 A Celebration of World Communion Sunday |
|||||||||||||
|
by Lisa Katzenstein |
 |
||||||||||||
World Communion Sunday offers a special opportunity for United Methodists to gather together around a critical and prophetic mission – a mission that prioritizes leadership development and educational opportunities within historically marginalized communities. It is our unique time set aside to support students from around the world who are preparing to engage in the life-changing ministries of combating poverty, expanding health care, and developing new church and community leadership. On World Communion Sunday, we join together with our mission partners all over the world – those whose hopes, dreams, prayers and hard work are forging a more peaceful, more just and a healthier tomorrow. Below is a sampling of the kinds of new student voices that have been promoted for leadership development and have been awarded scholarships this year. A member of the Methodist Church of Sri Lanka, Sasikumar Balasundaram is pursuing a Masters in Cultural Anthropology at the University of South Carolina. Mr. Balasundaram belongs to the Plantation Tamil community, which is the most marginalized ethnic group in his home country. Many of its members are still estate workers on the tea and rubber plantations. As the first university graduate from this community, Mr. Balasundaram sees the urgency to make a change by educating children and by uplifting the status of the Plantation Tamils equal to others in Sri Lanka. His studies will focus on African Americans, Mexican Americans, and the Plantation Tamils, all of whom he feels have similar histories. He strives to understand some of the hidden problems in marginalized and oppressed communities and to search for possible solutions. Rev. Francis Acquah, of the Methodist Church of Ghana, is currently finishing his first year of the Ph.D program in Christian-Muslim relations at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut. Coming from a family with roots in Christianity, Islam and traditional African religions, Rev. Acquah has lived through a shift from harmony to deep discord with the rise of fundamentalism in Ghana and around the world. As a Christian and as a religious leader, he feels that “the very nature of the Christian calling places an obligation upon the Church to relate with other religious communities in addressing these negative inhuman conditions…It is the only way for Christians and other faith communities to truly live up to their divine calling by becoming God’s instruments of change for hope and peace in a world that is so much being torn apart by injustice and strife.” An ordained minister of the Methodist Church of Brazil, Rev. Genilma Boehler is in a PhD program in Theology and History at the Escola Superior de Teologia. During her career, Rev. Boehler has worked with impoverished communities, urban and rural, women, young people, children and indigenous people in Brazil and Paraguay. Her work is dedicated to challenging people’s world views through educational initiatives toward a more equitable society. She feels that the prevailing educational system needs to change such that it might build the sensitivity necessary for the construction of a less unequal world. This thrust is aimed at educating people so that we may embrace the idea that the happiness of others is indeed part of our own. Beginning the second year of a Master of Divinity program at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, Texas, Laura López’s focus is the future of The United Methodist Church. With the growth of minority populations through the United States, Ms. López asks why churches and seminaries haven’t begun to prepare for this shift. She feels we need to examine how the church can welcome the Hispanic community into our churches. She also poses the question of how the UMC may need to allow itself to be welcomed into the Hispanic community and culture, in the hope of building new and lasting relationships. Ms. López’s overall goal is to pursue elder’s orders and ordination. Please join us in nourishing our future leaders. Lisa Katzenstein is Executive Secretary, Crusade Scholarship/Leadership Development Office for Global Ministries.
Date posted:
Sep 24, 2007
|
|||||||||||||
