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In crowded urban neighborhoods and drought-plagued rural villages, Indonesians from all religious backgrounds are putting their faith into action.

A young Christian from the United Kingdom has said that the young generation needs the older generation to work with them to tackle the world's problems, as neither group can do it alone.

The world needs young leadership very badly because those from the older generation have not delivered, the head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has told young Christian, Jewish, and Muslim participants at the Emerging Peacemakers Forum.

For the first time in history, women pastors in the Maluku Protestant Church outnumber their male counterparts. “We have 1,444 pastors in the Maluku Protestant Church, and about 55% are women,” said Maluku Protestant Church moderator Rev. Elifas Tomix Maspaitella.

Messages of hope related to climate change and global conflicts from renowned global peacemakers have inspired young Christians, Jews, and Muslims at the Emerging Peacemakers Forum, held 5-14 July at the World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Institute at Bossey. The young peacemakers have spent nearly 10 days crafting the next generation of peacebuilding. 

The forum is organized in partnership between the Muslim Council of Elders, the WCC, and the Rose Castle Foundation.

Vigilance is needed to sustain people's acceptance of one another to prevent aberrations such as the Rwanda genocide in 1994 and the Russian-Ukraine war, a UN special adviser has told a group of young Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

A woman who works with youth in Kenya—young people who once turned to heinous crimes—had a group of young Christians, Jews, and Muslims weeping tears of compassion and joy as she recounted her tough upbringing and how she helps turn those youth from crime to community.

Peace is not a given these days, an international group of young Christians, Jews, and Muslims has heard from a woman whose father survived the Holocaust as she stressed the need to talk and listen to one another.

Racism has been identified as one of the most significant challenges facing the North American region in the United States and Canada, a World Council of Churches (WCC) meeting has heard.

Children who gathered prior and during  the New Global Financial Pact, held 22-23 June in Paris, delivered a clear message to President Macron and world leaders: the existing colonial economic model must be replaced with one that prioritizes humanity over profits.

“The Pacific is a large ocean region, and we see the smallness of our region as a strength not a weakness. Amidst the vulnerability our islands experience to climate change, geopolitical and neo-colonialism, we affirm our resilience as a gift of God, rooted in our Indigenous wisdom and celebrated as spirituality of abundance and hospitality,” said Iemaima Vaai, representing the Methodist Church of Samoa and youth advisor to the World Council of Churches (WCC) in her shared message to the central committee, on behalf of the Pacific region.

Seeking to join efforts with those committed to ensure a just and sustainable future for the continent, representatives from World Council of Churches (WCC) member churches in Latin America gathered at the WCC central committee in June to identify common concerns.

As members of the World Council of Churches (WCC) central committee and stewards visited the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, they came away newly inspired about the next generation of the ecumenical movement.

“We carry the cross with dignity and hope.” These were the opening words as Middle East Christians stood to bear witness at the World Council of Churches central committee meeting, to the burdens and challenges – but also the resilience – that they live on a daily basis in the land where Christianity was born. 

By far the largest region, both in terms of population and geographical size, the Asia region faces an array of pertinent issues for the churches to address and engage in. Stretching from Iran in the west to Japan in the east and from Nepal in the north to New Zealand in the south, the region encompasses a wide range of cultures and religions.

Hope and commitment were central in the report that the Africa region presented to the WCC central committee on 26 June. As is customary during these meetings, central committee members, advisors, stewards, and staff from each region met for prayer and sharing and to identify issues affecting the life and witness of the churches in their region.

At any big World Council of Churches (WCC) meeting, stewards work like the oil in a machine, helpings gathering such as the central committee to function seamlessly, but it is also a learning experience for the young ecumenical workers.