11.07.2023

"...to meet again at last!"

Some of the former staff have worked for decades at UEM and with UEM. Here they have time to talk and meet again. Photo by: Susanne Seiler, UEM

"What is so special here is the many encounters, the exchange and the joy of seeing each other again", says Elisabeth Falkenroth, UEM sister and former midwife on Mentawai in Indonesia. Every year, former staff members of the United Evangelical Mission meet for a joint conference. This year they met from 7 to 9 July at the Protestant Conference Centre Wuppertal. Exchange pastors, nurses or even staff from the mission house in Wuppertal: All of them are connected by a long time in the UEM Communion of churches, sometimes over decades.

"Do you remember....?" – this sentence is often heard in the group. But it is also important to hear news from the UEM. Volker Martin Dally, UEM General Secretary, reports on the current topics within the UEM: "As a Communion, we are currently finding a balance between digital conferences and personal encounters. In terms of content, we are dealing among other things with discrimination in church and diaconia: the General Assembly has set this as a topic for the next few years. As Christians, we still have a 'beam in our eye'. It is all the more important that in UEM we have opportunities and spaces to discuss these things with respect."

Bible devotions, singing and praying together and also a visit to the exhibition "Mission by Notes" in the rooms of the archives and museum foundation of the UEM were on the agenda. The blessing at the closing service was said by Bishop Dr Abednego Keshomshahara from the ELCT/NED*, moderator of the UEM.

*ELCT/NED = Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania, North Eastern Diocese