By ACNS staff

Representatives of the Pacific island nations at the World Council of Church’s Central Committee meeting are returning home with big plans to ensure peace and justice are part of their work and Churches.

Speaking to ACNS, Tagolyn Kabekabe who is from the Solomon Islands, explained that only four of the eleven members from the Pacific were able to attend the WCC’s decision-making body meeting in Geneva.

“I’m actually representing the Anglican Church of Melanesia,” she said, “but because we’re such a small group we see ourselves as representing the Pacific; we have connections with the church in Papua New Guinea, as well as Vanuatu and New Caledonia.

Mrs Kabekabe, like the other members—the Revd Francois Pihaatae, the Rev. Dr Mele'ana Puloka and the Revd Elder Faalevao—have committed to carry back the “Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace” the theme of the recent meeting in Geneva.

Mrs Kabekabe attended the 2012 WCC Assembly in Busan
Credit: Tagolyn Kabekabe

“It’s a huge responsibility for us to carry forward the mandate from the Central Committee,” said Mrs Kabekabe, “this taking forward the pilgrimage of justice and peace. We have to ask, ‘How do we infiltrate this into our Churches and our organisations?”

Mrs Kabekabe is not only the Pacific Facilitator for the Anglican Communion’s platform for Development, Relief and Advocacy the Anglican Alliance, she is also the Community Development Co-ordinator of the Anglican Church of Melanesia.

She used one Church project back home as an example of how she and her colleagues might promote the concepts of peace and justice.

“I’ll be integrating them into our gender work with women,” she said. “I’ll be considering how we can see justice and peace applied across different levels of community in Melanesia; especially considering gender-based violence is huge across the Pacific.”

Bringing justice and peace to battered women

Mrs Kabekabe says she volunteers at the Church of Melanesia’s Christian Care Centre, a refuge centre that receives up to 50 victims of violence and their children each month. It is run mainly by the Community of the Sisters of the Church with help from the Society of St Francis and the Melanesian Brotherhood.

Members of local religious orders run the Christian Care Centre
Credit: Anglican Church of Canada

She explained that introducing the concepts of justice and peace to women in that centre would have to happen at the right time in the right way.

“When women, girls, children are suffering I will have to hold back. But the Melanesian way of doing things is talking, so perhaps by getting conversations going through mutual sharing of stories, we can start to address the real issues.”

Sharing the WCC pilgrimage with the wider Church

The Pacific representatives also have the responsibility of sharing with Churches back home all they have seen and heard at the WCC meeting.

It was convenient that one of the four was the Revd Francois Pihaatae, General Secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC). The request was made for the group of 11 Central Committee members to become part of the PCC “so we can have a stronger connection and network with churches in the pacific.”

“Considering representation of Pacific Churches to the WCC is very small we have got to be connected somewhere within existing organisations,” said Mrs Kabekabe, “and Mr Pihaatae was very happy to accommodate our request.”

The Central Committee was elected by the WCC 10th Assembly in November 2013. It serves as the chief governing body of the WCC until the next assembly, meeting every 2 years.

The committee which consists of 150 members from all global regions is responsible for carrying out the policies adopted by the WCC 10th Assembly, reviewing and supervising WCC programmes and the budget of the Council. The 10th Assembly took place at Busan, Republic of Korea in October and November, 2013.

The Central Committee meeting theme “pilgrimage of justice and peace” is based on the final message from the WCC 10th Assembly in November 2013, which states, “We intend to move together. Challenged by our experiences in Busan, we challenge all people of good will to engage their God-given gifts in transforming actions. This Assembly calls you to join us in pilgrimage.”

For more stories on the WCC see www.anglicannews.org/tag/WCC.aspx