At a service in Chrishall church on 26th July, led by the Bishop of Chelmsford, the Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell and the Archdeacon of Stansted, The Venerable Robin King, The Revd Dr Anand Sodadasi was installed as Rector of The Parish of The Icknield Way Villages.
Anand and his wife Shailaja come from Andhra Pradesh, South India, where they trained theologically and worked for 12 years as full time ministers. Anand was ordained as a priest in his Indian diocese in 2001 and both taught in a theological college for 5 years, training the ordinands. Anand went to Oxford in 2004 to do a Ph.D and the family joined him soon after. He worked as a Duty Priest in the Diocese of Oxford, while the children Stephen and Serena completed secondary schooling. Then they moved to the Borderlink Parishes, Hereford where Anand has been Rector for 7 years.
Shailaja trained as a dispenser and worked in a pharmacy, while volunteering in the chaplaincy department of Hereford Hospital before being licensed as a Reader for the Borderlink Parishes.
