Church marks 40th anniversary

 THE Evangelical Brotherhood Church celebrated its 40th anniversary in Papua New Guinea last weekend.

The church was registered by the government in April 1974, according to church vice-president Pastor Samuel Rumbai.

He said the celebration was for the 60th anniversary of the Swiss Evangelical Brotherhood Mission that started in 1954.

The celebrations started on Saturday with a march from the Waigani Fire Station to the church grounds and ended with a church service on Sunday. 

There were speeches from pastors, guest speakers and missionaries plus items from members of the congregation. 

Church members came from all over the country to take part in the anniversary celebrations.

The church  has been providing basic health care and education in PNG since it was registered. 

It has 18 circuits in PNG. 

The church has a PNG couple in Timor-Leste doing missionary work.

Rumbai said the message that the church would like to share with the country was in the theme of their celebrations which was “Jesus is the light”.

“We want to uphold Jesus as the light,” he said. 

He said PNG would change and progress to the state that the Lord wanted when everyone promoted Jesus as their saviour.

Rumbai said they had three objectives:

• Proclamation of the Holy Scriptures;
• furtherance of the Kingdom of God; and,
• Combating alcohol and substance abuse and alleviating HIV/AIDS-related problems.

He said glory, honour and praise should be given to God Almighty for how far the church and mission had come in the country and abroad.