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Our
Hosts Deep gratitude to the LWF Tenth Assembly host church
Worldwide Lutheran communion expresses thanks Dear Bishop Schultz Come, thou long-expected Jesus! With this traditional Advent acclamation, a new church year begins with thoughts and feelings of preparation, anticipation, waiting and thanksgiving – knowing the joy that comes with God’s promised gift of a savior. For the Lutheran World Federation and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, these feelings of preparation, anticipation, waiting and thanksgiving bind us together intimately with shared memories and joys of the successfully-completed LWF Tenth Assembly in Winnipeg. On behalf of the worldwide Lutheran communion of churches, I want to express to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada the profound and joyful thanks of our member churches, the LWF Council, the Assembly participants and the Geneva secretariat for your gracious hospitality which enfolded us during the Assembly. As the weeks pass since the end of the Assembly, we continue to receive expressions of thanks and appreciation for the warm and capable hosting of the Assembly by the ELCIC. Most participants who have completed evaluations have added specific comments of appreciation for your church’s hospitality. To the ELCIC congregations and church members, to the hundreds of volunteers and the many hosting communities, to the Assembly Local Committee and many people who carried leadership responsibilities, I want to express my personal "Thank You" for your faithful work and caring service which embodied the Assembly theme, "For the Healing of the World." In an important sense, the Assembly not only spoke about healing. It was itself a healing event for many and it will be remembered for that. This could not have happened if the Assembly had not been welcomed and integrated into the living church in Winnipeg – the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, in close partnership with other churches of the local ecumenical community. By the faces, voices and hands of hundreds of church volunteers from different parts of Canada, and by the genuine hospitality extended to us by church representatives at all levels, the Assembly participants were given a spiritual home away from home. Here we knew that God was, and is, really present, including us in the divine life and service for the healing of the world. We send to all of you in the ELCIC our warmest greetings and thanks for having been church for the LWF Tenth Assembly. Let us assure and comfort each other at this time of Advent – which is also a time of severe difficulties in the world – that God remains among us and is the same healing and comforting power today and tomorrow and for all time to come. May God’s peace be with you. Sincerely yours, Rev. Dr Ishmael Noko [Site Map] [LWF Assembly Home] [Links] [LWF Home] |
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