Thursday Evening Opening Worship I

The General Assembly officially started with Opening Worship on Thursday Night.  It was a joyous celebration.  You can see the colors of the UCCSA everywhere- a medium blue, the cross in black and the Holy Spirit as a dove in white.  (Note the fact that the Botswana flag is 3 stripes with these colors reflects the early Congregational membership of the people of Botswana! (Motswana).)

This is Ayana McCalman from Guyana.  I met, worked with her and road with her every day to the UCCSA office.  She is a missionary from the Guyana Congregational Church.  She is a lawyer in Guyana but is serving as the Communications and Social Justice Avocacy Officer for the UCCSA as a missionary from Church World Service, an organization similar to Global Ministries with partners in South America, the islands, Africa and Asia.

The procession begins!

The procession is always lead by a youth carrying the Bible and a youth carrying the UCCSA banner.

The worship theme was celebrating the workers.  The first women are dressed in traditional dress.

Others are dressed in sports gear, uniforms, farm clothing, construction wear.

 And here comes the choir.

And then the ministers of the UCCSA- in alphabetical order- Botswana, Mozabique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Then the officers of the various organizations- Soldiers of Christ, Women's Fellowship, Bruderbund, Youth Fellowship, etc.  and finally the officers of all the committees and UCCSA internationally arrive on the podium.