Over 350 Methodist women from 20 Caribbean countries traveled to Belize to hold their 6th Quinquennial Assembly under the theme "Bembelela " which means Christ is Our Hope. A service was held in the Kings Room at the Princess Hotel this morning to open this conference. Now while a major part of this assembly is for the women to congregate and worship, there is deeper significance to this meeting. We spoke to the coordinators today and they told us why it is important to fuse prayer into discussions about social issues.
Jennifer Smith, Secretary of the Belize Honduras, MCCA
"What happens when we meet in these assemblies, we set our policies, we have our election of new officers because we elect officers every five years, and we have an inauguration where we make sure that these officers, having been inaugurated are ready for work for the other five years."
Courtney Weatherburne
"Based on the release, it also said that you guys will be discussing key issues as well, affecting the Caribbean countries."
Jennifer Smith, Secretary of the Belize Honduras, MCCA
"Yes, that is always a big part of the assembly and we try to choose topics that affect the entire Caribbean. For example, one of the topics we have is how our young men, if you've noticed we haven't said young black men, we are saying young men because I think that all our young men, and we want to make sure we say men even though it's a women's organization, are being affected by violence and all the things that are happening to them. So that is one of our issues. Another issue is climate change, yes and we know that's a very big issue all over the Caribbean. With all that is happening all over the world, we need Christ and we need to know that he is there and that the hope is there. And this is why we want to focus on that theme. And like I said it's for the entire Caribbean where we are having all the problems, but if we have God with us then we have hope."
Courtney Weatherburne
"How important is it for women to be involved in these issues, discussing, and of course encouraging youth and the public, on a whole, to be involved?"
Lois Hector, Vice President
"If we look at the whole adage that says, 'the person who rocks the cradle rules the world'. We are focusing on children now because in the future, they will be the men and women of the world. So issues that affected them, we have to deal with them and that is why some of the workshops that we have actually relate to those."
This is the first time that Belize has hosted this assembly. The assembly will end on Sunday with a service at the Methodist church.
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