Myanmar was recently hit by a major earthquake that caused considerable destruction. Thousands of people have lost their lives and many families are homeless, without access to essential food, clean water and medical care. Brother Tin Aungshwe, a member of the Moravian Church in Yangon, is urgently appealing for support for the affected congregations. At least USD 20,000 is needed to provide immediate relief and aid reconstruction. These funds are crucial to provide shelter, ensure medical care and distribute basic relief items such as food and water. Every donation will be used directly for this Emergency Aid and will help to save the lives of the people affected and support the reconstruction. We thank you for your help and support during this difficult time. Please send donations to Herrnhuter Missionshilfe e.V., DE25 5206 0410 0000 4151 03, keyword “Emergency Aid Myanmar”.

Training sponsorships are an important part of the commitment at the Walani Women Center. Supporters who decide to sponsor a student take on the financing of school fees, accommodation, meals, learning materials and basic medical care - fundamental requirements so that the students can devote themselves to their education undisturbed and focused. Education in Malawi is far more than just a basic need - it is the key to self-determination and social transformation. By acquiring professional skills and promoting personal development, these sponsorships pave the way to an independent and successful future. With your support, you enable disadvantaged young women to realize their dreams and set positive long-term impulses in their community. Every educational sponsorship is therefore a valuable building block for a sustainable future for the young generation and for the entire country of Malawi. Would you like to help? For more information on educational sponsorship, please contact markus.kuhn@ebu.de.

The team at the Herrnhuter Academy vocational training center for hotel management in Zanzibar launched an “Awareness Raising” project last year with the support of the Bauder Foundation. This is about raising awareness of the need for vocational training. This initiative was launched in response to the alarming youth unemployment rate, which particularly affects young women and girls whose education is neglected. Cultural and social barriers prevent women and young girls from embarking on a professional career They are often forced into early marriages and are not given the chance of vocational training. The team of teachers at the Herrnhut Academy imparts knowledge and opportunities in teaching units at secondary schools and raises awareness of the importance of high-quality vocational training. With various activities such as workshops in the villages, building partnerships with local companies, competitions with the schools, trade fair events and information campaigns, open days at the school and publications in social media and other media, society is also involved in order to overcome social and cultural barriers.

Silvia M. grew up in Ndola in Zambia. In a family of eight siblings, everyday life was often characterized by challenges. But Silvia had a dream: she wanted to learn, develop and give her family a better future. But fate was not kind to her. After the early death of her father, Silvia had to drop out of school in the third grade - the family could not afford the school fees. Although she repeatedly applied for scholarships, her hopes remained unfulfilled. Instead, she worked in the fields, helped her mother and looked after her younger siblings. Silvia's path took her through many ups and downs, but one thing remained: her desire for education and a perspective. When she heard about a sewing program at the Moravian Church's vocational training center in Ndola in 2023, she seized the opportunity. There she learned the tailoring trade. Thanks to the support of Herrnhuter Missionshilfe, Silvia received her own sewing machine and start-up materials. Now she can fulfill her dream of becoming self-employed! She is working hard to set up a small sewing business - not only for herself, but also to give other women in her congregation a perspective.

On Friday, April 11, 2025 at 7:00 pm, a community webinar of the Moravian Church NRW will take place. The topic of the evening is the worldwide Moravian Church in 2025. The event offers space for exchange and information on the current situation and development of the Moravian Church worldwide. The webinar will be held as a video conference via the BigBlueButton platform. The speaker will be Raimund Hertzsch from Bad Boll and the moderator will be Christian Flöter from Krefeld. Anyone interested is cordially invited to take part in the event. Here is the access link to the video conference and the invitation.

The Board of World Mission of the Moravian Church in North America wrote on Facebook on March 26, 2025: “We are pleased to announce that the Moravian Church in Zambia is now our new global partner. With this alliance we want to support the work already happening in Zambia and enable further growth. We have already supported several individual projects in Zambia, e.g. the construction of a vocational training center and a solar system for a kindergarten as well as the construction of a church. Looking to the future, we look forward to working on theological education initiatives to further qualify leaders for church ministry. We invite you to join us in praying for the Moravian Church in Zambia and for its leadership, especially for Pastor John Sichilima. Pray that the church will continue to be strong and able to minister in its congregations. A synod is due to take place in August this year. Some pictures here.

