On 1 December, a service was held in Odiham for Revd Debbie Veel’s ordination as priest. Read her inspiring testimony below:
My journey to ordination as a priest has been a long one, though that seems to be true for many people.
I was brought up a Methodist and attended Old Basing Methodist Chapel. After marrying my husband, we moved to St Mark’s, Kempshott. There is a whole story around that, but essentially, I decided—quite randomly, really—to join a confirmation class, despite never having attended the church before. The Revd Duncan Straithie welcomed me warmly. Within a couple of months my husband and I were running the older youth group. We were told we were the answer to prayer, as the church had been looking for leaders for this group a long time. Because I had children’s work experience, and my husband had been involved in youth work at the Baptist church in Thatcham, it all seemed to fall into place.
I soon became involved in ecumenical work through various youth initiatives, and eventually I began leading family worship and all-age services.
After a time, I wondered if God might be calling me to something more. When a vocations day was advertised, I asked three people if they thought I might be suitable for training as a Licensed Lay Minister—only to receive three lukewarm, uncertain responses. I accepted that and thought no more of it… until the very same afternoon, in the Marks & Spencer café in Festival Place, three different people from church approached me—independently—and said how pleased they were that I was going forward for LLM training. I couldn’t help but smile at God’s sense of humour.
I trained and served as an LLM at St Mark’s for ten years. During this time, I spotted a course at Church Mission Society which focused on chaplaincy, art, and community engagement, so I applied as a lay pioneer. Everyone could see the pioneer in me, but not yet the ordained pioneer. Halfway through the course I had to pause because I developed breast cancer for the second time. The minster of St. Mark’s, Revd Nicola Such, suggested I considered entering discernment for the Distinctive Diaconate.
Strangely—and quite profoundly—every appointment related to my cancer happened to fall on the same day as a key stage in the discernment process. My spiritual director said it simply showed that God was walking with me through both journeys at the same time.
Once I recovered, I was accepted for ordination training. Because I still had CMS modules to finish, I became something of a hybrid student: part CMS, part Winchester School of Mission, with additional modules at Ripon College.
Revd Marcus Throup, the DDO at the time, worked wonders coordinating an actually manageable timetable between all three. All of this took place during Covid, which added its own surreal atmosphere to the entire process.
I was ordained Distinctive Deacon in July 2023 and moved my curacy to the North Hampshire Downs Benefice. This was an entirely new world for me: matins, BCP, evensong, no screens, no livestreaming, no PowerPoints—just hymn books, organs, and a congregation completely different from any I had served before. I learned a huge amount, especially through the number of funerals I conducted.
Over the past two and a half years, the sense of a call to priestly ministry grew steadily. And, as ever with me, God spoke through three people who had not spoken to each other. My friend Joanna said, “I know what you’re going to tell me—you’re going to say you’re being priested.” Then my friend Amber ran out with a book after one of our coffees, saying God had told her to give it to me. It was The Life and Times of a Priest by John Pritchard. I remember saying, “But I’m not a priest—I’m a deacon!” And then the Rector at the time, Revd Simon Butler, mentioned it entirely unprompted. Three people, three confirmations.
With the support of current rector Revd Chris Dudgeon, the DDO Revd Angie Nutt, and my Vocations Adviser Liz Stewart, I went through the discernment process again. The panel affirmed the call to priestly ministry, and Bishop Philip’s first available date for the ordination service turned out to be Monday 1st December—my 63rd birthday. A perfect gift.
Because it was just me being ordained, I had the privilege of choosing everything for the service: readings, hymns, and readers. I wanted to reflect all the strands of my journey—traditional hymns for St Nicholas’s and St Swithun’s, where I now have pastoral responsibility under the oversight of the rector; more modern worship for St Mark’s; and music resonant with All Saints, Odiham. The choir sang Wesley, honouring my Methodist roots. Even the readers reflected the different stages of my life and ministry.
It was an overwhelmingly joyful occasion, made even more special by the presence of both Bishop Philip and Bishop Kelly. My grandchildren brought up the elements—after some last-minute changes of mind from the littlest one! I was surrounded by family and friends from across my life: the Methodist circuit, St Mark’s, the Benefice, clergy from the deanery, and nearly all our churchwardens. My dad even travelled up from Selsey in the dark, something he doesn’t normally do. I burst into tears the moment I saw him, and several more times throughout the service.
It was a privilege and a joy beyond words—one birthday that will be very hard to top.
Prayers for wisdom and discernment and to be filled with the Holy Spirit and Grace.
As for the future, I’ve learned not to plan too firmly. Time and again my plans and the Lord’s plans have proved to be quite different. So, I will hold everything lightly and wait to see what God has in store for me next.
