The Plateau District Church Council (DCC) has successfully hosted the ninth edition of the tri-annual ECWA National Women’s Fellowship Conference. The conference with the theme “Vessels of Honor” taken from II Timothy 2: 20-21 was held at Kerker in Jos East Local Government Area of Plateau State. Between the 9th and the 12th of April 19, 2009 Kerker was totally painted in the camouflage colors of the traditional ECWA women uniform transforming the venue to a place of not just spiritual enrichment but economic as well as it became a beehive of businesses providing support services like the sales of foods and drinks, gospel related books, tapes and souvenirs. Commercial vehicle operators were also busy carrying people to and from the city of Jos throughout the four days of the event.
The conference could be said to be one of the biggest crowd puller of all ECWA events in view of the fact that the strength of most churches, by-and-large, are the women. The extensive geographical spread of the participants underscores the extent to which the church has grown since it was founded by the Sudan Interior Mission in 1903. The participants came from 73 DCCs with the exception of the fourth located in Washington DC United States of America. To paint a graphic picture, a DCC is made up of Local Church Councils (LCC) which in turn are made up of Local Church Branches (LCBs). In all about 15, 000 individual participants attended the convention.
The need to host an enormous conference such as this still revolves around the primary aim of the church, evangelism with the ultimate goal of winning souls that have not known Christ. Hence the foremost activities at the conference involved rendition of praise songs on to the Lord, sermons, and donations for the sake of the continued financing of future evangelism. According to the duo of Mama Elizabeth Dalhatu Abdu and Hannatu Audu, National Leader and Secretary respectively, the events were recorded in audio and video storage devices. These will be distributed so that the word will travel beyond the perimeters of the conference venue to possibly all parts of the world were it is expected that more souls would be won through playing them. She also is of the deep conviction that peace as enjoyed within family circles today, is a direct consequence of the teachings of evangelism that has encourage mutual respect between husbands and their spouses.
The women leaders are full of thanks and praises to the Lord to whom they give the glory for the success of the conference. With His support, the DCC successfully bought the conference venue, a large expanse of land running to about 500, 000 m2 at Kerker in Jos East. It also had to drill three motorized boreholes in addition to buying canopies and chairs to shelter the multitude of participants.
According to Mrs. Abdu, whatever is acquired by the church today is an investment to enhance evangelism tomorrow and demonstrate love to those in need. It is the reason why the large expanse of land will be used to host subsequent conferences and serve as future gospel crusades venues. In line with the biblical teachings of loving your neighbor, the boreholes will be dedicated to serving the water needs of the surrounding rural community of Kerker village. Everything is about love and salvation.
