Dear Rosemary, Esther and family; and our dear sister Caroline,
I grieve Patrick’s sudden departure. A reality I am still grappling with. We give thanks to God for the life, the suffering, and the witness of our brother, whose friend I was privileged to be. For more than three decades of partnership in the Lord’s service, we became reliant on each other, and he fondly called me his younger brother.
We pray God to lead us, too, through his discipleship from this world into His heavenly kingdom. May God fulfil in us that other word with which Dietrich Bonhoefer concluded his obituary of Harnack: ‘non potest non laetari qui sperat in Dominum’- ‘while in God confiding I cannot but rejoice.’”
Blessings,
+Francis
Bishop Anglican Diocese of Garissa.