The Alliance of Presbyterian and Reformed Churches in Latin America (AIPRAL) brought together fifty indigenous women - Aymara, Quechua and Guarani - for a regional training seminar in La Paz in April. The seminar, organized by the women's department of AIPRAL, included Christian education, Bible study and learning hymns; basic health and hygiene education; and basic training in how to manage income-generating projects.

The aim was to enable the women, drawn from Presbyterian congregations and mission stations in La Paz and Santa Cruz, to share experiences and to strengthen them in leadership and Christian witness. Financial support for the seminar was provided by the Reformed churches partnership fund.

France

In October 1971 the Paris Missionary Society restructured itself into Cevaa - "the Evangelical Community of Apostolic Action." Like the London Missionary Society which became the Council for World Mission (CWM) four years later in 1975, Cevaa was to include the churches of the former mission fields, most of them French-speaking, as full members. Today, there are 47 member churches from 21 countries.

More than a quarter of a century later, Cevaa restructured itself again. In October 1999, at its council meeting in New Caledonia in the South Pacific, it was reborn as Cevaa: Community of Churches in Mission.

The new Cevaa has a new website. Launched in February this year, it may be found at http://www.cevaa.net (or www.cevaa.org/index.htm).

Hungary

Pastors and church workers of the Reformed Church in Hungary conferred with their Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist and Roman Catholic counterparts in June on the "Hungarian churches and the gypsies at the beginning of the 21st century". The 35 representatives noted an increasing interest in Hungarian churches in this question. They encouraged members of their churches to shed their prejudices, to fight against discrimination and aggression, and to do all they can to improve the circumstances of the Roma people. The conference, organized by the Ecumenical Council of Churches in Hungary, was held in the "house of reconciliation" in Berekfürdö.

Italy

Two out of every three Protestants in Italy are foreigners. Among them is Jean Félix Kamba Nzolo of the Congo, ordained a pastor at the Waldensian Evangelical Church synod in August. Other African ministers have worked in Italy, but Jean Félix is the first that the church has ordained.

At the time of the Genoa G8 summit, the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy reaffirmed its ecumenical message on immigration and called again for migrants to be correctly received and integrated into Italian society.

In Italy, as in other parts of Europe, the life of immigrants has become more difficult, the federation says. They are blamed for all the evils of society. Suspicion, hatred and violence are growing around them. They are subjected to intolerable delays by incompetent public institutions.

Churches are not blameless either. The Bible speaks in favour of the stranger, but its message has hardly been applied in church teaching or practice - one reason why "Christian" Europe is so subject to nationalism and xenophobia.

"There is no justification for the rigidly restrictive policy towards which European Union countries are heading in the face of refugees fleeing conditions which put their survival at stake." says the federation.

The desire expressed in Italy and elsewhere to "clean up" pockets of irregular immigration is offensive, when so many immigrants face the difficulties of illegality not out of contempt for the law, but in defence of the right to live.

Maximum efforts should also be extended to combat all forms of illegality of which immigrants themselves are victims - such as clandestine trafficking in labour, exploitation by illegal work, and racial discrimination.

Latin America

The Alliance of Presbyterian and Reformed Churches in Latin America hopes to hold the first ever continental meeting of Latin American Presbyterian and Congregationalist youth in 2002, according to Jorge Daniel Zjilstra, director of AIPRAL's department of youth. More than 70 young people representing churches in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Uruguay met in Chile last year; their theme was "the construction of hope in an unjust world". A similar regional meeting is planned for young people from Reformed churches in Central America and the Caribbean.

Malaysia

The Presbyterian Church in Malaysia has launched a community project that includes a training centre to help disabled Christian and non-Christian adults acquire work-related skills and a recycling scheme that promotes environmental awareness. The church also runs a centre for children with learning difficulties.

"We realized we could achieve our goal of bringing people to a personal relationship with God through a more holistic approach to mission," Richard Koh, the church's youth ministry chair, told CWM's Inside Out.

Previously, the church had focused on rallies and crusades, but people were not responsive. "They saw us as religious fanatics who just wanted to convert them."

Sweden

"The death penalty is the remnant of a primitive instinct for revenge," says the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden. "To take another person's life is a criminal act even if executed with the support of the law."

A statement by the church conference in June notes that almost half of the world's nations have abolished the death penalty, due to the growing understanding that it is not only cruel, inhuman and ethically indefensible, but also ineffective in the fight against serious crime. Other nations, however, "drag behind in humanity's progress from barbarism to a civilization where human rights guarantee the worthy treatment of all human life."

The conference expressed concern that, together with China, the United States - "seen as the world's leading democratic nation" - continues to defend capital punishment. It appealed to the Swedish parliament and government not to grow weary in persuading the US, China and other nations to abolish the death penalty, "in solidarity with humankind and in accordance with the spirit of the gospel".

Taiwan

"Your earthquake is my earthquake": that could be the motto of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan. In the two years since Taiwan's own quake in September 1999, the PCT has received substantial funds. The principal in these accounts is gradually being spent on activities in the quake zone, but the interested gathered in the meantime has been earmarked for overseas relief. Church-related agencies working with victims of the earthquakes in India and El Salvador have benefited to the tune of $10,000 and $5,000 respectively.

The PCT is also appealing to its 1,200 congregations to provide $30,000 more to purchase an ambulance and train post-traumatic stress counsellors in India.

USA

In 1988, the synod of the Christian Reformed Church in North America voted down a recommendation from its interchurch relations committee to join WARC. Now there is "positive momentum" towards a fresh recommendation, says Leonard Hofman, administrative secretary of the committee.

The CRC is one of the largest Reformed churches in North America not in WARC membership. A founder of the Reformed Ecumenical Council, it has historically kept its distance from the Alliance - according to Hofmann, because of what some within its ranks saw as an excessive focus on social issues and less-than-strict adherence to Reformed doctrine by some Alliance churches.

The CRC was founded in 1857 by seceders from the Netherlands Reformed Church who immigrated to the American Midwest and grew with successive waves of immigration. In recent decades it has expanded beyond its Dutch ethnic base and now has services in 14 languages across the US. A 20-year debate on the ordination of women ended in 1995 in a "local option" compromise. The church is headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

"We believe that in the ecumenical setting of our time, we need to be not only communicating with churches of like faith, but to be adding our witness to churches of like faith," Hofman told Charles Honey of the Grand Rapids Press.