Even more than the gift of sight, a spiritual vision of reconciliation inspires the 23 travelers from the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta embarking April 12 on the sixth pilgrimage to the Anglican Diocese of Cape Coast, Ghana.

The group will bring a Welch Allyn Spot Vision Screener, made possible by the gracious donation by St. James Episcopal Marietta World Missions Fund, to the Bishop Ackon Memorial Christian Eye Clinic, along with boxes full of 2,000 pairs of glasses donated by the Georgia Lions Lighthouse Foundation.

Representing communities across Middle and North Georgia, the 23 also have been preparing their hearts and minds to see, with dignity, the fierce legacy and descendants of the transatlantic slave trade that fueled the wealth of the American South. 

“I have no doubt that my eyes will be opened and my heart touched in ways that I cannot foresee from here,” said The Very Rev. Patricia Templeton, rector of St. Dunstan’s, Atlanta, one of the 23.

“The vision and energy of connecting to our brothers and sisters in Cape Coast belongs to the entire Diocese of Atlanta, and we want to invite everyone into this work, whether through prayer or financial support,” said Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright, Acting Executive Director of the Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing (AJECRH), a ministry of the Diocese of Atlanta and organizational hub for this and future pilgrimages.

The vision equipment represents “tangible expressions of dignity and care that physically bridge our communities, she added. “Through the vision screener, the generosity of St. James, Marietta, is making a doorway to care for hundreds—if not thousands—of children and community members in the years to come.

“This is what happens when generosity meets purpose, and these tangible items build meaningful momentum as we depart with spirits full of great anticipation and hope.”   

Face-to-face connections

The travelers, who will return April 21, signify the growing human legacy between the dioceses, what Bishop Rob Wright has called a “spiritual supply chain” that helps heal the wounds of the inhuman supply chain of slavery.

In December, they were commissioned in the presence of many who made the journey from 2017 to 2025. Under the theme Five Pilgrimages, One Journey, more than 60 people gathered to celebrate what has been and to bless the journey ahead.

Its co-leader is The Very Rev. Jeff Jackson, Rector of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, Carrollton, and Dean of the Southwest Atlanta Convocation. 

Now housed within the AJECRH, the pilgrimage is further grounded in the Center’s mission of truth-telling, relationship, and healing.

The pilgrimages grew from two dioceses becoming companions in ministry in 2017, to share in God’s work of reconciliation through a relationship focused on prayer, spiritual growth, racial healing, education, leadership formation, financial sustainability—and traveling to see one another.

The Rev. Scott Harding, rector at St. Matthias’ Episcopal Church in Toccoa, and longtime member Bobbie Broussard are eager to meet the people of their companion parish since 2023, Good Shepherd in Eguase.

The two congregations are separated by 5,400 miles and the Atlantic Ocean, and parishioner Robin Dake made the journey in 2025.

“I am very excited to have the opportunity to visit, bring greetings and strengthen our relationship with one other,” Harding said. “I am hopeful that the Holy Spirit will do a new thing within me and within our pilgrimage group to enhance God’s kingdom as we learn and grow together.”

“I am eager to actually meet our friends in person,” agreed Broussard, who is active in St. Matthias’ vestry, as an usher, on the altar guild and playing handbells.

“I am a retired teacher, so I believe in lifelong learning. I think the best way to learn is by experience so actually traveling to another country, versus reading about it, is much preferred. I know that if I am open and willing, I will come home having had an amazing adventure!”

Seeking source of ancestral resilience

The Rev. Mother Kenya Thompson, vicar of the Church of the Common Ground in Atlanta, is also counting on experiential learning. Cape Coast is home to several forts and castles established by Europeans that became central hubs for the Atlantic slave trade.

“I am motivated by the opportunity to hear stories about people, families and the society in which they lived,” she said. “I am seeking to gain a better understanding of the source of their resilience and enduring faith. In addition, I am looking forward to unpacking my experiences touring and learning about the slave castles with my siblings in community.”

Gaining insights about ancestral resilience could inform her pastoral care to her church members, most of whom are unsheltered or housing insecure.

“I am often in awe of their resilience,” she said. “It’s so clear to me that their resilience is about more than personal strength. It’s about God being present where one might think God would not be—on the margins in the midst of intense suffering.”

Lessons in Ghana could boost her own reserves too. “In many ways, I am in search of the ‘resilence’ I often preach about: even when I am running low. God is with us and the ground of my ancestors, even soaked in blood, was holy. The ground that paves the streets of Atlanta where people sleep outside is holy as well.”

The travelers previewed the Middle Passage on a field trip to the Equal Justice Initiative Legacy Museum in Alabama, participating in a simulation of the voyage of enslaved people from Africa.

“You could hear the waves of the water and see bodies stuck in the mud,” Thompson said. “It was upsetting, uncomfortable and necessary. I have a lot of mixed emotions about my trip; excited yet preparing my heart and spirit for the learning I will experience as well as the joy and sorrow.” 

Shared vision with the Diocese of South Carolina

For the first time in six pilgrimages, the Diocese of South Carolina is participating, with four travelers including Bishop Ruth Woodliff-Stanley. They represent their diocese’s deepening commitment to racial reconciliation and healing, and vision of creating their own pilgrimage..

