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At 20, Ruth Mathen has already come a long way on the path that God has chosen for her. She heeded his call at a YMCA camp six years ago and is now running a non-government organization together with three college friends.

At a Welcome Service on 13 August for the 2017 Annual Conference at the Centenary Methodist Church in Suva, Fiji, World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit offered a sermon that reflected on what it means, spiritually and ecologically, to exist in deep water.

On 18-19 July, 35 young leaders from 14 countries across Asia – part of the World Council of Churches' (WCC) Youth in Asia Training in Religious Amity (YATRA) – travelled to the Indonesian city of Bandung to meet with faith leaders and young activists engaged in interreligious dialogue and work.

Reconciliation was once primarily seen as a message of the church but is now used by secular leaders trying to establish peace in communities torn by conflict and war, the WCC president for Africa, the Rev. Mary Anne Plaatjies van Huffel, has said at a major Protestant gathering in Germany.

In 1982, shortly after Dr Sasiprabha Stanley married, she traveled with her husband to Odisha, in eastern India, to a village called Champakenda. “That was the first time I stepped into another state where I did not know the language. I was a foreigner, simply sitting and watching the women.”

On the 28th Quadrennial Assembly of the National Council of Churches in India, held in Jabalpur from 27-30 April, Rev. Dr Sang Chang, WCC president for Asia, urged Indian churches to commit themselves afresh to the task of building just and inclusive communities.

How can we begin building peace in an era of religious extremism and acts of terror? Start by reaching out in your own neighborhood, suggests Rev. Arshad Gill, general secretary of the Presbyterian Church of Pakistan.

To promote strong measures against climate change, the WCC and the Geneva Interfaith Forum on Climate Change, Environment and Human Rights organized a side event to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Violence against children was one emerging issue discussed at the Christian Conference of Asia's assembly. “It is still a sad reality in large parts of the world, but momentum to end violence against children is growing within governments and communities, amongst parents and religious leaders. This is a good thing since it takes everyone to make a change”, says Lauren Rumble, UNICEF’s chief of child protection in Indonesia.

Christians need a "spirituality of resistance" to face oppression, violence and experiences of defeat, the WCC general secretary said in an address at Germany’s biggest Protestant gathering.

”Truly, I am in the household of God,” began WCC associate general secretary for public witness and diakonia Dr Isabel Apawo Phiri in her keynote speech today at the 14th Assembly of the Christian Conference of Asia.

The “pilgrimage is both a way to continue working for the one ecumenical movement and a way to move forward in our times that offer new dimensions, opportunities and practices,” said the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit.

Dr Isabel Apawo Phiri, associate and acting general secretary of the WCC, has expressed solidarity with those seeking justice for women who suffered from sexual slavery imposed by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.

Inspired by the theme “pilgrimage of justice and peace”, the Central Committee of the WCC, a chief governing body of the Council, has set directions for the work of the Council from 2014 to 2017.

Sexual slavery, resistance and women’s demand for justice were the focus of a recent event hosted by the WCC in Geneva, Switzerland, featuring representatives of the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan.

In one of their first decisions as the Central Committee for the World Council of Churches, the 150-member committee made history Friday by electing Dr Agnes Abuom of Nariobi, Kenya as the moderator of the highest WCC governing body.

Lit with bright lights and adorned with colourful paintings on the walls, the Raham Centre run by the Gimhae Presbyterian Church in South Korea looks like a day-care centre for children. However, the name Raham, which literally means “womb of a woman” or “womb of God” in the Hebrew language, has deep implications for the work of the centre with the purpose of supporting “migrant wives” in Gimhae.

The WCC is working toward the revival of “Thursdays in Black”, a campaign against sexual and gender-based violence. The emphasis is pertinent to the theme of the WCC’s upcoming assembly: “God of life, lead us to justice and peace”.

Drawing on the Indian churches' experience, churches around the world are celebrating the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity with a particular focus on justice as integral to the unity they seek.