News
WCC leaders have expressed their profound grief on learning of the car accident that killed WCC executive committee member Inger Aasa-Marklund and her young daughter, Sara, on 24 November.
"For each one of us this is a personal loss, and the ecumenical movement has lost a committed daughter," said WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, in a letter addressed to the head of Aasa-Marklund's church, the Church of Sweden.
"She was a real gift to her family, to her church, and to the broader Christian community. We give thanks for her life and pray for her family and many friends," he stated. Kobia was joined in sharing his sense of "deep shock" and offering "prayers of comfort" by WCC's moderator, Rev. Dr Walter Altmann.
Inger Aasa-Marklund was a member of WCC's central and executive committees, and had been actively involved in WCC's governing bodies and programmatic work since the WCC's assembly in Harare, in 1998, where many still remember her active participation accompanied by her infant child. She was International Secretary for the Church of Sweden Diocese of Luleå, and was killed in a car accident in the vicinity of Cairo during a visit to partner churches in Egypt. She is survived by her husband, Richard.
"May the Lord of life and resurrection, receive Inger and Sara in God's Kingdom where the eternal life and communion with God reigns forever!," Kobia prayed in his letter.