Year with Andrew White

After training in surgery and anaesthetics at St. Thomas’ Hospital, London, Canon White trained for ordination at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, and studied Judaism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1998 he became Director of the International Centre for Reconciliation at Coventry Cathedral. He was also appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury’s ‘Special Envoy to the Middle East’.Canon White has been extensively engaged in high level conflict resolution. He initiated and led negotiations during the 2002 Siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and helped to draft the First Alexandria Declaration of the Religious Leaders of the Holy Land, bringing together Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religious and political leaders. In 2005 he set up The Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East.From 1998 to 2014 Canon White served as vicar of St George’s Church in Baghdad – which, under his leadership, became one of the largest and most dynamic Anglican congregations in the Middle East. The church also provided a medical clinic and extensive humanitarian aid.In November 2014, because of increasing terrorism, the Archbishop of Canterbury ordered him to leave Baghdad. During this time of intense persecution, most of his several-thousand-member Iraqi congregation (as well as many Iraqi citizens) fled to Jordan as refugees. Jerusalem MERIT, of which Canon White is the ambassador, seeks to provide for their financial, medical, educational and spiritual needs.

A Year with Andrew White is not a book of "feel good" meditations. Canon White takes us into the real world. Having spent most of his life ministering and being a peace negotiator in the Middle East (especially Bagdad and Jerusalem) he makes us readers face the horrific truths of a suffering world which includes kidnapping and terrorism. A world that is almost unrecognisable to readers in the comfortable West. With each daily meditation throughout the year Andrew White confronts us with the sadnesses and pain that is part of the daily life in the Middle East. However, Andrew White insists that "the true solution to pain, destruction and death is love." This book is therefore one that will bring comfort, healing, encouragement and hope to his readers.