{"id":30373,"date":"2014-10-10T21:01:46","date_gmt":"2014-10-11T02:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.globalministries.org\/uccsa_general_assembly_a_10_10_2014_141\/"},"modified":"2014-10-10T21:01:46","modified_gmt":"2014-10-11T02:01:46","slug":"uccsa_general_assembly_a_10_10_2014_141","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalministries.org\/uccsa_general_assembly_a_10_10_2014_141\/","title":{"rendered":"UCCSA General Assembly \u2013 a Transnational Celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"

What a joyous opportunity! A church meeting of five countries, with more languages than I could count much less speak! It was a great opportunity to be part of God\u2019s work at the transnational denominational level.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

What a joyous opportunity!\u00a0 A church meeting of five countries, with more languages than I could count much less speak!\u00a0 It was a great opportunity to be part of God\u2019s work at the transnational denominational level.\u00a0 I was invited to go both in order to be introduced to the UCCSA as a new Global Ministries missionary serving as a Pastor, and as delegate from Namibia, as one of only 6 Pastors in Namibia.<\/p>\n

Even getting there was an adventure.\u00a0 After a four hour drive from Kalkfeld to Windhoek I journeyed with ten Namibia Synod delegates in a combi (van) from Windhoek, Namibia to Maheking, South Africa.\u00a0 This drive (of supposedly 14 hours by Google maps) was interrupted when, in spite of the best efforts of our driver, we hit a warthog (bosvarke in Afrikaans- a word I won\u2019t soon forget!).\u00a0 Thankfully no one was hurt (except the poor animal) and the combi was not badly damaged, but we had to turn back to Gobabis to get the coolant tank repaired.\u00a0 We were very grateful as it all could have been much worse.\u00a0 Back on the road we found the border between Namibia and Botswana closed for the night at midnight.\u00a0 We slept in the combi a few hours and then got back on the road.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We found the drought in Botswana to be devastating.\u00a0 Because there is nothing to eat in the bush we got to see many herds of animals foraging along the road; donkey, cows, goats, and even kudu, ostrich, baboons and duiker (small deer) in broad daylight, and of course warthogs.\u00a0 We arrived 27 hours after we departed.\u00a0 A bit wrinkled but safe.<\/p>\n

The General Assembly was amazing as you might imagine a gathering of nearly 250 delegates from 5 countries (Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe) to worship, pray, learn, conduct elections and fellowship together.\u00a0 We had amazing and uplifting worship to open and close the Assembly, to celebrate the ministry of the outgoing General Secretary the Rev. Dr. Prince Dibeela (Botswana) and President the Rev. Basil Manning (South Africa), and induct the new General Secretary Rev. Allistar Arens (South Africa) and President Philip Strydom (Namibia) and President Elect Rev Mosweu Simane from Zimbabwe.\u00a0 A truly transnational church!\u00a0 The UCCSA amended its constitution to expand the executive board to add three members at large with the purpose of maintaining an equal number of men and women in leadership.<\/p>\n

Every morning we started the meetings with a devotion and Bible study to put us in the right frame of mind.\u00a0 But it continued with throughout the day.\u00a0 In between conducting the business and elections of the church, someone would be asked to start singing.\u00a0 The whole congregation would then erupt in joyous praise and dancing.\u00a0 I realized this not only reminded us we were not just doing business but kingdom work, and it also exercised our bodies and got the oxygen circulating.\u00a0 It was a great way to keep the Spirit\u2019s presence flowing throughout the room!\u00a0 We were also privileged to travel in small groups to worship with local churches on Sunday and receive their wonderful hospitality.<\/p>\n

There were many wonderful workshops offered.\u00a0 I regretted that I was only able to attend workshops on Trafficking in Humans, Land Rights and Economic Development.\u00a0 These are three very big issues in Southern Africa and Kalkfeld.\u00a0 I was pleased to be able to see and talk with many people I had met in my travels the first four months in South Africa, as well as fellowship with some new friends.\u00a0 When I was introduced to the General Assembly the entire congregation applauded and yelled their encouragement.\u00a0 They are very appreciative of their partnership with Global Ministries and your gift of a missionary to serve with them.<\/p>\n

Our journey back was (mostly) uneventful and only 17 hours.\u00a0 We were greeted in style however by the \u201cfireworks\u201d of Windhoek.\u00a0 A great big, sky-filling lightning and thunderstorm surrounded us as we arrived.\u00a0 It was spectacular and beautiful.\u00a0 It was also intimidating and unfortunately brought only a few drops of much needed rain.\u00a0 Thank you for allowing me the privilege of representing you and please be in prayer for all of Southern Africa to receive plentiful and useful (ground soaking, dam-filling and not flooding) rain.<\/p>\n

Rev. Dr. Loletta Barrett<\/a>, serves with the Namibia Synod of the UCCSA in \u00a0Kalkveld, \u00a0Namibia.\u00a0 She serves as a pastor.<\/em><\/p>\n

Blog: www.LolettainNamibia.blogspot.com<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a joyous opportunity! A church meeting of five countries, with more languages than I could count much less speak! It was a great opportunity to be part of God\u2019s work at the transnational denominational level. What a joyous opportunity!\u00a0 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20028,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false},"categories":[],"topic":[20237],"region":[20007,20063],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nUCCSA General Assembly \u2013 a Transnational Celebration - Global Ministries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.globalministries.org\/uccsa_general_assembly_a_10_10_2014_141\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UCCSA General Assembly \u2013 a Transnational Celebration - Global Ministries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What a joyous opportunity! 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