Personal information

Job title

Associate Priest

Biography

Judy was born in 1933, grew up on Long Island, and graduated from Wellesley college in 1954 with a major in Biblical History. After graduation she and John Gay were married and attended Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University where she got her MA in Church History. In 1958 they went as Episcopal Church lay missionaries to teach at Cuttington College and Divinity School in Liberia, West Africa. After fifteen years of teaching, research and raising a family of three boys in Liberia they went to Cambridge University in England. There Judy began work on her doctorate in Social Anthropology with a special focus on African women's studies, particularly women, marriage and migrant labor in southern Africa.

In 1976 Judy and her family went to Lesotho in southern Africa where she was involved in research, development sociology, women's studies, ecumenical anti-apartheid work and theological education. Judy completed her Cambridge PhD in 1980. In 1992 she became the Coordinator of Training for Ministries for the Anglican Church in Lesotho. When the Anglican Church of the Province of Southern Africa (CPSA) finally agreed to ordain women, she was the first woman in Lesotho to be ordained deacon in 1994 and priest in 1996. She then served as a priest and pastor at the Anglican Cathedral in Maseru, Lesotho and continued her diocesan Training for Ministries work until the end of 2000.

Judy and John retired and moved to Cambridge in 2001 when she became an associate priest at St James. Although retired, she remains very much involved with theological education and African issues, has returned to Africa for several short working visits, and is committed to international ministry at St James's. Judy leads The Scriptures in Context, an adult Bible Study group which meets each Sunday from 9:15 to 10:15.

History

Member for

4 years 13 weeks