10
November 2008
mission
21
protestant mission basel
I tell you
the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed,
you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there
and it will move. Mt. 17,20
MISSION SYNOD E-NEWS
Volume 11/August 2009
Dear Sisters and Brothers
Greetings in the name of the peace of our Lord!
In this edition we report mainly about the results of the
12th General Assembly of mission 21 in Basel.
Yours sincerely
Silke Fehrenbach
Mission Synod Secretariat
Information
from the Board and the Management
General Assembly GA of mission 21
The General Assembly of mission 21 took place from June,
18th ¡V 20th in Basel with thirty delegates, from
Europe (21 delegates, list available), Africa (Grace
Eneme, Zakaria Bulus), Asia (Nico Gara, Lucy Kumala and
Junita Politon) and Latin America (Janett Rojas, Abraham
Colque and Edwin Mora). The assembly unanimously approved
the annual report and the financial statement of 2008
as well as the global budget for 2010.
In his annual report, the leaving
president of the Board, Rev. Walter Lüssi, focused
on the cooperation between mission 21 and the EMS,
Association of churches and missions in South Western
Germany, as well as the negotiations with the SEK,
Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches. Rev. Bettina
Krause informed us about the foundation of the kalebasse
fair trade company. The director, Rev. Martin
Breitenfeldt highlighted encounters with people of
partner churches as well as with former missionaries
during the first year of his office. mission 21 in his
view is well positioned and integrated, but it still has
to define itself more clearly as a missionary
organization. New impulses may include direct relations
between congregations in the North and the South, an
information and intercession service for congregations in
Switzerland and new types of exposures and assignments
e.g. of senior experts and young people.
The delegates of the four continental assemblies
reported the most important questions and issues of their
continents and in an individual devotion or opening
worship, celebrated and deliberated on contextual aspects
of the motto ¡§Faith moves ¡V
faith connects¡¨.
The consolidated financial statement 2008
including the hotel bildungszentrum 21 displayed, to our
great satisfaction, an annual surplus of 1.4 million
Swiss francs. The surplus of mission 21 amounts to 1
million Swiss francs. This extraordinary result is due to
high legacies and generous donations as well as higher
contributions by partner organisations. Due to this
mission 21 was able to increase the expenditure for
programmes and projects.
The global budget 2010 foresees a
slightly lower income and, at the same time, a small
increase in expenditure, also for programmes and
projects, compared to the annual accounts of 2008. The
deficit in the foreseen total result will be covered from
the capital of the organisation. However, the income
estimation in this budget is still based on the average
of the income development from 2004-2008 and does not yet
include the recent financial data for 2009. mission 21
departs from the assumption that the economic and
financial crisis might have a negative impact on the
level of donations and contributions by partner
organisations and adjustments of the budget 2010 might be
necessary at the time when the detailed budget will be
set up.
The GA held a first reading of the intended amendments
of the statutes of mission 21 which can only be
realized by the Mission Synod in 2010.
mission 21 adopted a fair-trade policy
in reaction to the founding of the new company of the
kalebasse and to several new requests from partner
churches and organizations in Borneo and in Latin America
for support of their handicraft production and fair trade
activities.
Also the new gender policy for the Basel
office elaborated by the Women and Gender Desk, Dr.
Meehyun Chung was discussed and approved by the GA. It is
recognized as a big step forward in the context of Swiss
churches and organizations. The document is available for
all partner churches and organizations of mission 21,
however, each church or organization interested in a
gender policy should work out their own individual policy
based on their own requirements and situations.
Rev. Albrecht Hieber, Head of International
Relations Department, will retire at the end of
this year and mission 21 had to look for a successor. Mr.
Gerhard Bärtschi, an NGO-manager with ample
management and leadership experience, will occupy the
position in the future.
For the first time, the focus theme that
mission 21 usually works with for a period of three
years, serving as a framework for programme, education,
and fundraising activities was discussed by all
Continental Assemblies. In their meetings during the past
year, the Continental Assemblies or the EXCOs worked out
proposals for the future focus theme which shall follow
the present theme ¡§Faith moves ¡V
Faith connects¡¨. The GA
approved the commonly proposed focus ¡§Water of life for our earth with
the justice of God¡¨. This is just a
working title and the coordinators of the Continental
Assemblies as well as the co-workers in the Basel office
will now discuss how to make concrete and to
contextualize it, and to propose activities.