About 50 percent of the members of the Moravian Church in Europe are Surinamese or have their roots in Suriname. This is reason enough for the leadership of the Moravian Church in continental Europe, the leadership of the Zeister Missionary Society in the Netherlands and the leadership of the Unity Province of Suriname to meet every two years for a consultation in order to strengthen their relationship, learn from each other and agree on joint projects. Such a consultation took place in Zeist in the 14th calendar week of 2025. Specific topics of the consultation were theological education, youth work, the importance of mission today and coming to terms with the Moravian Church's slavery past. During a break, there was the opportunity to visit the Comenius exhibition in the nearby Museum Het Hernhutter Huis. The guests from Suriname stayed on to visit congregations in the Netherlands. Some pictures of the consultation here.

The Zeister Missionary Society 's (ZZg) 2024 Christmas gift campaign in the Netherlands was a great success. A total of 18,000 euros was donated to bring Christmas joy to needy senior citizens, single mothers and their children, children in the Leliëndaal and Sukh Dhaam orphanages and the Rebecca Scheltz boarding school for girls. This money was used to buy Christmas presents and food parcels for 500 people and to organize a festive Christmas party. Gifts were also given to the elderly at Huize Albertine, Huize Francis, Huize Wisma Asih en De Unit and some elderly people living at home. All the gifts were wrapped with care and love by volunteers. Of course, there was also a festive meal together. In addition, a Christmas concert was organized in the Great City Church in Paramaribo with the participation of the “Rein Rier Orchestra”. See here, p.8.

On March 7, 2025, ecumenical World Day of Prayer (WDP) gatherings were also held in many places in Malawi, focusing on the lives of people in the Cook Islands in the middle of the Pacific. The following pictures show a WDP gathering at the soccer stadium in Mzuzu, Malawi, with the participation of the Moravian Church, but also with the participation of Monica Chakwera, the First Lady of Malawi, who said that the WDP was a “powerful reminder of the transformative impact of collective prayer and action” while embodying values such as compassion, empathy and unity. The head of Malawi's government, Coleen Zamba, and the WDP President of Malawi, Esther Sandra Grant, were also present in the stadium. Many Malawian women had wrapped themselves in special WDP scarves. The participants described the festive and joyful gathering as a demonstration of joint action and solidarity between women across denominational boundaries. More at AfrikaBrief - Telling the Whole Story  here.

The policies of President Donald Trump's US administration have caused the fifth Unity Women's Consultation planned for June 2025 in North Carolina to be canceled as early as March 31, 2025. The Unity Women’s Desk wrote on Facebook - see here: “It is with great sadness that we announce the postponement and relocation of the scheduled consultation. However, this does not mean that the consultation has been canceled. The current difficulties in obtaining visas to enter the USA or to participate in the consultation, as well as the difficulties currently reported by US visa holders at US airports, have forced us to postpone the consultation. We hope to be able to announce our new plans to you soon. We continue to look forward to coming together with sisters from the worldwide Moravian Church and thanking God “With Heart, Hand and Voice” - the theme of the consultation.”

The Unity Women's Desk, headquartered in Winston-Salem, NC, posted a poster on Facebook on April 3, 2025, pointing out that gender equality is still lacking in modern societies. The poster reads the following in German translation - see here: The lack of inclusion of unpaid and domestic work in the calculation of government gross domestic product is evidence that women are overlooked and undervalued in the modern economic system. The problem is exacerbated when new policies are formulated and implemented that disregard all those who perform such “invisible” services. However, it is thanks to feminist economists that the women-centered perspective is no longer completely absent from economics.” The poster was published on a Thursday in connection with the ecumenical gender campaign Thursday‘s in Black, which was founded in 1988.

Here are some pictures from a conference of all employees of the Board of World Mission of the Moravian Church in North America at Laurel Ridge Camp - Conference & Retreat Center (NC). The conference took place in mid-March 2025. Those gathered talked about the role of mission trips in fostering and developing global relationships, reaffirmed a new partnership with the Moravian Church in Zambia, adopted a partnership evaluation policy, received an update from Chris Spaugh, president of the Moravian Ministries Foundation, and tried out a new Bible course developed for congregations worldwide. In addition to dealing with the usual business matters, those gathered were delighted to receive a visit from Mauricio Melo, the pastor of the oldest Moravian Church in Brazil. He reported on the growth of the congregation both numerically and in terms of its outward impact.

