REPORT GENERAL CHAPTER DENEKAMP

THURSDAY, 23 RD AUGUST, 2018.  

We started today's activities with a morning prayer service led by the Indonesian delegation. The special intention was the celebration of the 54th birthday of Bro, Raphael Besigrinee. As usual, we sang "Happy Birthday" in his honour. After the prayer Bro. Raphael was requested to stand at the back of the chapel in order to receive all available congratulations on this special occasion of his in an orderly way. 

The first subject of the morning session we dealt with was the draft of the Chapter Message, prepared by a committee. As a start, those who had prepared this received a of commendation. After this several more positive remarks were made but also some new ideas were suggested to be inserted. Some elements in the draft were suggested to be left out. A number of insertions in the presented text were given consideration for the final version.

Explicitly, it was suggested to give the editors some space for their new formulations. An element in the Chapter Message, composed about our mission was seen as a very clear statement, which might find a good place on the FIC website as well.

After a break we spent the rest of the morning voting on the proposals that had been discussed in previous sessions. For two of the proposals, there was a request that they be voted upon by secret ballot. Apart from these two, the rest of the votes were by raising of hands. The choices were either to accept, reject or abstain. In the end, all 21 proposals were accepted.

The afternoon session was scheduled for a special meeting of the outgoing and incoming General Council teams. For obvious reasons there is no report available of this meeting.

After supper we came together in the chapel for our daily Eucharist.

Bro. Ton van Baaren