The delegates elected Mrs. Rosette Sprecher and Mr. Hans
Oswald as new Board members replacing Rev. Walter Lüssi
and Rev. Riley Edwards-Raudonat. Hans Oswald,
born 1944, Switzerland, is the president of the district
church support council Meilen and a former member of the
Cooperation of Evangelical Missions task force and of the
audit commission of mission 21. As an economist with a
doctor¡¦s degree, he can contribute in the Board
with his ample experience in public administration,
sustainable development and the private economy. Rosette
Sprecher, born 1959, Switzerland, has ample
experience as an ecumenical co-worker in Tanzania and
Mali. Being a secondary school teacher, her focus is on
education and partnership.
Rev. Bettina Krause, the former
vice-president of the Board, has been elected as
the new president of the Board. Bettina Krause,
born 1953 in Berlin has German and Swiss nationality and
has been living for 30 years in Switzerland. She is a
member of the Moravian Church, works as a pastor in
Adliswil near Zurich and has been a member of the Board
of mission 21 since 2003. She has worked intensely on the
theological guidelines of mission 21.
Rev. Dr. Stefan Fischer has been elected
as Vice-President of the Board. Of
German origin he works as a pastor in Bettingen near
Basel and as a lecturer of the Old testament at the
university of Vienna. Before his office as a Board member
of mission 21 he was president of the Board of the South
Africa Mission.
All documents, the annual reports, the policies and
soon the minutes, are available on request from the
Mission Synod Secretary, silke.fehrenbach@mission-21.org.
Mission Festival and leave-taking of Rev. Walter
Lüssi
Mission 21 took leave of Rev. Walter Lüssi
as the president of the Board of mission 21 since its
start in 2000. His achievements were elaborated in
several addresses during the GA and during the pizza
dinner on Saturday evening. In the solemn worship in the
Cathedral on Sunday, the presidency was handed over to
Rev. Bettina Krause, and new ecumenical co-workers with
their families were sent to their new tasks in various
mission 21 partner churches: Ueli and Johanna Walter
Marquez, Ueli and Felicia Knecht (see also New ecumenical
co-workers), Adrian and Margrit Linder and Claudia
Zeising (see Mission Synod News 10).
In the afternoon, more than 500 friends, co-workers,
former missionaries and guests celebrated a joyful
festival with games for children. The program included a
panel discussion on ¡§Do we need marketing for church
and mission¡¨ as well as workshops on the DR
Congo.
Information
from the Continental Assemblies
Asia Fellowship Continental Assembly in Sabah,
Malaysia
Nico Gara, re-elected coordinator of the
Asia Fellowship, sums up the results of the Third
Continental Assembly, held in Kota Kinabalu, 21-24 June
2009: The assembly has produced recommendations to
all partner churches and institutions to deal with issues
of Peace in relation to Religion and Ethnic, environment
especially global warming and gender issues including
migrant workers issue. From various recommendation and
proposals, the assembly noted issues on Environment,
Migrant Workers and inter-religious or interfaith dialog
to be projects of Asia Fellowship of Mission 21 Partners
for the coming years. The assembly also noted that Asia
Fellowship Sunday which currently only celebrates in
the first advent week becomes a regular activity for
spiritual sharing. Pasundan Church (Indonesia) will
provide the liturgy for 2009. The assembly further
elected or confirmed the following persons as EXCO-members:
Rev. Lucy Kumala (BCCM, women network coordinator), Ms.
Junita Politon (GMIM, youth network coordinator), Mr.
Thomas Tsang (TTM Hongkong, treasurer), Mrs. Margaretha
Damus (GKPI, secretary), Mrs. Pan Li Ju (PCT), Rev.
Krisna Suryadi (GKP), Mr. Huh Joonhyuk (PROK, youth
delegate).
Rev. Lucy Kumala lead the Asian women
conference held from 18th¡V21st May in Tenom Sabah. The main
inputs from each country were on domestic violence,
Migrant Workers, Women and Children Trafficking, Peace
issue and gender equality, Interfaith Problems, and Women
empowerment (Leadership, health, human right/law, fair
trade, economy). The proposed programs will concentrate
on interfaith dialogue activities, support for migrant
workers and international brides as well as support for
the victims of domestic violence.
Junita Politon, the youth coordinator
lead the ASF youth conference in Kudat parallel to the
womens conference. The youth discussed their main
concerns such as the role of the youth in the churches,
globalization, environment, HIV and Aids. The conference
has formulated recommendations and programs, such as the
edition of Internet Youth Magazines, a Workshop ¡§Youth
Care on Environment¡¨, visits of the Youth Coordinator
to all members churches, Leadership Training, Capacity
Building, and Interfaith Dialog. The Youth further
elected the six ASF delegates to the international youth
conference of mission 21 in November in Tanzania.
EXCO-meeting of Latin America Continental
Assembly ACLA
The EXCO of the ACLA met from April 16-19, 2009, in La
Paz and counts three new members: Mr. Eler Salazar of
CEDEPAS Norte, Peru, and Mrs. Ute Seibert of
Con-spirando, Chile as well as Mrs. Cecilia Castillo
Nanjarí of the Latin American Council of churches.
