The World Day of Prayer (WDP) is celebrated on the first Friday in March and not in February as I incorrectly reported in my column in Sunday Stabroek on January 6 this year.
I am now in receipt of information relating to the event. The liturgy for the day has been prepared by the Guyana Committee for the World Day of Prayer.
This International World Day of Prayer Conferences takes place every fourth or fifth year. One important task is to choose those countries whose WDP committee is going to write the future order of worship. Guyana was chosen at the International World Day of Prayer Conference in Swanwick, England in the year 2003.
National committees are asked to provide suggestions – but it is not up to them to decide about the future writing countries. WDP is an international movement so it does not make sense that just one country should decide.
It seems that my article gave one group of the German WDP movement way too much importance with respect to the international structure and ways of decision-making.
Also, it is not stipulated that a developing country should be chosen. It was decided in Toronto that women of the WDP Committee of France are going to write the liturgy for the World Day of Prayer in 2013.
I also have to correct an error that was made in the article by Sharon Maas that was published on January 13 in Sunday Stabroek. Roxana Kawall is not the Chairman of the World Day of Prayer Guyana Committee. Waveney Benjamin, who published a letter in Stabroek News on January 17, is the Chairperson of the group.
In her letter, Waveney said that since 1976 the World Day of Prayer has been convened in Guyana by a committee representative of twelve denominations. This committee has overseen the work of the body under various chairpersons over the years.
The service each year is written by a country which has a participating committee, and is held each year in Guyana at St Andrew’s Kirk in Georgetown and in other areas of the country. The WDP Committee has twenty-four services in seven regions inclusive of the Rupununi.
This is the first time in the history of WDP Guyana that the committee has the honour of having written the service. The theme is ‘God’s Wisdom Provides New Understanding.’
