Empowering Women, Creating Tomorrow - This is the motto of the Walani women's project in Malawi. Together with the project partner MOHDEVS and the trainees, a new Instagram account was launched on 1 June 2024. The content comes directly from a newly founded social media team at the school and is intended to show the girls' everyday life during school hours as well as in their free time. The channel will also provide project information and facts about Malawi. A logo has also been designed for the project. The young women are highly motivated and, together with the Moravian Church in Malawi and Herrnhuter Missionshilfe, are looking forward to every new follower. To the Instgram channel here.

The Star Mountain Rehabilitation Center SMRC near Ramallah (Palestine/West Bank) welcomed several employees of the Japanese foundation Children Without Borders on Monday, 27 May 2024. They were accompanied by young people from the working regions of Jericho and the Jordan Valley, around 1,000 metres below. The guests learned about the work of the support centre, which was founded in 1980, during a lecture and a tour of the extensive grounds. They also took part in a workshop led by Abeer Hamad, which focussed on how to deal with people with disabilities and their inalienable rights. During their tour, the guests also came into direct contact with the children and young people who receive the best possible support in the inclusive kindergarten, the special school, vocational support and various special programmes (physiotherapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, art therapy, sports therapy, acrobatics, traditional dance Dabkeh, theatre, psychosocial support). A photo here.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) recently donated many books for theology students at the Moravian Church's Teofilo Kisanji University (TEKU) in Tanzania. The university is located in the city of Mbeya, was founded in 2006 and has around 2,000 students, 60 of whom are studying theology. The Moravian Church in Switzerland will finance the shipment of the books to Tanzania. Pastor Volker Schulz, a bishop of the worldwide Moravian Church, expressed his heartfelt thanks to the WCC. Frieder Vollprecht, pastor of the Moravian Church in Basel and Bern, expressed his hope that the books would ‘do a good service for the students’ and provide not only education but also ‘a broader view of the ecumenical world’. Pastor Dr Mikie Roberts, Geneva, WCC programme director for spiritual life and also pastor of the Moravian Church, sees the book donation as a contribution to the current ecumenical pilgrimage. More in German translation here.

Synod 2024 was recently held in the Labrador Mission Province of the worldwide Moravian Church. The synod members gathered in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Despite a late start to the Synod due to bad weather on the coast and cancelled flight connections, Synod delegates were able to complete their work on 25 May 2024 as planned. Sarah Jensen was re-elected as chair of the church leadership. The Board of World Mission was represented at the synod by Chris Giesler, Director of Practical Missions. He led workshops on the history of the Moravian Church and the Moravian Guide for Biblical Interpretation. The Labrador Mission Province currently only includes (from north to south) the four small, mostly very remote congregations of Nain, Hopedale, Makkovik and Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Two pictures from the synod here.

On 25 May 2024, the 27th anniversary of the founding of the Moravian Church in Cuba in 1997, Armando Rusindo, the first bishop of the worldwide Moravian Church to come from Cuba, addressed a greeting to the members of the Moravian Church in Cuba. See in English here. In the greeting, he recalls the small size of the Moravian Congregations in Cuba in the early years and the challenges that had to be overcome in building up the church. He then writes: ‘We were able to achieve important successes and set our goals ever higher. Now there is a real Moravian Church on Cuban soil. The Lord has helped us up to this point. But the passion and dedication of many brothers and sisters who have put their talents, their strength and also their sacrifices at the service of this work have also been important." He then greeted everyone who felt connected to his church. Here is a  video and some pictures of the recent dispatch of relief supplies by large container from the USA to Cuba and of the distribution of relief supplies in the Cuban congregations (‘We are not only addressing physical hunger but also spreading the love of Jesus’).

After heavy rainfall and hailstorms caused considerable destruction in parts of Cuba on 22 March 2024, resulting in crop losses, several fundraising campaigns were launched, particularly in the USA. The Cuba Foundation of the Moravian Church in North America (Armando Rusindo Mission Foundation) has now posted the following information on Facebook: "We are sincerely grateful for the continued financial support and prayers you have given us in connection with the Container of Hope Programme. The first container, destined for the Cuban Council of Churches, has already arrived in Havana. The food and other relief supplies inside have already been distributed." Contents of the container: 20,000 pounds of rice, beans and oatmeal; clothing; medical supplies; wheelchairs; agricultural supplies; three water treatment systems. The next container with relief supplies (value: 25,000 to 40,000 US dollars) is due to follow soon. Further donations are welcome and needed. More on Facebook here.

