Venue: Chinese Methodist Church Jinjang
Date: 4/3/2023 Saturday
Theme: I Have Heard About Your Faith, Ephesians 1:15-19
Prayer country： Taiwan
World Day of Prayer 2023 report
Prepared by Chairperson of CAC Methodist Central District 1 Women’s Fellowship Grace Ho
Praise the Lord, for the World Day of Prayer was filled with warmth, togetherness, love and joy. Amen! Glory to God in the Highest. There was a total of 103 people in attendance.
Before the commencement of service, reverends, pastors, and fellow sisters from the Methodist churches throughout the district bonded through having breakfast together. Fitting with this year’s prayer country, Taiwan, the committee especially played 2 videos on loop. These were Taiwan’s official introduction video and the World Day of Prayer 2023 for Taiwan video, which could showcase the many beautiful aspects of Taiwan as well as the summarization of this year’s World Day of Prayer. The Taiwanese National Anthem and the World Day of Prayer theme song were included as the background music of the videos. Additionally, Sisters Sia Pei Voon and Sharon Wong from Chinese Methodist Church Jinjang Youth were dressed in indigenous Taiwanese clothing. All these prepared the audiences’ hearts to enter the day’s service.
The decorating of the Century Hall was done in reference to information provided by the World Day of Prayer Committee of Taiwan for WDP 2023, including the four different colours of cloths, where Yellow represents Taiwan’s abundance of natural resources, Green stands for the nation’s mountainous landscape, Blue signifies that the nation is surrounded by oceans, and White was to place the lilies and orchids. Besides that, the Taiwanese national flag, tea set, and other representative items of Taiwan were placed on the exhibition table.
The opening for the 2023 World Day of Prayer was done by the chairperson of CAC Methodist Central District 1 Women’s Fellowship, Sister Grace Ho. She warmly welcomed and gave her gratitude to all reverends, pastors, and sisters that were in attendance. The opening was followed by praise and worship, which was led by Sister Kelly Koh from Kepong Chinese Methodist Church. The audience came together in praise, worshipping God with all their hearts.
The liturgist for the days service was Sister Priscilla Lee, the vice chairperson of CAC Methodist Central District 1 Women’s Fellowship. She led the audience in the showing of the 2023 World Day of Prayer video. This was followed by Sister Lee Mei Choong who led the sharing of the prayer country, Taiwan’s “Introduction to Prayer Country”. After, the liturgist, accompanied by leaders from each church and other CAC Methodist Central District 1 Women’s Fellowship committee members led the audience in response, by reading and reflecting on Ephesians 1:15-19. The audience was then led into prayer, repentance and the receiving of God’s promise of forgiveness for Taiwan.
A sincere thank you to the CAC Methodist Central District 1 Women’s Fellowship consultant, Reverend Lau Chung Wu, Dennis for encouraging us through his sermon “I Have Heard About Your Faith – Ephesians 1:15-19”. He caringly taught us lessons from the bible passage, bringing out the theme for this year’s World Day of Prayer, and prompted fellow sisters to spread the gospel and live out a life of faith, hope and love, to become testimonies to our faith during these end times.
During the offering session, CAC Methodist Central District 1 Women’s Fellowship Head of Devotion Sister Yvonne Hew led the audience in prayer and worship, while fellow sisters from Chinese Methodist Church Jinjang helped to collect the offerings. Give thanks to what our Lord Jehovah-Jireh has provided for us. After the offering session, few leaders from the churches and committee members of CAC Methodist Central District 1 Women’s Fellowship shared the stories of 5 Taiwanese sisters of different backgrounds, each of whom have experienced God’s love, and who live out a different life with the faith they have in the Lord Jesus. (Among them were those who are passionate about the recycling movement, those who fully devoted themselves to God upon facing difficulties in their jobs, and those who seek God’s guidance and wisdom to contain their stress from dealing with sexism. There were also those who were frontliners at the hospital during the Covid-19 pandemic and risked their lives sanitizing and cleaning up after patients, resulting in them having to self-quarantine and sacrifice their time spent with family, heavily saddening them. Last but not least, there were those who were verbally abused or sexually assaulted from young, but in Christ Jesus they have found and experienced His love, and have become His followers.)
Before this year World Day of Prayer service came to a close, CAC Methodist Central District 1 Women’s Fellowship consultant, Reverend Lau Chung Wu, Dennis led us to receive the benediction. After the day’s service was dismissed, reverends, pastors, and sisters alike within the district of all 7 churches took a group picture together, serving as the perfect ending for our district’s first gathering since before the pandemic. The day ended with everyone enjoying the meal heartily prepared by Sister Patsie Cheong and the fellow sisters from Chinese Methodist Church Jinjang, and once again this time was used for bonding and connecting within one another.
“The fact that I am a woman does not make me a different kind of Christian, But the fact that I am a Christian does make me a different kind of woman.”
Elisabeth Elliot
