Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
In 1992 a friend, Mary Henderson, volunteered me for the Board of World Convention, an organization that I had not heard of before. The reason was that Calgary was going to host the next Convention in 1996. Mary was an strong supporter of the group and had been the strongest advocate in convincing the Board that Calgary was capable of hosting the event. She had a vested interest in seeing it succeed so I'm still not sure why she put my name forward. Unfortunately, Mary did not live to see the successful completion of the event. No Convention before or after has come as close to budget or registered the profit Calgary achieved.
World Convention is an organization that strives to unite churches that trace their roots to the Stone-Campbell movement. That encompasses over 130 countries. More information can be found on their website worldconvention.com if you want to know more.
This is what brings me to Goiania. Once every four years they hold a gathering somewhere in the world and this year is Brazil. Since Calgary they have been in Brisbane, Australia, Brighton, England and the 2008 Convention was in Nashville. I have attended all of them.
Anyone can attend and they do from all over the world. Usually, on a per capita basis the largest group, not counting the host country, is from Australia. The U.S. with the largest number of adherents is for some reason not usually well represented.
I don't have the exact numbers for this year but it will number several thousand with the majority being Brazilian.
There are 3 main morning and 4 evening speakers (one each per day with only an evening program on Day 1) as well as 25 or 30 people that will do a wide variety of workshops during the afternoons. Everyone, including the speakers, pays their own way.
Many people, including myself, use the opportunity to see and explore the countries they are visiting. For the next four days this is my focus. It is only 4 of 22 days I will be in the country but it gives me the opportunity to see old friends from all over the world and unique to this year, a chance to hear English for a few days.
- comments