Title: Lutherans Celebrate Global Hope News from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America July 9, 1996 LUTHERANS CELEBRATE GLOBAL HOPE SPOKANE (ELCA) -- "Born Anew to a Living Hope" was the theme when more than 600 members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America gathered June 27-30 at Whitworth College, Spokane, Wash., for the first of three 1996 Global Mission Events. Still to come are events July 18-21 at Augustana College, Sioux Falls, S.D., and July 25-28 at Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, Pa. In 1995 Global Mission Events drew more than 3,000 people. At Spokane Musimbi Kanyoro, secretary for women in church in society, Lutheran World Federation, Geneva, Switzerland, told the group, "Hope is to be lived out. To hope for justice and peace and to be a peacemaker is to work for the elimination of injustice." Kanyoro said, "We hoped the walls would come down in Eastern Europe, that apartheid would end in South Africa. If we hope for democracy we must practice democracy in our relationships. Hope for wholeness means confessing our brokenness. Our deeds express that which we hope for." Kanyoro asked, "How can we be the Church gathered in Spokane without worrying about the burning of Black churches in this country? How can we be the Church if the fear of guns does not keep us awake, if we do not ask `Why are guns so precious in this country?'" Hope entails risk, Kanyoro said, and there is risk in working for peace. The Rev. H. George Anderson, presiding bishop of the ELCA, was a keynote speaker. "It's a good time to talk about hope, in the midst of disaster, difficulty, pain, persecution, peril and the sword, " he said. Anderson said renewed terrorist activity in Saudi Arabia "pushed off our pages the terrorism in our own country, the burning of African American churches." He said, "We see terrorism when it happens in other countries, but white Americans do not see terrorism at home the same way our African American sisters and brothers do." Anderson asked, "Is hope really futile? Are things getting any better?" He walked the audience through 2000 years of Christian history and asked, "Do you think the God who brought us through persecution, respect, collapse, reformation and bloodshed can take us into the next century?" Christians, he said, "live in a world created day by day, year by year, with the opportunity to be faithful in witness and service." As they leave this event, Anderson said, participants go out "into a new world, a bigger world, the creation subject to futility but groaning and waiting for the revelation of the Child of God." In her Bible lecture the Rev. Barbara R. Rossing, New Testament professor, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, called hope the fundamental orientation to Christian life. "Hope is a profound sense of joy in the future," she said. ELCA missionary staff from many countries took part. Deanna Isaacson, a nurse midwife working in Liberia, spoke of rebuilding the Lutheran hospital that was destroyed in the most recent violence there. "Phebe Hospital is again a place of refuge. In the face of all that could lead us to despair, our Liberian sisters and brothers refuse to let death have the last word. We are standing on their shoulders as we carry on a mutual ministry of help and hope." A special guest was Bishop Abel Mwanbungu of the Ulanga Kilombero Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Ch urch in Tanzania. The Tanzanian church is a "companion" to the ELCA's Eastern Washington-Idaho Synod, which hosted the global event. The Rev. Yutaka Kishino, mission director of the ELCA's Pacifica and Southern California (West) synods, preached for the event's closing worship service. Music from Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America and Europe was presented by Barbara Ames, Raymond Jones and Jo Morris of New York, the Rev. Tony Machado, Minneapolis, and the Rev. Pablo Obregon, Willmar, Minn. Youth and children took part in special global programs and activities designed for them. [ELCA News and Information: 8765 W. Higgins Road, Chicago, IL 60631; phone 312/380-2963]