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SHARING ON UNITED MINISTRY IN EDUCATION (UME) WORK

Rev. Bill Ng, the University pastor and director of UNITAS (means "unity") at Berkeley, U.S.A. came to live with the participants for about a week. He was on a spiritual and professional journey to Asia, visiting refugee work and SCMs in various parts of South-East Asia. The information gathered from this journey would be shared with the Church in the States.

He shared that the mission of UIMITAS is partly playing a role in education as a means to struggle against unjust philosophy and structures. One class in Berkeley is on empowering ethnic minority women to teach them how to survive in the system. The role of UIMITAS can be said as pastoral, priestly, prophetic in speaking forth the truth, and it is concerned about "governing" structures, e.g. through letter writing to "governing" institutions.

He commended the SCMs for developing against heavy odds such as oppressive regime, and for its concern for women's struggles. However, he warned against the heavy dependence on "consultations" to solve problems.

Rev. Bill Ng then posed some questions to the SCM to consider seriously, such as: How do we maintain our identity as a "biblical" people and deepen our Spirituality as we do justice work? How do we develop a creative language based on biblical/theological vision?

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Later, he presented some suggestions for establishing and developing a relationship between the United Ministry in Education [UME) and WSCF-Asia/Pacific. Mr. Ahn Jaewoong explained that UME and WSCF-Asia/Pacific has adopted a 5 year inter-relation and that more details will be decided at the coming WSCF General Assembly in Mexico City, 1986.