World Day of Prayer issues “a common plea for peace”

March 11, 2016 · 0 Comments

Prayers went out from Shelburne on March 4 as churches in communities around the globe participated in World Day of Prayer (WDP).

Shelburne and area churches observed the WDP with a 2 p.m.service in the Mel Lloyd Centre.

The 2016 service was organized for the area by Elisabeth Liekermoser and the women of St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church in Melancthon.

The service was developed and written by the Women’s Inter-Church Council of Canada and sponsored by the women of Cuba.

Each year, women from a different country develop the service. According to the Council, there was a time in the Caribbean nation when the practice of any religion was “marginalized by an atheist policy, but in 1990, the Cuban Constitution re-established and guaranteed religious freedom.”

“[There was] a wonderful turnout from all church communities in Shelburne,” said Ms. Liekermoser, noting the event was “a very special and meaningful celebration because it inspires all Christian Church communities to celebrate together.”

Aileen Arnold of the Community of Christ Grand Valley led the music and songs; Abiding Place Ministries’ Rev. Gordon Horsley, and Rev. Kathleen Mills from Crossroad Community Church ministered in the service, along with Rev. Candice Bist of Trinity United Church in Shelburne.

Ms. Liekermoser extends special thanks to Angie Matthew of Dufferin Oaks for making the venue available and bringing residents of the Oaks to the celebration.

“Celebrating the event in the Dufferin Oaks’ auditorium was a very meaningful way of expressing that we care for the elderly people in our community,” said Ms. Liekermoser. “[There has been] wonderful feedback about our guest speaker LeeAnn McKenna, Executive Director of Partera International, who shared her firsthand stories of peacemaking with the Cuban people.”

Partera International is an organization of Peacebuilders working in areas of conflict to bring about non-violent solutions.

“Peace is the ‘what-for’ of faith,” says McKenna, “Peace being a state characterized by justice. People living in right relationships with one another and with creation.”

Ms. McKenna told the Free Press that she has participated in many ways in World Day of Prayer over the years, including assessing applications for project funding.

“Every year we hear the stories and narratives of women from some other part of the world; every year, we listen for a request,” she said. “What can we do? In the case of Cuba, where I have visited and worked many times, it is about accompaniment out of embargo and into full status in the community of nations. It won’t be easy; transitions like this never are. I see World Day of Prayer as a chain link, tying together communities around the world in a common plea for peace. In a world of deepening anxiety around climate change, endless war and the refugee flows they generate, the Cuban plea for accompaniment, for help, for peace, applies to the whole world.”

In 2010, Ms. McKenna was awarded the YMCA Peace Medallion acknowledging her contributions to peacemaking around the world. Her work is funded by donors. Her website is www.partera.ca

“This World Day of Prayer service bears witness to the women and men who shared God’s love and their Christian faith through the storms of revolution and an atheist State,” said Ms. Liekermoser. “Change and uncertainty are on the horizon for Cuba. May the prayers of the world with and for the Cuban people be as a rising light of support and love.”

By Marni Walsh