It is a great joy to welcome you on behalf of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, its executive committee and Geneva staff, and its member churches. We have been looking forward for some time to this Asian and Pacific consultation on the partnership of men and women in the mission of the church, and we are grateful that you have made the effort to join us here for a week of work together.

First let me express our deep appreciation to our hosts. The Church of North India and its general secretary, Dr VS Lall, have made their fine facilities and staff available to us and welcomed us very warmly. Ms Joy Michael of CNI has cheerfully undertaken the enormous task of arranging for us to be received so graciously in New Delhi. Ms Michael is now serving her second term on the executive committee of the Alliance and has generously shared her many gifts in our common work. She has served on the advisory committee for the Programme to Affirm, Challenge and Transform (PACT) since its inception.

Also present from among the Asian members of the WARC executive committee is Mr Emilio Capulong, a human-rights lawyer from the Philippines.

We notice with pleasure the loyal support of church women from New Delhi and the Church of North India who are here as a demonstration of their solidarity with their sisters and brothers from Asia and the Pacific in the search for partnership. They have worked enthusiastically with Ms Michael in preparing our meeting. It is a special delight to meet Ms Shanti Solomon of the Church of North India. She has been a legend to me for many years for her founding of the Fellowship of the Least Coin. I have learned very recently through the research of Nyambura Njoroge that she was a delegate to the WARC general council in Nairobi in 1970, when the Presbyterian and Congregational branches of the Reformed family came together as a single body in the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. She was elected vice-president of the Alliance for the period 1970-77, then continued to be a member of the WARC executive committee. We believe she is the first woman vice-president from the countries of the South and one of the very early WARC officers from the South. As vice-president she took responsibility for women's concerns. We therefore offer to her our deep gratitude for the pioneering work she has done as a church woman, difficult work which has helped to make the present work of PACT and this consultation possible.

I would also like to recognize the PACT staff, the Rev. Dr Nyambura Njoroge, and her administrative assistant, Ms Karin Wisniewski, who keep PACT moving all year long from Geneva. Dr Njoroge was the first woman minister of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa, and she understands well the challenges of partnership of women and men in the church.

Those of us who come from other regions are present to listen and learn, and to represent the solidarity of the member churches of the Alliance with our Asian and Pacific sisters and brothers. We have been following the situation of women in our member churches in this region and rejoicing in each step towards fuller partnership of women and men. There was celebration around the globe at the recent announcement that the Presbyterian Church of Korea had approved the ordination of women after such a long struggle on the part of its women members. We hope you all feel the prayers of your brothers and sisters far away. We are conscious of the great variety in the nations and churches represented here, in the spiritual, economic, and social challenges you face, and we want to learn more about your understanding of your mission.

I hope that you would like to learn more about the mission of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. This year marks the 120th anniversary of the Alliance. Organized originally in 1875 by Scottish, Irish and American Presbyterians, its purpose was to draw together the various branches of the Reformed family which had lost touch with each other. The English-speaking Presbyterians scarcely knew the Reformed churches on the continent of Europe, but they were meeting around the world on their mission fields. By the time of the first council meeting, the organization had reached across the world, including churches in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. From the beginning the Alliance was concerned about the unity of the whole church of Jesus Christ and about the world mission of the church. The Alliance urged its members not to impose the divisions of Western European churches on the new churches being established in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It advocated helping the new churches to become autonomous quickly and indigenous to their cultures. The Indonesian churches here in Asia were among the early member churches in the Alliance, late in the 19th century. The Alliance was also concerned in the early years with mutual assistance among the churches, helping with support of pastors in the tiny minority church in Italy, for example. It sent delegations to visit small churches in the Middle East and Russia where Protestants were severely persecuted, and it worked for religious liberty. From the beginning the Alliance has also worked for social justice, condemning slavery and the way North America was treating its indigenous peoples, and speaking on behalf of the rights of the labour force. You will hear from Dr

Njoroge about the early concerns for fuller participation of women in the Reformed Churches and in the Alliance.

