Since the early 1990's, Didcot Baptist Church has been seeking to develop a partnership for mutual support and encouragement with the small Baptist fellowship of El Cordero de Dios in El Salvador.
Our interest in El Salvador followed a challenge made by former BMS mission personal David and Rachel Quinney Mee at BMS General Committee. Our former Senior Pastor Jeff Taylor was a member of General Committee at the time and we decided to pursue David and Rachel’s challenge for British Baptist churches to set up twinning links/ partnerships with churches beyond Europe.
Follow initial discussions with David and Rachel, it was agreed that we would seek to develop a meaningful relationship with El Cordero de Dios Baptist Church, the church with which David and Rachel were closely linked during their service as BMS mission personal in El Salvador. In the early 1990’s we were visited by the then Pastor of El Cordero de Dios in order to explore the possibilities but soon after that visit, Ben left the church and that caused a slight delay in setting up a formal partnership link.
In 1996 we were able to send a small delegation to visit El Cordero de Dios (Keith Nichols, Angela Harding and Michael Quantick). This was seen as an awareness visit to establish relationships and explore how we could develop a meaningful partnership. We were greatly aided in that visit by David and Rachel Quinney Mee, who acted as guides, drivers and translators. Following that visit Didcot Baptist Church and El Cordero de Dios entered into a formal relationship agreement.
That was followed by a return visit by Tito (the church pastor) and three other members of the church in November 1998.
We were invited to send an observer for the El Salvador elections in March 1999 and in response to that invitation Matthew Taboda was able to travel to El Salvador and join a delegation of observers for the election process as well as visit the church at El Cordero.
In December 2002 we sent a church team which consisted of seven members of Didcot Baptist and three from Frampton Park Baptist Church, to help to lead children’s holiday club missions in the San Pedro community and in San Miguel. (see below)
We were then able to invite a delegation for El Salvador to visit the UK in July 2005, when they were able to share in the SID (Soul in Didcot) programme before sharing with members of Didcot Baptist Church in the BWA Congress in Birmingham.