Nobel nominee featured at closing of ELCA Global Mission Event

by Katherine R. Hinck*, ELCA News Service

Closing worship at the 2006 Global Mission Event (GME) of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) featured Nobel
Peace Prize nominee Wahu Kaara, a video presentation and global
music. Co-sponsored by The Episcopal Church and endorsed by the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, the event brought together
some 1,300 participants of all ages from the United States and
around the world July 27-30 to the University of Massachusetts in
Amherst. The GME featured plenary and workshop sessions, keynote
presenters, global music and worship under the theme "Sent! by
God's grace for the sake of the world."

"When we refuse the truth, then we refuse God," said Kaara,
Millennium Development Goals campaign program coordinator, All
Africa Conference of Churches, Nairobi, Kenya. "We are here to
rise up. We are here to be ignited by the Scripture," she said,
urging participants to "stop taking half-measures" to ease their
consciences, and instead "take a stand to act on your
conscience."

Rather than being labeled, "we must get our rightful identity --
that we are global citizens. We have equal rights because we are
alive," Kaara said. "We need global mission, but we need global
mission with a difference, a different mission for a different
orientation. For the mission is to see that God indeed lives and
lives in us." She concluded her sermon with a call to action, "I
believe that we are global citizens who must take responsibility,
who must stop going around and talking about issues, but act upon
issues."

*Katherine R. Hinck is a senior journalism and religion major at
Augustana College, Sioux Falls, S.D. This summer she is an
intern with the ELCA News Service.