The EXCO reported on the situation of the women¡¦s
networks in the different countries and looked for ways
for dealing with further development and the changes in
the coordination of the continental women network. The
execution of the current women network project of the
ACLA was made concrete and a proposal for a continental
project for 2010: ¡§Water and land are not
commodities but sources of life¡¨ was formulated. The program of
the continental meeting from October, 5-6 (women¡¦s
pre-conference) and October, 7-9 (general assembly) was
also defined.
ACA Continental Meetings in Ghana 2010
The EXCO of ACA has decided to hold the next
continental meeting of the Africa Continental Assembly
from 25th February-4th March 2010 in Accra, Ghana, hosted
by the Presbyterian Church of Ghana.
New
Ecumenical Co-Workers
Ueli and Johanna Walter-Marquez
The recently married couple will live in China, where
Ueli Walter-Marquez, a Swiss secondary school teacher,
will teach English at the University in Hezhou / Guangxi.
Johanna who comes from Venezuela has studied architecture
and would like to pursue if possible an online course in
order to become a Spanish teacher. Their assignment is
being realized in co-operation with the catholic
Bethlehem Mission Immensee and the Amity Foundation, a
partner organization of mission 21 in China founded by
Chinese Christians in Nanjing. There is still a lack of
well trained English teachers in China and Ueli
Walter-Marquez wants to contribute to the
professionalization of English secondary school teaching.
Ueli and Felicia Knecht
will support the fair trade activities of
Indonesian and Malaysian partner churches in Borneo.
Ueli, arts and crafts teacher and designer, has worked
for the last 20 years mainly in Prescraft, the handicraft
centre of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon. With his
expertise in fair trade he has counselled the four
partner churches in Borneo in their starting fair trade
activities since 2004 and will now work together with his
wife, Felicia who comes from Cameroon, as
ecumenical-co-worker in Borneo. Their tasks are in the
realization of workshops for the handicraft producers and
the consulting of the organization and finances of the
fair trade projects. They have a two year old son.
News
from the partner churches
Violence in Maiduguri, EYN Province, Nigeria
We have received reports from Mr Zakaria Bulus of the
deteriorating situation in the Northern part of Nigeria.
Violence has ripped through the cities and towns where
the Church of the Brethren is located. Havoc has been
caused, life and property lost. The state is the
Headquarters of the Islamic sect. 13 Churches of
different denominations have been destroyed with two EYN
Churches among them. One is EYN Maiduguri which is the
largest congregation of the Church of the Brethren in
Nigeria (EYN). Please pray for the people who live in
this violence-torn area.
Rev. Samuel Ayete-Nyampong, ACA-Coordinator
News
from the Basel office
¡§mission 21 supports
exploited women¡¨
Under this title
mission 21 has launched its spring campaign. Money is
raised for the Domestic Migrant Worker Centre in
Hongkong, a consulting and emergency aid centre of the
Tsun Tsin Mission and Christian Action. Around 250¡¦000
women from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India or the Philippines
work in private households in Hongkong. Thousands of them
are exploited or even work in slave-like situations. The
women endure their situation in order to earn money e.g.
for the education of their children in their home
countries. The domestic migrant worker centre offers
juridical and social support as well as overnight stay
and qualification. In 2008, 9¡¦000 women participated in the
courses of the centre.
Film on ACCOJED, DR Congo
The communications department of mission 21 has released
a film on ACCOJED - Action Congo pour la Jeunesse en
Danger, an NGO founded by Rev. Mbuta Kabamba, pastor of
the congregation of Ngaliema in Kinshasa, DR Congo.
ACCOJED aims at fighting against poverty among the youth
and at starting income-generating activities for
families. The 12 minute portrait was produced in
cooperation with the congregation and shows its daily
life and the activities of ACCOJED. It can be used within
the Swiss congregations for information on the situation
and the mission activities in the DR Congo.
¡§Running through three
countries for Africa¡¨
The yearly charity
sports event in Basel managed by mission 21 this year
raised money for a project of the Moravian Church of
Tanzania which supports orphans by providing medical,
psychological and educational support.
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The Mission Synod News is published in English and
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mission 21
protestant mission basel
Mission Synod News
For comments, questions, contributions please contact:
Silke Fehrenbach
Coordinator of the Mission Synod and the Continental
Assemblies
Missionsstrasse 21
Postfach, 4003 Basel
CH-4055 Basel
Tel: +41 61 260 22 29; Fax: +41 61 260 22 68
silke.fehrenbach@mission-21.org
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