The Living Letters Delegation
Living Letters are small ecumenical teams visiting a country to listen, learn, share approaches and challenges in overcoming violence and in peace making, and to pray together for peace in the community and in the world. A team consists of 4 - 6 women and men from around the world who have witnessed violence in its various forms and are engaged in working for just peace.
Rev. Baranite Kirata
Secretary of Church in Society
Kiribati Protestant Church
Reverend Baranite 'Bate' Kirata completed his theological studies at the Pacific Theological College in Fiji, as well as at both Yale and Boston Universities in the United States. He is currently Director of the Kiribati Protestant Church Justice and Development Department. He is a member of the Kiribati Protestant Church (KPC) where he serves as both office-bearer and Secretary to the Church and Society Programme. He is assisted in his work by his lovely wife Eberon with how he has had two sons. Sadly, the elder son passed away in 2005 at the tragically young age of 25. A sad loss to the family, they nonetheless feel blessed at the recent arrival of their beautiful granddaughter through their younger son. Bate Kirata enjoys making friends and meeting people, as well as fishing and cooking. He finds cooking relaxing and is most appreciated at home for his expertise. When time and occasion provide, he appreciates a time of reflection in the presence of the Other.
Read the News article: Annual Meeting Addresses Challenges facing the Kiribati Protestant Church
Dr. Maake Masango
Professor of Practical Theology
University of Pretoria, South Africa
Dr. Maake Masango is currently a Professor of Practical Theology at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Since the 1970s, he has worked with a variety of Presbyterian Churches in South Africa. He received his Diploma in theology from Fedsem Fort Hare, and Masters degrees in Theology at Columbia University in the United States, and Christian Education at the Presbyterian School, USA. He received a Ph.D. in Counseling, Theology, and Psychology from Columbia University. Masango is a past Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in South Africa, and was a member of the World Alliance of Reform Churches until 2000. He was an Executive and central Committee member of the World Council of Churches until 2006. Masango has been Urban Rural Missions (URM) President for Africa since 2001, and Vice President of the Society for Practical Theology since 2004. In addition, he has been a member of the Societas Homiletica since 2004. He is currently an Executive Member of the Africa Conference of Churches.
Ms. Htoo May
Ms. Htoo May was born into a farm family in the western delta of southwestern Burma, where there has been a large Karen concentration and much persecution by the Burmese Army. She was a teacher in a primary school in Burma when her home and village were burned and destroyed by the Burmese government. It was then that Htoo May fled to Thailand, arriving in the Mae La Refugee Camp around 1991. There, she graduated from the Baptist Bible College, was a longtime officer in the refugee women's organization, and was president of the Karen Baptist Women's Organization in the camps.
In 2007, Htoo May came to live in the USA where she has begun to organize a network of Karen Christian women across America that gather together for prayer and mutual encouragement. She envisions programs in this network that could be established to help Karen families' adjustments to American life, or benefit people who remain in refugee camps or the Burma homeland.
Ms. Htoo May is the cousin of Dr. Anna May Say Pah, Principal of the Myanmar Institute of Theology and a member of the World Council of Churches' Central Committee. Her presence at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the US Conference is sponsored by the American Baptist Churches USA.
Samuel Rizk
Ph.D. Candidate, Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University
Saray Presbyterian Church, Egypt
Samuel Rizk is a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University. Living in Lebanon from 2002 to 2006 he was a founding member and executive director of the Forum for Development, Culture and Dialogue - a regional NGO based in Beirut, working on issues of conflict resolution, community empowerment and interfaith dialogue. During that time he also helped establish the Arab Partnership for Conflict Prevention and Human Security and coordinated its work in relation to the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC). With the Middle East Council of Churches, in Egypt and Lebanon, Samuel was program officer for the Justice, Peace and Human Rights program, as well as assistant to the general secretary of the Council for International Linkage. He also coordinated the work of the WCC Urban Rural Mission Program in the Middle East.
Samuel is currently adjunct faculty at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University, teaching Strategic Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation Theory. He is also a visiting researcher at Georgetown University's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding. He holds an MA in Middle East Studies from the American University in Cairo and a BA in Political Science from Hanover College. Samuel Rizk is a member of the Saray Presbyterian Church, Alexandria, Egypt.
