THE Rev Clare Challis will be the new priest-in-charge at Rowlands Castle – but there was a time she feared she’d never get back into parish ministry.

Clare has suffered with a chronic illness for the past few years, and had to resign her previous parish role back in 2019. But her story since the has been one of hope and healing. Bishop Jonathan has now appointed her to be the half-time priest-in-charge at St John’s Church.

She had woken up on Easter Sunday 2019, physically unable to get out of bed. She needed her Archdeacon to take over leading all the services that day instead at her Surrey church. Fortunately, she’d recruited him to be there a few days earlier – feeling that someone wasn’t quite right.

Within a few months she was having exploratory surgery, and was subsequently diagnosed with a chronic illness. She tried to recover her health but there was no going back to parish life.

“I had no choice but to resign,” she said. “I felt like Job in the Bible, I lost almost everything: my health, work, calling, church, finances, friends, and community.”

Clare, her husband Andrew and their cat Pickle moved back to Southampton, near to where she had served her curacy. Two weeks later, the first Covid lockdown began in March 2020.

“We were so glad that we’d moved back to Southampton,” she said. “God’s hand guiding us and his plan for the years ahead started to become clear.”

Andrew had previously come across a wood recycling project that helped unemployed people. He talked about it when Clare was studying theology in Oxford, but she wasn’t convinced at that stage.

Once Clare started her curacy in Southampton, Andrew got back in touch with the national wood recycling project, and it turned out they were waiting for someone to take charge of it in Southampton, Winchester and down to Bournemouth. So in 2013, Andrew set up Southampton Wood Recycling Project (SWRP), which saves wood and rescues people. It stops unwanted wood going to landfill, provides affordable timber and trains jobless people with new skills.

So, in Spring 2020, when Clare was wondering how to get back into employment, it turned out that the answer was in the project her husband had set up.

She said: “Here we were, many years later, and who needed saving from unemployment? Me! I was so broken by illness and lack of confidence, that – like many other people who are unemployed due to challenging circumstances – I too needed help getting back on the horse. SWRP was perfect, I started to volunteer a few days a week, it was exactly what I needed.

“As the impact of Covid started to affect the project, Andrew asked if I was ready to become staff, as he needed a Covid manager. I agreed, and so my slow journey back into paid employment began. At other times I also took on being workshop manager, and volunteers manager, and now finally assistant director.

“All the time, I was working to improve my health and confidence. I’d tried everything I could to restore my health but was eventually advised that the only solution would be major surgery. So in June of this year I underwent a surgical procedure that has finally restored me to good health. Hooray!

“I’ve been chronically sick for many years and I’ve wondered what I’ve learnt from all this. For me there has always been one word that comes to mind: hope. I’ve learnt about hope! Not the wishy-washy type of ‘I hope you feel better soon!’ but real, deep, practical, Christian hope that knows with certainly and beyond a doubt that whatever is wrong will not have the last word.

“At SWRP our staff are ‘walking stories of hope’, who demonstrate to those in need what it can look like to overcome challenges that hinder employment and thrive even during difficult times.

“Those from my last parish will know that the song ‘Chandelier’ by singer Sia is significant to me:

I'm gonna swing from the chandelier
I'm gonna live like tomorrow doesn't exist
I'm gonna fly like a bird through the night
Feel my tears as they dry
I'm gonna swing from the chandelier

“We can fly even during dark days… every morning my watch tells me these words ‘Hope is Powerful’. It is not wrong!

“And so with renewed health and a heart filled with hope, I’m excited to be called back into parish ministry, serving in Portsmouth diocese with the church and community of the beautiful village of Rowlands Castle.”

Clare will be licensed by Bishop Jonathan as the 0.5 priest-in-charge of Rowlands Castle on February 24.