Women celebrate 30yrs of fellowship, outreach

Faith

By JACKLYN SIRIAS
THE Port Moresby-based Mailu Women’s Fellowship, which was founded to help address issues affecting women in Mailu in Central, celebrated its 30th anniversary on Independence Day, Sept 16.
Founder Irene Ebe told The National during the anniversary celebrations that the ministry was established out of a vision.
She started the ministry in 1987 with only five women when she was 30 years old. Today, the ministry has grown to include many Mailu mothers, old and young, men and even others who are not from Mailu.
“I was going to a combined fellowship here with the Koki United Church and I had the vision to form a ministry where we can be a voice or a platform to help our women and girls in their time of need.”
Ebe said the main congregation of the Koki church did outreaches outside the city and even to other provinces and countries.
“We decided to have this ministry so that we can raise our own money to cater for our travelling expenses and other financial needs.”
Ebe is now 61 years old with six children and her ministry has grown to include non-Mailu members from Port Moresby and other parts of the Central too.
Chairlady of the ministry Beatrice Pai said they were celebrating their fellowship’s anniversary on Independence Day knowing that God had blessed them to have come this far.
She said in commemorating the day, they had devotion, item presentations like dancing, singing and drama and ended the day with a feast.
“We are Papua New Guineans, therefore, we decided to celebrate the anniversary right on Independence Day,” Pai said.
“We have been praying about the financial, political and other issues affecting the country so we thought it would be right to mark the anniversary on Independence Day so that we could add more prayers to help our country to prosper in the next 42 years or more to come.”