Today the Alliance continues these areas of work, but in a far broader context. We now have 200 member churches, on every inhabited continent. Two-thirds of the member churches are in the "South." Our member churches come from Presbyterian, Reformed, and Congregational backgrounds. A number of our member churches, especially in Asia, are united churches like that of the Church of North India, still claiming their Reformed roots and witnessing to our concern for the unity of Christ's church. Though we delight in adding new members, we also celebrate occasions where we lose a member-when that loss results from reunion or union of two churches of the same family previously separated.

Today the executive committee of the Alliance represents all the continents and includes men, women (about one-third of its members), pastors and lay people. These thirty-two volunteers meet annually for about 10 days with the staff to review the year's work, set the priorities for the next year, and develop programmes together. This executive committee has met in Geneva; São Paulo, Brazil; Wellington, NZ; Stockholm, Sweden; Pittsburgh, USA; and Yaoundé, Cameroon in West Africa. Before or after each meeting committee members and staff have visited churches in the region to get acquainted, learn of the needs WARC might help meet, and interpret the work of WARC. This has been an enormously enriching experience for us all.

Last summer in Cameroon, for example, we were able to experience the enormous vitality of the churches there, full of young people, sending elders to begin new parishes among the poor coming into the cities to work. But we also came to understand better the pain of a very difficult economic and political situation where a repressive government resists democratization. Church leaders took the general secretary, the vice-president from Africa, and myself to visit the Prime Minister while we were there.

Under the guidance of the general secretary, Dr Milan Opocensky of the Czech Republic, three departments are at work. The theology department, moderated by a Dutch pastor and staffed by an Indian pastor, carries the responsibility for ecumenical work, especially bilateral conversations between the Reformed and other theological traditions, currently the Orthodox churches. It also has projects in preparation for the next general council on Gospel and Culture and Reformed Identity. What does it mean today to be Reformed? This department also supervises a programme of scholarships for advanced theological study abroad. A second department, cooperation and witness, moderated by a Korean woman pastor and staffed by a Korean male pastor, works on mutual assistance among the churches, support of human rights and religious freedom, and the complex of problems under the heading justice, peace, and the integrity of creation. Here we are working especially on issues of Reformed faith and economic justice, and creation and justice: care for the planet. The third department, Finance, moderated by a German layman, secures and manages the needed funds. Two additional programmes have been established recently to meet pressing needs: PACT, sponsor of our consultation here, and Communications. The communications programme is moderated by a laywoman from New Zealand and staffed by a Scottish pastor. This programme is responsible for our publications: the two periodicals, Update and Reformed World, and the many books in the "Blue Series" (Studies from the World Alliance of Reformed Churches) published to share results of consultations and studies. These are sent to your churches' general secretaries; check with the general secretary if you do not know them. (A complete list of publications is available from the WARC office.) Finally there is the programme of the partnership fund, supervised by a committee of EC members and the German lay assistant to the general secretary. This fund embodies our belief that every church has something to give and something to receive. Small grants are made to member churches for projects meeting certain criteria, including support of human rights, development projects, programmes to strengthen women's leadership, theological education for lay people, and projects to strengthen churches in daunting circumstances. In return we hope good reporting on the outcomes will enable us to put others with similar needs in touch with churches which directed the projects to share experience and wisdom.

What is important for emphasis here is that PACT is not simply another programme alongside the others I have described, parallel to them. Instead we hope that it will bring a prophetic witness to all that the Alliance does. For example, PACT worked closely with the theology department on a consultation on ecclesiology, bringing women's perspective into discussion of this fundamental doctrine. PACT encouraged the theology department to rule that if a member church has requested one scholarship for a year's advanced theological education overseas, a second request for the same year can be made only if one is for a woman theologian. PACT has also supported plans to provide for strong representation of women at the general council in 1997; it is providing articles by women for our publications.

