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From left to right: Fulata Mbano-Moyo, Harriett Jane Olson
and Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda at the UMW assembly in Louisville.
With participation from the World
Council of Churches (WCC), the 2014 United Methodist Women (UMW)
Assembly concluded on Sunday 27 April, marking highlights of women’s
contributions to the life of the churches, communities and societies,
addressing the theme “Make it Happen”. Among the speakers at the
assembly was former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, also a member
of the UMW.
Clinton encouraged the UMW to respond to the challenges
faced by women and girls amidst increasing inequality, human
trafficking and lack of access to sexual and maternal health care.
Held from 25 to 27 April, the UMW assembly gathered
some 7000 participants at the Kentucky International Conference Center
in Louisville, Kentucky in the United States.
Dr Fulata Mbano-Moyo, WCC programme executive for Women
in Church and Society, who attended the assembly, said that for the
WCC, UMW is an important women’s movement which has helped shape the
WCC’s women’s programme since its inception in 1953.
“These sixty years and more show that the WCC still
needs powerful church women’s movements like the UMW to ensure that
gender justice is a foundation for communities of women and men in
church and society. We therefore celebrate women’s leadership with the
UMW,” said Moyo.
The UMW, as part of the United Methodist Church in the
USA, which globally is a member church of the WCC, has remained actively
engaged in ecumenical initiatives. Its members are also represented
within the WCC’s governing bodies and commissions.
Harriett Jane Olson, general secretary and chief
executive officer of the UMW, said, “I am praying, and I invite you to
pray with me, that the UMW will be engaged in work that draws us into
…change, that we can continue to build spiritual strength and
willingness to act.”
“It is an amazing privilege to be able to stop and
listen to how God is at work. God is leading, and we are in it
together,” added Olson.
Assembly activities
Starting with the “Ubuntu Day” of immersion in the
Louisville community, the UMW assembly featured a wide range of
spiritual activities through worship, workshops and social events.
Out of the 150 workshops, the workshop on “Surviving
Modern-Day Slavery and Celebrating Life” was seen as a major highlight.
Conducted by Lisa C. Williams, author of Beautiful Layers: Stories from those who survived the life of prostitution and child exploitation,
the workshop featured Williams’ own experiences as a survivor and ways
of accompanying girls and boys into healing who have suffered from
street life, prostitution, human sex trafficking and exploitation.
Williams also discussed the importance of taking time
to “listen to such girls and boys and help them to know that they are
special and beautiful from within”.
In the workshop on “What are Our Grandchildren
Inheriting? Faithful Living in a Climate-Challenged World”, Bill
McKibben, founder of 350.org, said in a video conference that the UMW
stands for “U must work”. He affirmed that the gospel imperative of
“love your neighbour” is significant while taking the risk of speaking
truth to power-pressing policy makers, asking them to take urgent
actions on curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
The celebration of women’s leadership at the UMW
assembly featured Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, general secretary of the
World YWCA. She shared how “women always do something to make sure that
life is lived whatever challenges they are faced with”.
In a session on “SHE makes it happen” Gumbozvanda spoke
about her own experiences of being born to a mother who was married at
the age of 16. Gumbozvanda said her mother, who had no education and was
widowed earlier in life, raised eight children. She said that her
mother worked miracles like those of “five loaves of two fishes to feed
and educate her children, losing some of them to AIDS-related
complications later in her life”.
The assembly also included a march for economic justice
led by the leadership of the UMW, other participants in the assembly
and surviving Louisville leaders of the US civil rights movement.
The closing worship at the UMW assembly included
consecration of 26 deaconesses. The ceremony was inspired by theological
references to leadership service modeled after Jesus, who by feeding
5000 people (Mark 6:30-44), challenged his disciples not to dismiss the
hungry crowd but rather to mobilize them so that everyone is fed.
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