Sometimes even for me life (also known as work!) takes over from blogging

Apologies for the very infrequent posting here in recent days. The WCC's central committee meeting starts tomorrow and the scramble to get the official documents translated has been underway at rather more than full tilt in recent days, including the weekend. It looks as if we will just about make it - at least in time for the interpreters to have copies of the translations before the speakers present their papers. Phew ... We have all been working long hours.
Today also saw the arrival of the stewards - the wonderful young people who come to global events like this to discover more about ecumenism and work very hard.
The language service has two great stewards working with us who have an impressive range of languages between them - German, French, Spanish, Armenian. It always lifts us to work with young people who bring new insights and fresh enthusiasm to the work. I hope they are going to blog a bit while they are at central committee. We'll see.
Meanwhile, with another colleague I have also begun painting a 4 metre square peace labyrinth for the international day of prayer for peace - it's a bit crazy, but it's good relaxation from translating, editing, timetabling and coordinating. More about that soon.

Alternative Advent in Germany

This is one of the beautiful photos from the der Andere Advent calendar from Germany.
The idea is to encourage people to have 12 minutes of silence each day.
There are lovely stories to make you smile as well as encouragements to more solidarity and reponsibility.
The photos for the Sundays in the calendar especially encourage thinking about waiting. There are also reader forums for people to exchange their experiences and prayer concerns.
A more Christian approach to Advent and Christmas is not about being more judgemental or more of a killjoy but about truly living in the moment, recognising God's generosity and learning to be more generous and grace-filled ourselves. Learning silence is part of that.

Called to One Hope in Christ - invitation to those under 30 to write essays on hope

The Conference of European Churches has launched an essay competition for young people the theme is: Called to One Hope in Christ: The relevance of Hope in Europe Today.
So if you're under thirty and have hopes for the future and for the here and now, start writing, start hoping and encourage others to as well, full details here. Closing date February 15th.

A plural God allows for plural and profound expressions of faith

I came away from teaching catechism today profoundly at peace. The four hours we spent with the young people went well and some of the paintings of intangible ideas like friendship, solidarity, love, equality ... were very moving. The prayers the young people wrote as we meditated Roublev's icon of the trinity were unexpectedly profound.
I realised how at home I am in that sort of work and how good it is for me to be able to have some roots in the local context. I think I came home feeling at peace because I felt at home in my church and in the way it encourages young people to discover God for themselves without forcing or insisting. I felt we were helping them discover their own tentative language of faith and prayer.
Perhaps it also helped that we tried to learn how to juggle with tangerines in our lunch break!
I came home feeling gentle contentment and a sense of connection with God, people and the place I live.

Women bloggers meet - in Ferney Voltaire

Recovering from high fever and a particularly vicious strain of tonsilitus last week it was great to have people over for a simple supper and lots of talk. Annie has just moved to Geneva and you can read her Blog here and George(ina) was travelling through on an ecumenical holiday after finishing her exams, you can read her blog here.
For me it was a real learning experience listening to them talking about the enormous challenges facing mainstream Christian youth organizations in the UK today. I realised that I have been away from "home" a long time and that I really am getting old. In 20 years the whole church youth scene has completely and utterly changed. It was also a stark reminder of just how weak many of our national ecumenical structures are, making a lot of the international work difficult too.

Talking Faith to be screened tomorrow in Lahore, Pakistan at the Vasakh Film Festival

Talking Faith will be screened tomorrow at the Vasakh Film Festival - 24 April at 5:20 PM in the Human Rights Comission of Pakistan Auditorium, Lahore Pakistan.
The five-day film festival will be showing best documentaries from all over South Asia from 23-27 April. Previously known as the ‘matteela film festival’ the event remains essentially the same showcasing films from Travelling Film South Asia. Details about the festival can be read at Dawn and The Daily Times.
Please continue to support the Talking Faith film and project.

Youth organizations call for resolution of Zimbabwean crisis

The World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) and the World Young Women's Christian Association (WYWCA) have called on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to take immediate action to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe. The SADC is meeting today April 12th in Lusaka, Zambia.

"Mindful of the recent bloodshed in Kenya, the WSCF and the World YWCA urge SADC to facilitate the restoration of the rule of law, and integrity of independent institutions with urgency towards the peaceful resolution of the political crisis."

The statement goes on to make eight clear recommendations for action by the SADC including these:

"1. Support and provide the necessary protection and guarantees that enable the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to announce the Presidential results that demonstrate the correct verdict of the people.
2. Urge the political parties to desist from interfering with the work of ZEC and enable ZEC to immediately announce results of the presidential vote taken on 29 March.
3. Hold accountable all those engaging in acts of political violence."

You can read the full statement here.
You can also read the press release on the letters written on the Zimbabwe crisis by the WCC yesterday here, which call for this "critical situation [to] be addressed as a high priority of the international community until peace, justice and stability again become a reality in Zimbabwe".

Christian Students bear witness to the power of prayer and fellowship in Iraq and Belarus

I've just posted two testimonies from Iraq and from Belarus prepared for the Universal Day of Prayer for Students which the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) organised.
I am so impressed by the young Christians in Belarus, their spirit and tenacity.Listening to and reading the stories from Iraq was also very moving - praying in the midst of war and being supported by others far away who are praying for you.

Stewards make the ecumenical world go round

This is Andrea from the Brethren Church in Uruguay she's sitting here in the Russian interpretation booth and enjoying watching central committee proceedings from up above.
The booths are like an eyrie to look down on the assembled people.
It's quite fun to be able to flick between the different interpretation channels and listen to the different languages. Both Andrea and Paula who've been working with the language service for central committee are already good linguists themselves with an impressive spread of languages between them.

Stewards work for ecumenism

This is Paula from the Protestant Church in the Netherlands. As the ecumenical prayer cycle encourages us to pray for the Netherlands and Benelux countries this week it's good to have people from those countries with us.
On Valentine's day she and Andrea decortated the windows of the booth with multi-coloured hearts. I should also add that they were also both punctual, worked hard and managed to maintain interest in the discussions and presentation of the meeting - sometimes quite an achievement!

A great group of stewards

One of the amazing privileges of attending assemblies like this is working with committed young people - I supose the older I get the more I realise what a privilege this is. We have a great group of 9 stewards working with us. Today they've been doing really essential work of carrying books and bags, welcoming and accrediting journalists, getting signage in the press room sorted out, buying water and chocolate for us all, helping the press liaison officers with identifying photos and posting them, helping journalists with finding their way around the Swiss keyboards and offering us IT support. to my shame I've still not learnt all their names but I will try to post some photos of them on the blog over the next few days.
They are also a linguistically very talented and diverse group and manage to communicate and get on wihtone another despite not haveing one common language - a true sign of the triumph of Pentecost over Babel!