New vicar set to join Gaywood church
A SERIOUS car crash and three months of recuperation helped lead to a life-changing career move for a former accountant who is set to come to Gaywood as team vicar.
The Rev Dale Gingrich is due to arrive at St Faith's later this month and will become a familiar face as he describes his role as very much "visible and out in the community."
Having grown-up on a farm in Nebraska, USA, Mr Gingrich (43) is used to the wide open skies boasted by West Norfolk. He is currently serving a group of parishes in South Cambridgeshire and is due to be licensed for his new role in Gaywood on Thursday, January 24.
He began his working life in a public accounting firm, but his first paid holiday in 1987 nearly ended in disaster and helped to confirm his thoughts of a career change.
"We were meeting some friends from university and I had the newest car and was very proud, so I drove," said Mr Gingrich. While changing lanes on a dual carriageway in America, his car collided with another causing him major head injuries and he woke up a month later in hospital.
"I came to about a month later and surgeons had removed most of my right temporal lobe, which had become mush.
"They had to drill holes in my head to relieve the pressure of a 'blow-out' fracture," he said.
Conversations with his family priest during a three-month long recuperation with his family only confirmed his thoughts about joining the Ministry and he first trained as a Lutheran priest before leaving America to come to East Anglia, where his wife, Dr Anna Williams, teaches at Cambridge University.
He was ordained into the Church of England at Ely Cathedral in 2003 after a year's training, and took up his role in the Shingay group of parishes on the Cambridgeshire/ Hertfordshire border.
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Weather for King's Lynn
Sunday 27 May 2012
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