Empower.

Congress theme, "Mission Inside Out, I Am Involved," captures the spirit of Total Membership Involvement

More than 4,500 women attend Women's Ministries mission-themed, division-wide congress in Pretoria.

Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division (SID)

[Republic of South Africa] Total Member Involvement is the goal of every union in the Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division (SID). With more than 4,500 women attending the fourth SID Women’s Ministries division congress, it may have indeed appeared as if the total membership of Adventist women in SID had become involved.

The week-long congress, held in Pretoria, near the SID division headquarters, April empowered women for evangelism and for taking the gospel to a greater extent within their communities. The culmination of the congress allowed participants to enact their mission involvement by becoming the hands and feet of Jesus as they descended on local hospitals, prisons, and needy communities to distribute clothing, food, and books. In sharing the love of Jesus, women began to live up to the congress theme, “Mission Inside Out, I Am Involved.” In addition, 16,000 copies were distributed of the book, When God Said Remember, by Mark Finley, Seventh-day Adventist Church evangelist.

Guest speakers included the General Conference Women’s Ministries (WM) director, Heather-Dawn Small, and associate director, Raquel Arrais. They joined SID WM director, Caroline Chola, and her associate directors from the eleven unions, in challenging women of Southern Africa to soldier on with the evangelism work in their respective fields. The message that the harvest is truly plentiful, but the reapers are few, opened the hearts of attendees.

Women’s Ministries department at the Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division (and its predecessor division) organizes a division-wide congress every quinquennium of the five-year term of church administration. With the exception of the first five-year term in which Women’s Ministries became a department of the church during the 1995 General Conference Session, SID has held a WM congress during in each succeeding quinquennium.

Contributed by Noel Sibanda, Communication director, Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division

Videos of the previously live-streamed SID Adventist Women's congress are posted on this YouTube channel.

Published in Mosaic newsletter, Spring 2018