The General Secretary of the Seventh Day Baptist World Federation is pleased to announce the election of Pastor Luciano Barreto Nogueira de Moura as President of the organization. Pastor Luciano serves in the Seventh Day Baptist Conference of Brazil. His election was ratified by a majority of the World Federation member conferences after a recommendation by the Executive Committee. Pastor Luciano replaces the late Pastor Jonas Sommer, another Brazilian, who was tragically killed in a car accident along with his wife and two children, in February of this year.
IN MEMORIAM
Jacob Nathaniel Tyrrell: March 9, 1936 - February 6, 2018
In 1964, 10 Seventh Day Baptist leaders from 7 different countries met in Salem, West Virginia, USA in what was called the Consultation of World Conferences (COWOCO). This meeting gave birth the following year to the Seventh Day Baptist World Federation. Jacob Tyrrell, a 28 year old young man from then British Guiana was one of those 10 leaders. Since then, Pastor Tyrell has faithfully and steadily given true servant leadership to his churches and conference in Guyana. Representing his conference, he attended 5 of the 8 Sessions of the World Federation in its 52 year history. At the most recent Session in Brazil in 2017 where he was present, he was honored for being one of the three remaining members of that initial group of 10.
The SDB World Federation Executive Committee trusts that Seventh Day Baptists all over the world are experiencing "shaken meeting places" this week, as we observe the week of prayer together. Let's conclude the week with the most powerful praying that we could ever do.
Pastor Nyaniso James Siwani passed away on April 15, 2017. He was General Secretary of the South Africa Conference when they joined the SDB World Federation in 1986. He was delegate to the WF Sessions in 1986 in the United States, 1992 in New Zealand, 1997 in Jamaica, and 2003 in Brazil, serving as WF Vice President for Africa 1997-2008 and attending the Full Executive Committee meeting in 2005 in Michigan, US. In that role he published several issues of a newsletter Voice of Africa which promoted organization of the SDB Africa General Conference and reported on its four meetings (1992, 1994, 1996, and 2001).
We hope that by now, all Seventh Day Baptists are aware that the next Sessions of the Seventh Day Baptist World Federation are scheduled for Brazil, January 22-28, 2017. That is a mere 8 months away. We also know that if one is keeping abreast of international news these days, the country of Brazil is regularly featured in at least two uncomplimentary ways. The first one is that the country’s Senate voted last week (May 19) to suspend its President, Mrs. Dilma Rousseff, and begin an impeachment trial against her. The turbulence leading up to this latest political move, has led to Brazil’s worst economic crisis in decades. It causes some people to wonder if Brazil is a secure and stable place to visit at this time.
