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Easter. It's the biggest weekend on the Christian calendar, but the church buildings are closed thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. Clergy across the world are adapting and meeting their congregations online. But why's COVID-19 happening, or more specifically, why's God letting it happen? It's a question that all of the clergy in this podcast have addressed, along with others. 

All of the contributors recorded their responses to the same questions.
UK Prison Chaplain, Elaine Wykes
Anglican Priest, Melbourne, Victoria: Valentina Emmanuel
Anglican Priest for the parish of the Goldfields, Western Australia: Elizabeth Smith
Pastor, Highland Park Baptist Church, Austin, Texas: Cheryl Kimble
Archdeacon of Essendon, Victoria: Vanessa Bennett
Vicar and Area Dean of the Bellarine area Deanery, Victoria: Elizabeth Breakey
Parish of North Beach, Perth: Reverend Frida Lemi

Music tracks provided by https://www.purple-planet.com thank you.

Here's a transcript of this podcast: https://www.wattswhere.co.uk/transcript-together-in-isolation

Reverend Vanessa Bennett's a squash playing cat mum, climatologist and cricket tragic who lets her ministry do the talking. She's the first woman to be appointed vicar at St Thomas' Church in Moonee Ponds, Victoria and has stories to tell of the ostracism she's encountered on the way, how she aligns her religious beliefs with science and the importance of a good pair of earrings.

Secrets of a straight talking Baptist Minister, featuring the reverend and sometimes irreverent, Alison Taylor. She's a driving force within her community, occasionally unconventional in her approach and doesn't suffer fools as she pursues her ultimate aim: for everyone to know Jesus.

Here's a transcript of this podcast: https://www.wattswhere.co.uk/transcript-I-Am-what-I

As a lifelong activist, Rabbi Stephanie Ruskay's a force to be reckoned with. She's a mover and shaper of conversation at New York's Jewish Theological Seminary and executive director of the Hendel Center for Ethics and Justice. As such, she's bringing activists and academics together to explore how we know what's right is right.

Justice isn't an optional add-on for Rabbi Ruskay. Her campaigns are many and be warned, her energy's infectious.

She was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar...
Well almost. Reverend Yamily Bass-Choate was a waitress in a Mississippi restaurant  when she met her husband-to-be Horace. They trained at seminary together, became part of each other's ministries and now, after 35 years of marriage, they're battling his dementia together.

This, while Yamily continues her role as liaison for global mission at the Diocese of New York. It is perhaps the perfect job for a woman who started life in Colombia, before moving to Venezuela and finally settling in the USA.

Nobody said it would be easy but Yamily's natural optimism and faith see her through.

Teacher turned preacher, reverend Cheryl Kimble avoids politics in the pulpit, but opens up here, with her thoughts on faith in a time of fake news, what it takes to be a good leader and the importance of love and truth. This grandmother's holding her own as the only female Baptist Lead Pastor in Austin, Texas.

Reverend Lisa Jenkins is a native New Yorker who's all about social justice. As well as fighting for others, she's had her own battles to face from being kicked out of church for being an unmarried mother, to fighting cancer and facing her own mortality. Reverend Lisa's weathered some storms on her way to becoming senior pastor at St Matthew's Baptist Church in Harlem, but campaigning for others is still at the heart of everything she does. 

She's not very good with germs but works as a hospital chaplain, she's more used to quoting Lord of the Rings than the Bible and Reverend Canon, Karen MacKinnon admits to being less tolerant now than she was 25 years ago. Then, on the 12 March 1994, Karen was the youngest of 32 women to be ordained as a priest by the Church of England for the first time. Here, she shares what it was like to be part of that change, the obstacles she's encountered and admits there's "a bit of a way to go". 

Here's a transcript of this podcast: https://www.wattswhere.co.uk/transcript-ordained-in-spite-of

In this, the first audio offering in the Birds Who Pray series, 'ordinary' Reverend Elaine Wykes shares how an irresistible urge to become a vicar has steered her away from the family motorcycle business to a completely different vocation. She's more surprised than most that her dream job now is to become a prison chaplain.