PACT is trying not only to empower women as leaders in our churches, but also to help in the transformation of the way the Alliance and all its member churches live their lives so as to have a fuller partnership between women and men.

Later on this week there will be a panel discussion on the Alliance. We hope you will then bring your questions and suggestions. We will be able to discuss how you and your church can participate more fully in the work of WARC and especially PACT in your own setting, and how you can help your church prepare for the coming general council at Debrecen, Hungary in 1997.

Today advocacy for the poor, the marginalized, the under-represented, the victims of injustice-usually disproportionately women-is certainly no task for timid people. Probably it has never been easy. We need to hear about the current Asian and Pacific experience. But today in many countries, either in the name of "breaking the cycle of dependency," or simply out of economic distress, even the assistance proven most effective in enabling poor people to become independent is being cut back.

In my own country, the modest progress towards equality of women seems to have created a backlash. I saw a cartoon in a business journal showing a corporate executive board room. There are two women at the long table and many, many men. The women share the same thought: "Is there still only one other woman here?" All the men share the same thought: "I'm surrounded by women!"

This is exactly the experience I hear described by men and women in the church who are trying to be advocates of partnership. Possibly the greatest obstacle we could now face is that after making modest progress and sensing new resistance, we become apologetic about having asked too much. After all, we are told, these ideas of partnership are so new, and it takes time for people to adjust.

But women's dreaming of the freedom to share fully their God-given gifts in the life of the church is by no means new, and many of these women's dreams have been rooted in their reading of Scripture itself. Let me offer one example. In Europe, especially France and England, between about the 14th and the 17th century, there was an extended literary debate about the nature of women, and whether their subordination to men was the result of nature or nurture-i.e., biological or sociological in origin. Those who defended the natural inferiority of women quoted the traditional biblical texts about the silence of women. Those defending the natural equality of women also quoted Scripture, pointing for example to Joel 2, the prophecy repeated at Pentecost about the pouring out of the Spirit on menservants and maidservants, or to Paul's respect for the deacon Phoebe.

Let us listen to the Pentecost version of the Joel prophecy with its stress on the outpouring of the Spirit on the least likely people as a sign of the kingdom of God (Acts 2.17-18).

The author of a "defence of women" in this tradition was one of the earliest Reformed women writers, Marie Dentière. She had once been an abbess of a convent, but she converted to Protestantism, married a minister, and joined him as a missionary in Geneva. In 1536, the same year Geneva became Protestant, she wrote the first history of the Genevan Reformation and published it anonymously. A few years later she published another volume protesting that women should be free to write, speak, and preach what Jesus and the apostles did, using the gifts God has given them. Her defence against charges that her claims were too bold was that the women of Scripture are bold! The best example from the Old Testament, she claimed, is the mother of Moses who defied Pharaoh's edict to protect her son from death and to arrange for him to be cared for at Pharaoh's house. But Deborah, the judge of the people of Israel, should not be neglected, she said. Among the bold New Testament women Marie cited were the Samaritan woman preacher "who had no shame at all to preach Jesus and his word," and Mary Magdalene who first saw the risen Jesus and was commanded to preach it to others.

We are left still today with the challenge Marie addressed to her readers: "I ask, did not Jesus die as much for the poor and unlearned...as for my lords who are shaven, tonsured, and mitred? Did he only say: "Go, preach my gospel to my lords the wise and great doctors?" Did he not say: "to all?" Do we have two gospels, one for men and the other for women? One for the wise and the other for the foolish? Are we not one in our Lord? In whose name are we baptized, that of Paul or Apollos, of the Pope or of Luther? Is it not in the name of Christ? Certainly he is not at all divided."

I look forward to a challenging week among bold Christians! Let us rejoice that the Holy Spirit, given us as a sign of the presence of Christ's reign, is already doing new things in our midst, making Christ's reign of peace and justice more visible among us.