In her third newsletter from Chimala-Brandt in south-west Tanzania, Lydia Hans, a young volunteer, reports on her everyday life at school and kindergarten, but also on highlights such as a mid-term seminar together with many other volunteers from Tanzania and East Africa, an Easter youth meeting with more than 1,000 participants and visits from family members and friends. She writes that her work at the Lutheran mission station of the Ushirika wa Upendo (Community of Love) sisterhood has already given her a great deal of general confidence and language skills and that she recently acquired two baby dogs and a vegetable field. Lydia Hans talks about excursions into the beautiful countryside, about playing the trombone for the first time in many months, about her educational experiments in the classroom (including German) and about her endeavours to bring more ecological thinking into the station with the support of the management. To the complete newsletter here.

Justin Rabbach and Chris Giesler from the Board of World Mission BWM and Betsy Miller, Ecumenical Representative for the North American Northern Province, recently attended a Church World Service (CWS) membership meeting in Chicago. This was a special meeting of CWS member organisations to vote on changes to the membership model. The new model, which was unanimously approved by those present, opens up new opportunities for the CWS to work together and take public action, particularly in the field of global development promotion. The Moravian Church is grateful for the resources that the CWS makes available to its member organisations so that they can strive for contemporary mission in a concrete way and cooperate in the best possible way. Some pictures from Chicago here.

Back in 2015, the Christian Gregor School of Music was founded in the north of Port Elizabeth, now Gqeberha, by Moravian Church music teacher Tyrone Hitzeroth - also with donations from the Moravian Church in Germany and the Netherlands. The school, which is still significantly influenced by the Moravian Church today, offers lessons in brass and woodwind instruments, guitar, piano, organ and percussion instruments. A brass ensemble from the school is now preparing for a European tour in June/July 2024, which is financially supported by the South African Ministry of Sport, Arts and Culture. The tour programme has already been performed at the Church of Peace in Springfield on 24 May 2024. See here.The poster shows that the ensemble will soon be performing in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Germany. A concert is planned for Wednesday, 3 July 2024, at 7.30 pm in Church of the Moravian Congregation Niesky. 24 hours later, the same programme will be performed again in Church in Herrnhut. Admission is free. Donations for the brass tour are requested. The purpose of the trip is to draw attention to the great successes (including social advancement) of the music school.

Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the Cottbus Haltestelle, a social and family education organisation of the Moravian Church, has been committed to helping refugees from Ukraine, especially those without church ties or on the fringes of the church. This is reflected once again in the 81st Haltestelle newsletter from June 2024, see here. The Haltestelle has been offering language courses for two years, which was recently celebrated with words of thanks, gifts and a sweet table with a giant cake. Initially, 100 children attended these language courses, the first to be offered in Cottbus. There are also stories of Ukrainian men working on the grounds of the bus stop. During this assignment, the old wire mesh fence around the inner-city site, which had become overgrown with hedges, was dismantled and a new fence was erected, and clean-up work was carried out.

The so-called Firstfruits paintings are among the most famous paintings of the Moravian Church. They show in striking size and in their national costume those baptised Indians who were the first to go home to their Saviour. Four of the ten proven first-baptised paintings are still preserved today. The oldest and largest is in the small hall of the Moravian Church in Zeist/NL, another in the side wing of the church hall in Moravian Church and one in Bethlehem/PA. The fourth copy, which is in great need of restoration, now hangs in the reading room of the university archive in Herrnhut. Like the other first paintings, it dates from the middle of the 18th century. In contrast to the other three pictures, which were painted by Johann Valentin Haidt (1700-1780), this work was executed by Abraham Louis Brandt (1717-1797). It is in poor condition, the canvas has flaws and needs to be stretched again; the surface is yellowed and the paint layer is fragile. The painting is now to be restored by an experienced restorer for 11,000 euros. Who can donate to this cause? See here.