GENERAL CHAPTER FIC  

 Denekamp, 13^th August,2018

The day started with a morning prayer led by the Ghana FIC delegation, with a prayer theme Witnesses of God’s love through humble and dedicated leadership.

The day, 13^th August also happens to be my birthday. Apart from the General Chapter agenda for the day, the participants paid attention to my birthday celebration by singing the Happy birthday song and the gift of a hat marked with General Chapter 2018 log.

The morning sessions were for the introduction and the discussion of proposals 3, 4,7,9 and 22 and eventually proposal 22 was dropped.

Proposals 4 and 7 took lengthy discussion as participants wanted more clarification on the administrative role of lay people working with our Brothers in the Religious House, Netherlands, and to what extent of participation in the decision making in the congregational affairs will they have to play. It was interesting to note the concerns some participants expressed regarding this new development in the congregation.

I think there will be another opportunity within the chapter period for the chapter to conclusively talk about the role of the lay people in the Religious House Netherlands.

In the afternoon sessions, provincial delegations met first, to discuss the qualities of the brothers that will be elected into the General Council. Secondly, we went into  provincial mixed groups where each shared with the others the qualities that were discussed in the provincial groups. From this, a list of qualities was compiled and finally submitted to the Secretariat for presentation in the plenum the next day.

The celebration of the Eucharist at 19:00 hours marked the days’ activities.

                                                By Lawrence Sitima