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Report of the BWA
Women's Department Leadership Conference

A fuller report will be published in the next edition of News & Views, so this is just a short glimpse into the events of the Conference.

Summer suns are glowing over land and sea;
Happy light is flowing, bountiful and free;
Everything rejoices in the mellow rays;
All earth’s thousand voices swell the psalm of praise.

God’s free mercy streameth over all the world,
And His banner gleameth, by His church unfurled;
Broad and deep and glorious, as the heavens above,
Shines in might victorious His eternal love.

Lord, upon our blindness Thy pure radiance pour;
For Thy lovingkindness makes us love Thee more;
And when clouds are drifting dark across the sky,
Then, the veil uplifting, Father, be Thou nigh.

We will never doubt Thee, though Thou veil Thy light;
Life is dark without Thee, death with Thee is bright;
Light of light, shine o’er us on our pilgrim way;
Go Thou still before us to the endless day.

For me this hymn of William W. How (1823-1897) perfectly sums up the recent Women’s Leadership Conference (and the Baptist World Alliance Congress) which I had the privilege of attending along with my sisters of the EBWU Committee.

The Women’s Leadership Conference was held 23rd-27th July 2010, in the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel, Honolulu, Hawaii.   It was a wonderful time of women of varying ages from all over the world coming together, sharing with one another, worshipping God together, sitting at His feet and learning from Him and each other of how to be ‘In Step with the Spirit’.  On registering each participant received a specially made ‘Freeset’ bag containing the programme, pen, shell lei and information about Hawaii.

The Conference opened with a sumptuous Aloha Dinner.  What a colourful sight it was – the tables were beautifully decorated and many women came wearing their national dress. Garlands of shells draped over the chairs were placed round our necks by our table hostess and each place setting had a little woven basket containing chocolate macadamia nuts which were very tasty. We were entertained by the Hawaiian Church Hula Dancers who were very graceful and expressive in their movements. This group also enhanced our worship on a few occasions.  The outgoing President, Dorothy Selebano, addressed the gathering taking as her theme ‘Redeeming the Time’ (see the Women’s Department webpage) affirming that this world is a hurting one and that there is no remedy apart from Jesus Christ.  Time is short, we must redeem it, by bringing Christ to this sin-sick world, and as we do so we walk in step with the Spirit.

Each day began with prayer at 7.00am and continued through the day finishing around 9.00pm.  The days were full of praise and worship, Bible study, presentations, reports, and prayer. Our praise was led by Debbie Kelsey, along with her daughter Blyth, and four others.  Debbie composed our theme song ‘In Step with the Spirit’.  The diversity among us was rich and colourful as we enjoyed different forms of worship and heard from the seven continental unions of the ongoing work of the Kingdom of God around the world, focussing mainly on poverty and abuse, with various speakers drawing our attention to these issues and how they are being addressed.  There was much to praise God for and also much to bring to God in prayer.  On the Sunday afternoon each continental union had its own room, and opportunity was given for the conference participants to visit a few of these rooms to hear and see several aspects of the work being done in each particular continent by Baptist women.

The new Women’s Department President is Raquel Contreras of Chile and she will serve for the next five years together with Donna Groover, Secretary/Treasurer and Patsy Davis, Executive Director.  I commend them to your prayers.

Being in Hawaii we enjoyed the warm climate and beautiful scenery; also the friendliness of the people who made us very welcome indeed.  There was not much free time, but some did manage to get into the sea, either to just paddle, or swim, or even have a go at surfing (the younger ones among us).  As we made our separate ways home, we had wonderful memories to take back home with us as well as lessons learned. Hopefully we were glowing not only from the heat of the sunshine, but also from our time spent in the presence of the Lord.  I’d like to think that everyone left more determined to live in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit, and be in step with Him, for the glory of God our Saviour.

Margaret Brown

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