In Denmark, much is currently being done to come to terms with the country's involvement in the colonial system and to bring the crimes of the age of slavery to light. Denmark owes its flourishing as a nation state and its economic prosperity in the 18th century in large part to colonialism. The public broadcaster DR has already broadcast several documentaries about Denmark's past as a global colonial power. In view of this fact, Jørgen Bøytler from Christiansfeld, the Unity Board Administrator, emphasized in a podcast moderated by Svend Løbner and produced by Michala Linn (listen in Danish here) that the Unity Synod passed a resolution in September 2023 acknowledging grievances caused by Europeans and asking for forgiveness. Although the Moravian Church had sometimes ransomed slaves and provided slaves everywhere with basic educational goods, it had also owned slaves itself at times.

On February 18, 2025, home director Modeste Abangwa had to evacuate the orphans from Knudsen House in Kakuzi outside Uvira in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a result of the civil war raging in the DRC. Rebels from the terrorist organization M23 (Mouvement du 23-Mars) had approached the village and opened fire. They ransacked the house; some of the roof sheets were perforated by their bullets. The children and several Christians from the congregation were temporarily taken to the church of the Moravian Church. Now the situation around Uvira is safer, the rebels have retreated 70 km to the north. “We plan to bring the children back to Knudsen House in rural Kakuzi as soon as possible,” said Modeste Abangwa, ”but we still have to wait a while and repair the material damage to the house and the surrounding area.” More in a report by Svend Løbner from March 31, 2025 in Danish here.

The traditional Collegio Moravo in the Caribbean-English influenced Bluefields on the southern Atlantic coast of Nicaragua (founded in 1921) now bears the name “Moravian High School”. There was a lot going on at the secondary school in March 2025. Of course, International Women's Day on March 8 was commemorated, including with a celebration assembly in the large school gym the day before (pictures here) and with wall newspapers (pictures here). On March 18, there was a science and experiment day (short video here; pictures here). ). On March 20, attention was drawn to the Netflix series “Adolescentia” (poster here). On March 21, “World Down Syndrome Day” was commemorated with special information and an appeal. The appeal was: “Please wear mismatched socks!” (30 pictures here). And the “Carnival Vocational” on March 24/25 served to address various job profiles (short video here).

On the Facebook pages of the Mission Museum of the Moravian Church in Genadendal, it said on March 24, 2025 - see here“Exciting news from our museum! We are pleased to introduce Andrea Hendricks and Marcel Goussard from Germany, two passionate researchers who are helping us digitize our historical manuscripts and other writings. Their dedication will help provide new insights into Genadendal's rich history and ensure that our precious past remains alive for future generations. Find out more about their work and the exciting 'Moravian Knowledge Network' project here and here.” The ImagoFolioPlus program is being used for the digitization work. The project is based at the “TU Dresden”, networked with the Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation (South Africa), the Moravian Theological Centre (South Africa),  Bucknell University (USA), Moravian Lives (USA) and the Saxon State Library in Dresden.

On Sunday, April 5, 2025, a special synod of the Moravian Church in Estonia took place in the parish hall and headquarters of the Moravian Church in Estonia on Endla Street in Tallinn. The synod members present were united in listening to God's Word and praying together. They looked back on the past year through reports and pictures from the congregations and made plans for the future. The nestor of the church, Eenok Haamer, the long-time chief elder of the Moravian Church in Estonia, whom God had called away into eternity on February 27, 2025 and who found his grave in Mustvee, was remembered. Brother Marek Rootsi was proposed by the Presidium of the Synod as the provisional new Chief Elder and was subsequently elected by the Synod members. He will remain in office until the regular election of the Chief Elder in spring 2026. Some pictures of the special synod and of Marek Rootsi here and here.

A new website contains a wealth of information about Canada's northern regions and the lives of the indigenous peoples there. The website is called Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada, it also provides information about the Nunatsiavut region, formerly called Labrador. See here. On these websites there are repeated references to the Herrnhut Mission (historical and current pictures, maps), which began in Nain as early as 1771. Important keywords on the website include: Early History, Colonialism, Family Structures, Adoption, Traditional Clothing, Housing, Urban Inuit, Health, Inuktut writing systems, Place Names, Wildlife, Permafrost, Sea Ice, Climate Change, Education, Inuit Games, Visual Arts and Performing Arts and Music. There used to be eight Moravian Church mission stations in Nunatsiavut. Today there are still assemblies in Nain, Makkovik, Hopedale and Happy Valley (Goose Bay). Behind the website is a book that is available for 99.99 US dollars. See here.