“This is an opportunity for me to explore new context of mission in the midst of challenges of Migration and Human Trafficking in Netherland”, expressed by Mary-Anne Nthobya, a Theology Student from South Africa attending Face to Face Programme in Netherland. She continues, “I am looking forward that when I go back to South Africa, I will better equip to help and support the Migrant communities and victims of Human Trafficking in my own context and make a real difference to my community and my country.”

Face to Face: Mission in the Context of Empire through the Lens of Migration and Human Trafficking is a seven-week Programme that aims to invite the students preparing for ministry in cultural, social, theological and contextual realities to understand, to motivate and to engage with the realities on how the fullness of life is being denied to the large majority of the world’s population.

The Programme will provide the eleven participants from the six (6) regions representing Caribbean, Pacific, South Asia, East Asia and Africa, with opportunities to engage in theological reflection; guided study in a supportive atmosphere; to explore and learn about Dutch culture; to experience work-placements in migrant communities and alongside trafficked and undocumented people; to develop worship and study resources as well as different workshops for interview techniques, creative writing and the likes.

The Programme started with the Opening Ceremony led by Rev. Karin van den Broeke, Presbyterian Church in the Netherlands Assembly Moderator on 4th April 2016. She welcomed the participants and challenged them to look for the stranger amongst us and to discover Christ among us, just like the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

Human trafficking and migration is one of the central missional themes of the Council for World Mission. CWM sees human trafficking as a modern day slavery and commodification and ownership of some humans by others, whereby an estimated of 27 million people around the world are victims of this. CWM, through its Programmes, is committed to resist any form of slavery that continuously deny the fullness of life to God’s creation and to the God of Life.

 

Rev Wayne Hawkins

REGIONAL SECRETARY – EUROPE