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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).

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.

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.

Each year students from all over the world arrive at Bossey near Geneva for a three-month language training course to pave their way for ecumenical studies that follow on straight after. “The title captures the goal of the course,” says Father Lawrence Iwuamadi, the Nigerian priest who studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and is academic dean of the Ecumenical Institute.

“Congratulations for being a student at Bossey!” Fr Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca, director of the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey and deputy general secretary, welcomed the students for the new academic year 2018-2019. Thirty-one students from diverse countries and traditions will start their classes at the ecumenical institute on Tuesday.

Speaking in Lviv, Ukraine on 30 August, World Council of Churches (WCC) deputy general secretary Prof. Dr Isabel Apawo Phiri presented a paper on ”Women and Ecumenical Engagement for Peace in South Sudan,” reflecting on the experiences of a Pilgrim Team visit by the WCC in May 2018.

An international consultation on “Education for Transformation: Challenges and Prospects for Formation and Reformation” was organised to mark the bicentenary of Serampore College, and the centenary of the Senate of Serampore.

Whether as individual believers or as a community, it is our collective task to advocate for Christian unity, says Melanio L. Aoanan from the Philippines. A clear vision for religious and ecumenical theological education is needed that is relevant in the 21st century.

Relations between Catholics and Protestants at the local level in East Indonesia are not as complex as talking about dogma at higher church levels, says a pastor from the Protestant Church in Maluku.

The Ecumenical Institute Bossey, which Pope Francis visits on Thursday, 21 June, as part of his pilgrimage to the World Council of Churches in Geneva, is a workshop of ideas, where the future path toward Christian unity is being mapped out.

If the human spirit and likeness of God's will for peace with justice for all people is alive in the world, the pilgrim team that visited South Sudan this week has witnessed it. From 5-9 May, a World Council of Churches “Pilgrim Team” visited South Sudan under the theme “African Women of Faith and Gender Justice.” The delegation was hosted by the South Sudan Council of Churches (SSCC).

Chō Takeda Kiyoko passed away on 12 April at the age of 100. Throughout her many scholarly pursuits, she always strived to deepen her engagement with global ecumenical Christianity. The World Council of Churches released a tribute.

The marketplace - also referred to as a “sokoni" - became an opportunity for faith and community-based institutions to share what they do to improve the lives of people around them.

Discipleship takes place when we intentionally, sacrificially, and consistently live every moment of our daily lives in commitment to following Jesus, said Rt Rev. Dhiloraj Ranjit Canagasabey at the missional formation plenary of the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) on March 12.

Traveling from Tanzania, Esther Ngulwa brought a sense of hope regarding gender equality as she spoke on 10 March, two days before the start of the 62nd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW62) in New York City.

Gathering in Makumira near Arusha, Tanzania on 5 March, more than 100 theology students from around the world celebrated the opening of the Global Ecumenical Theological Institute 2018, organized by the WCC.

Applications are now open for YATRA (Youth in Asia Training for Religious Amity) 2018, an inter-religious training programme of the WCC. The intensive training course, held annually since 2014, seeks to enable young Christian leaders from Asian churches to contribute towards the building up of just, harmonious and peaceable communities by equipping them for ministries of justice and peace from an inter-religious perspective.

Rt Rev. Dr Samuel Amirtham, an internationally renowned theologian, bishop and ecumenical leader, passed away on 26 September at the age of 85. Amirtham was a multifaceted and charismatic teacher, pastor, leader, and revolutionary, inspiring and accompanying many lives, from remote villages to universities, to the corridors of power.

Participants at the Africa Pre-Conference of the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism, arrived in black clothing on 14 September to act in solidarity with the worldwide “Thursdays in Black" campaign.

With the aim of building competency in economics within churches, the second Ecumenical School on Governance, Economics and Management for an Economy of Life (GEM School) was held from 21 August - 1 September in Lusaka, Zambia.