Elizabeth Welch discovers what Nauru, one of the world’s smallest countries, has to teach the UK Church

In September, together with my husband and my brother, I paid an amazing visit to the world’s third smallest country, Nauru, one of the Pacific islands. My father, Clifford Welch (1910-1989), was sent by the London Missionary Society to work in Nauru in his mid-20s, well before he met my mother.

Our visit introduced me to the growth that is possible for the Christian faith, and the example that a small country can offer the wider world, in terms of hospitality, friendliness, and faith.

My father arrived in 1936, but left in 1941 in the face of the Japanese invasion, and moved to work in New Zealand until the late 1940s, when he returned to England and met my mother.

Nauru is a tiny island, with a population of around 16,000. More than 80% of the population are Christians, and the largest Church, encompassing three-quarters of them, is the Nauru Congregational Church, in which my father served. The second largest Church is the Roman Catholic Church…

Elizabeth Welch is a semi-retired minister and Chair of the Society for Ecumenical Studies

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This is an extract from an article published in the February 2024 edition of Reform

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