Parishioners visited nuns in South Africa to be inspired by their community projects.

A team of parishioners who live at St Peter's Bourne House, a spiritual retreat in Oakleigh Park South, Whetstone, joined the Sisters of the Resurrection of our Lord in Grahamstown, South Africa, to visit their work helping the community.

The sisters run an orphanage and care home for the elderly, and the team also spent time visiting an informal settlement outside Cape Town where new accommodation is being planned via a housing charity, and a couple in Johannesburg who turned their home into a safe place where parents can leave their children to be placed up for adoption anonymously.

Jacques Mutevelian, St Peter’s Bourne warden, said: "St Peter’s Bourne has enduring links with South Africa, and it was an eye-opening experience to see not only the vast extremes of poverty which exist there, but also the good work being done by the Christian community to help the needy, and transform lives."

St Peter's Bourne was formally a nunnery, established by the nuns in South Africa during the 19th century, but has, since 1995, housed people keeping a monastic lifestyle of reflection and community outreach.