The Vale of Neath Parish actively seeks to recongnise ourseleves as part of God's people and we are committed to working and worshipping alongside Christians from all walks of life and church backgrounds. Within our congregations we have folk form a range of church traditions and so it is often natural for us to connect to those local churches from a formal Catholic tradition to the informal charismatic congregations, to the Welsh language valley chapels to the popular evangelistic new churches. We are part of the Glynneath and area council of churches and also the Resolven council of churches, with home we are forming a joint strategy for local mission projects in the community at key times of the year (Easter, Pentecost, Christmas), collaboratvie work like school assemblies and united services for worship in each other's tradition. A network for women who go to churches in the valley has recently been set up called LAVISH, and it seeks to encourage women from all backgrounds to join for worship, reflection and inspiring talks. The Vale of Neath Parish has a special link with mission work in Northern Argentina through our link with David and Shelly Stokes who are going to work alongside the local churches in the Chaco desert through the organisation CMS. We have ongoing support for Reach for Rwanda who support reconciliation in the country and also overseas aid mission work through Tearfund and Christian Aid. For many years we have been collecting Christmas presents for children overseas and packing them in shoeboxes with Operation Christmas Child. We love to hear first experiences of churches overseas and often host Christians in the parish: we have had youth workers with us from India and Uganda, visits from the diocesan link with the Lutheran Uppsala Church in Sweden and link diocese Bangladesh.