Robyn ’ s memories and tho
The World Council of Churches , whose headquarters are in Geneva , Switzerland , holds an assembly bringing together member churches , every seven years . In 1991 the Assembly was held in Canberra , in February of that year . Towards the end of 1989 a number of “ Animateurs ”, or leaders , came to Canberra to conduct workshops to enable a choir to be formed from various churches in Canberra , to participate in the Assembly and lead the singing . These Animateurs came from a number of countries worldwide - South Africa , Korea , Brazil , Portugal , Spain , Sweden , the United Kingdom and many others . Those of us who eventually formed the choir , met and got to know Lynda Katsuno from Canada , Per Harling from Sweden , I-to-Loh from Taiwan , Myra Blyth from the UK , Christian Tamaela from Indonesia , we well as many others . We were taught to sing songs , written by these and other musicians , in 13 different languages . These musicians and others signed their names alongside the songs they had written , in our Service / Song books , which a lot of us are very proud of .
We rehearsed with a number of these people , firstly in St Bede ’ s school hall in Narrabundah , on a Sunday afternoon and then in a number of the ANU ’ s Colleges in the grounds of the ANU .
One night we met at Jamison and in a recording studio there , we “ put down ” a number of tracks of the songs we had been learning for the Assembly .
One year went by , when we were all feeling excited and we keenly anticipated the Assembly coming to Canberra and our participation in it . So in February , 1991 a very large marquee was erected on the ground of Fellow ’ s Oval on the ANU Campus . The Assembly was held from 7 th February to 20th February . The theme of the Assembly was “ Come Holy Spirit – renew the Whole Creation ”. It was estimated that 4,000 people from all parts of the world would assemble in Canberra for this exciting almost 2 weeks of invocatory prayer to the Spirit as we waited upon and sought the guidance of God ’ s Spirit . So the choir assembled in the marquee , very early each morning , seated in the choir seats , not far from the central stage . We participated in the litany of the service , sang the many songs we had been taught and went away feeling uplifted by the ambience and atmosphere in the tent . And we returned each morning , excited to be “ doing it all again ”.
When the Assembly ended on 20 th February , those in the choir were sad that this marvellous event was over , not to be repeated for another seven years , in an African country . Our participation in the event helped to consolidate our contacts and friendship with members from
St Margaret ’ s News 16 May 2021