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The life of Rev. Dr Rena Joyce Weller Karefa-Smart is being remembered and commended this week by the WCC fellowship after her passing last week. Karefa-Smart was the first Pan African woman to graduate in 1945 from Yale Divinity School. She was a champion for global ecumenism over the course of a long and distinguished career. An attendee of the first WCC Assembly, she was also a procession leader and author of the liturgies at the second WCC Assembly in Evanston, Illinois (USA).

At the swimming pool in Maxine Ankrah’s home town when she was growing up, there was a sign that stated, “Whites Only.” Also, churches there were separated by colour. She did not grow up in apartheid South Africa, but in the “deep South” of the United States of America before the Second World War.

Respect for the other lies at the heart of peace education and was a key thread through a debate entitled “Education for Peace in a multi-religious world”. It was held on the 2018 World Human Rights Day at the United Nations Office in Geneva.

A large-scale gathering of religious scholars, publishers, and librarians in the United States has yielded promising new ideas for the publications programme of the World Council of Churches (WCC) over the next few years.

As a result of a consultation on 9-10 November in Washington, D.C., Pan African Women of Faith have released a Call to Action toward a vision of sustainable communities and an end to hunger and poverty.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) approved on 14 November the formal statement, “Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love,” a pastoral letter against racism.

A Roundtable for Peace on the Korean Peninsula convened in Atlanta, Georgia (USA) on 8-12 November, building on decades of progress by the Korean Methodist Church, United Methodist Church, and World Methodist Council, as well the Korean Christian Federation and the World Council of Churches (WCC).

World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit expressed dismay at the tragic shooting in California (USA) during which a gunman killed 12 people before taking his own life.

The Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) of the World Council of Churches (WCC) organized a series of meetings between church leaders from North America and United Nations experts on racial justice issues in New York City on 29-31 October.

World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit expressed heartfelt sympathies to the Tree of Life synagogue and to the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA) after a gunman shot and killed 11 people and injured several others during a baby naming ceremony on 27 October.

A delegation from the Evangelical Church in Germany is visiting the WCC on 26-27 October for an ecumenical learning experience that includes prayers with students from the Bossey Ecumenical Institute, an introduction and overview of the work of the WCC, a meeting with the Lutheran World Federation, and a guided tour of the Ecumenical Centre.

Maryland-based, Ghanaian-born Rev. Dr Casely Essamuah was in February selected as secretary of the Global Christian Forum. Originally ordained in the Methodist Church in Ghana, he began his work officially in July. This week he made a study visit to the WCC and the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva and the WCC was able to converse with him.

“The seeds of peace come from the ground.” That is the vision that Rev. Dr Shanta Premawardhana, former director of Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation at the World Council of Churches and now president of OMNIA Institute for Contextual Leadership, tries to follow with his organization.

World Council of Churches (WCC) deputy general secretary Prof. Dr Isabel Apawo Phiri reflected on the recent Global Consultation on the Decade of the Churches in Solidarity, and what the insights gathered there might mean for the ecumenical movement.

Rev Prof. Dr Ofelia Ortega Suárez is a retired professor of Theology and Gender, and Christian Ethics for the Reformed-Presbyterian Church in Cuba. Ortega Suárez was born in Cuba. After her undergraduate studies in Theology and Christian Education at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Matanzas, she completed her post-graduate studies in Ecumenical Theology at the World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Institute at Bossey. She returned to Cuba and obtained her master's degrees in Divinity and Education.

Turtles, both in the Caribbean and elsewhere, are becoming increasingly confused. Their main prey of jelly fish doesn’t taste the same nowadays and is much more difficult to digest. Often, turtles die after having ingested plastic bags they thought were jelly fish.

A warm welcome with cheers and high expectations awaited WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit when he touched down in Kingston earlier this week. The Jamaican capital was the first stop of a 10-day tour in the Caribbean.

During an open air common prayer event held in Nelson Mandela Park in Kingston, Jamaica on 4 October, women and men processed and sang, most of them dressed in black as they renewed and expanded their commitment to the Thursdays in Black campaign seeking a world free from rape and violence.

Linette Vassel has been associated with the struggle for women’s rights in the Caribbean since the 1970s. She was the first coordinator of the Committee of Women for Progress, an activist organisation formed in 1976 which was among the pioneering organisations for the struggle for maternity leave with pay for women.

Thirty years ago, the founders of the Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women were searching for ways to not only help women across the globe seek justice but also highlight their contributions to churches and the world.