THERE has been a friendly American invasion within Ryde – as part of a project to rejuvenate local C of E churches.

Six Christians from the US state of Georgia are now living in a vicarage in the town, and getting involved with local churches and communities.

Married couple Ashton and Cody Wood are heading up a team of young believers who have relocated to the Isle of Wight to help make a difference. The four young people they are leading aim to kickstart a project to increase congregation sizes and engage more effectively with the community.

The interns are all part of the ‘Ministry Development Year’, which enables young Christians to get a taste of working with a church as they consider it as a possible future career. It also involves them studying some theology together and learning about living in community. They arrived in November and will be on the island until August.

It’s all part of the project to rejuvenate the five Church of England churches in and around Ryde, which includes creating several brand new congregations and expanding their work with schools and community groups.

Makensley Wyatt, aged 19, is focussing on working with children and their parents in her Ministry Development Year. She’s involved with the weekly toddler group at All Saints Church, and its Sunday groups for children.

She said: “God’s definitely calling me to something, but I’m not sure what. I have worked in a nursery in the States with eight and nine-year-olds, so it’s not new to me. I’m really enjoying it.”

Alec Mumpower, also 19, is involved with the production and technology side of church life, including livestreaming services, and handling images, video and audio-visuals. He said: “Anything tech-related comes to me. I’m getting a lot out of it, and I want to continue doing this kind of thing.”

Hannah Sansot, aged 22, is involved with the administrative side of ministry and also with young people via a partnership with Youth For Christ. She serves at a lunch club each week and leads Youth Alpha in Ryde School every Friday.

“I feel really passionate about working with 11-14 year old students,” she said. “My hope is to show them the importance of a relationship with Christ and encourage them that even though the world is broken, they can be whole in Him.”

And 19-year-old Joseph Sosebee has got involved with the church’s social justice programme, which includes its work to help women in refuges who have suffered from sex trafficking or domestic abuse.

“I’ve discovered that my passion is to help people who can’t easily help themselves, and it’s amazing to be involved in this kind of thing on the Isle of Wight,” he said. “The more I’m involved, the more I realise that I feel called to do this.

Ashton and Cody Wood head up this team as the Ministry Development Year co-ordinators, and the six of them all live together near St Michael’s Church in Ryde. The couple teach the four interns about theology and spirituality, and also help them to understand about living in community. It has been described as a ‘modern monastic community’ as they eat, pray and learn together.

“Part of our role is to lead and guide the interns spiritually and practically,” said Ashton. “That means introducing them to a rhythm of prayer throughout the day, and helping them to develop life-skills in cooking, cleaning, budgeting and so on.

“This is the first year that we’ve done this, and we recruited Makensley, Alex, Hannah and Joseph through personal links we had. Next year, of course, the scheme will be open to anyone aged 18 to 30 – not just those from the United States. And there’s also the possibility that one or more of this year’s interns could do a second year.”