“We are especially moved to have the Diocese of South Carolina joining us,” Dr. Wright said. “Seeing this effort gain broader visibility is deeply meaningful as we work to uplift and share the spirit of this work across the diocese and beyond.”

Gail DeCosta, a vestry member from St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Charleston and co-chair of their Diocesan Racial Justice and Reconciliation Commission, has roots in Atlanta. (When she lived here, she attended St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church.) 

DeCosta saw how transformational a pilgrimage could be when the commission offered the Sacred Ground program developed by The Episcopal Church. She watched and rewatched Ghana pilgrimage videos featuring former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, Canon Stephanie Spellers and Bishop W. Andrew Waldo of the Diocese of Upper South Carolina.

“It was clearly a transformational experience for them and ever since seeing those videos, I have wanted to go to Ghana,” she said. “When our bishop invited me and two other members of our commission to accompany her on this pilgrimage so that we could plan a similar pilgrimage for our diocese, I was humbled, honored and excited beyond measure.”

Extending pilgrimages begun in the South

For Templeton, the St. Dunstan’s rector for 22 years, this pilgrimage continues the footsteps of past journeys to racial understanding and reconciliation.

In March 2015, she joined a National Park Service civil rights pilgrimage retracing the 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery. Numbering 300 (per the original federal order allowing the march), they marched on the same dates. They began and ended each day in the same spots as the original marchers.

“Walking those long miles on Highway 80, which is still a desolate stretch of road, was truly walking on holy ground,” she said. “I was in tears thinking about the people who had walked that way before me, the true foot soldiers of justice. We honored the martyrs in that quest for justice, including Episcopal seminarian Jonathan Daniels.”

In 2019, she felt that holy ground again when she and others from St. Dunstan’s assisted the Equal Justice Initiative in gathering dirt from all the lynching sites in Fulton Country.

“Every Saturday that spring, which coincided exactly with Lent, we gathered with others at a lynching site, heard the story of the person/people who died there, and in a big glass jar marked with the person’s name and dates, filled the dirt from the site,” she recalled.

On Good Friday that year, on St. Dunstan’s altar, Jesus was flanked by jars of dirt from two men lynched in Fulton County.

“This pilgrimage to Ghana feels like a continuation of this journey,” Templeton said. “It’s the opportunity to see where this all began, and I have no doubt that once again we will be walking on holy ground.  I still am in touch with many of the fellow pilgrims from the Selma March 11 years ago, and I’m sure that the same bonds will develop in Ghana between and among us.”

Participants in the 2026 pilgrimage

• Angela Bagot – St. Simon’s, Conyers
• Daniel Black – St. Mark’s, LaGrange
• Bobbie Broussard – St. Matthias, Toccoa
• Gail DeCosta, Diocese of South Carolina
• Clavel Gittens – St. Simon’s, Conyers
• The Rev. Scott Harding – St. Matthias, Toccoa
• The Very Rev. Jeff Jackson – Co-Pilgrimage Leader, St. Margaret’s, Carrollton
• Beverly Lloyd – St. Paul’s, Atlanta
• Dennis Lloyd – St. Paul’s, Atlanta
• Lanny Lucas – St. Timothy’s, Decatur
• Claire Lucas – St. Timothy’s, Decatur
• The Rev. Canon Ramelle McCall, Diocese of South Carolina
• Jim Myers – St. Patrick’s, Dunwoody
• Martha Myers – St. Patrick’s Dunwoody
• The Rev. Deborah Silver – Diocese of Atlanta
• Vermelle Preston Simmons – Diocese of South Carolina
• Taylor Stukes – St. Benedict’s, Smyrna
• Sandra Tarver – Director of Programming, Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing
• The Rev. Dean Taylor – Resurrection, Sautee-Nacoochee
• The Very Rev. Tricia Templeton – St. Dunstan’s, Atlanta
• The Rev. Kenya Thompson – Church of the Common Ground
• The Right Rev. Ruth Woodliff-Stanley, Diocese of South Carolina
• Beth-Sarah Wright – Pilgrimage Co-leader, Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing

Going forth in relationship

The pilgrimage group will connect with the thriving sustainability project to educate young women and help them become financially independent that came out of the 2023 pilgrimage: the Dignity Sewing Centre.

Dr. Wright officially opened the Centre on the 2025 pilgrimage.

The pilgrimage will also visit an earlier sustainability project: a pig farm where the profits are used to fund pensions for the diocese’s aging clergy.

Along with delivering the vision equipment, the group will deliver 12 choir robes donated by Christ Church Kennesaw to St. Philip Quaque Church, located on Bishop’s Court in Cape Coast. The robes will be used by clergy and lay leaders during worship services, pastoral care, and special ceremonies.

“We are preparing for more than just a journey; this is a shared pilgrimage rooted in reflection, relationship, and restoration,” Dr. Wright said. “We go to listen, to learn, and to honor, as we seek to deepen our connection to our shared humanity. As we depart, we carry the prayers of this community with us—we go together.”

As part of this diocesan-wide effort, parishes are invited to support pilgrims from their own congregations through prayer and financial support—a model that has proven meaningful and successful in past pilgrimages. 

Join the Diocese in walking alongside the pilgrims—individually and as congregations—through prayer and financial support.