our hearts. Both of us were brought up in Christian families, going to church sponsored activities. We never quite lost the habit of 'church' as our family grew up in a church sponsored atmosphere, but we were not quite as 'church centred' as we each were when young. It was at St. Christopher's that our faith was re-kindled from a small spark to a flame so that 'church' became an important part of our lives.

The biggest change to our lives came from the time when the Faith Alive Team spent a weekend with the church. Until then we had not fully realised that we needed to have a personal relationship with Our Lord and that was His offer to us. Faith Alive is an American organisation dedicated to revitalising Christian groups and they had been asked to come out to Bahrain to share their faith with us.

That weekend changed both of us a great deal, as we committed ourselves to The Lord and became full of the Holy Spirit; as one of the Team put it, "I had been doing churchy things all my life but now I am a Christian". After this, Bible study and prayer became important. A prayer group was started up, and before the weekly meeting we went to Compline in the Cathedral. This was a wonderful time of prayer and fellowship. Later on, we were asked to join the Ecumenical Conference of Charity where we felt we were being used to do God's work in a very practical sense. 

Another aspect of St Christopher's which we recall with great fondness was the fellowship we had with people from all over the world.  

We truly were an Anglican community and not ‘Church of England’. In addition we got to know people from other denominations and other ethnic backgrounds, so we felt part of an even greater Christian community. The lessons we learnt then have stayed with us, because where we live now, in King's Lynn, England, there are a lot of asylum seekers and refugees, and we have been able to put those lessons to good use.”