2014 UMW Assembly: Women make it happen

From left to right: Fulata Mbano-Moyo, Harriett Jane Olson and Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda at the UMW assembly in Louisville.

30 April 2014

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.