Global Mission speakers bring international perspective to conference.

This year’s Global Ministries Dinner at Annual Conference will offer “a rare opportunity to hear a speaker of global stature and perspective,” said Merv Keeney, executive director of the General Board’s Global Mission Partnerships. Erlinda Senturias, president of Southern Christian College in Cotabato, Philippines, will speak at the Global Ministries Dinner on July 4.

In another Global Mission meal event, the International Welcome Dinner on July 1 will hear from Jim Hardenbrook, interim director for the General Board’s Sudan Initiative.

Senturias’ topic is “Transforming Communities: Stories of Hope from Rural Philippines” (for a flier go to http://www.brethren.org/genbd/global_mission/2006IntlWelcomeDinner.pdf). The communities of Mindanao Island in southern Philippines face multiple concerns: health, economic hardship, Christian-Muslim tensions, and environmental degradation. Senturias will speak to the ways these communities, their churches, and peoples are beginning to foster healing and wholeness. A medical doctor by profession, Senturias has carried leadership roles with the National Council of Churches in the Philippines and the World Council of Churches.

Hardenbrook is past moderator of Annual Conference and a pastor at Nampa (Idaho) Church of the Brethren. The title for his presentation is “Don’t Let This Harvest Pass” (for a flier go to http://www.brethren.org/genbd/global_mission/2006GlobalMinistriesDinner.pdf). The statement was made to Hardenbrook last year when he was in Sudan with a delegation of interfaith leaders. Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamid, minister of humanitarian affairs for the government of Sudan, urged the Church of the Brethren not to let the opportunity pass to take advantage of open doors made possible by a peace agreement between the northern government and southern rebels.

Other Global Mission Partnerships events at the Conference include insight sessions on variety of topics, a Brethren Volunteer Service Luncheon on July 3, and the Brethren Witness/Washington Office’s “Un-Luncheon” on July 4.

Source: 5/24/2006 Newsline
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