Church holds mass wedding

By NATASHA KELLY
DWU journalism student
TWENTY-FOUR couples signed up during a mass marriage certification celebration on Sunday conducted by the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Memorial church at toptown Lae.
“I don’t know the past histories but I have been here for the past two years and the church has never conducted such an occasion,” said senior Pastor Cameron Wari.
“This could be the first one with a lot of couples.”
The churches originally had more than 40 couples registered, but only 24 of them participated in the event.
Wari said just like Government, concerned about having marriages registered, the church was also encouraging that.
He said the church was an institution that was found by God and when there was a good family, obviously there would be a good community and a good country. Provincial civil and identity registrar Keputong Geibob said that family was an important unit, adding that there were currently so many social issues arising from marriages, especially from family units not registered.
“There’s so much abuse in families where a husband can hit his wife in the presence of their children and not knowing that the actions are actually having bad influence on the children,” he said.
Geibob said he was there to help the church supervise and make that marriage certificates were signed properly.
“With the government departments requiring marriage certificates as a requirement for certain reasons, the church is helping the couples to have that document,” he said.
He said most of the couples who had their marriage certified were being helped by Family Life, a department within the church.