GC leader Wilson to visit Malawi
Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) General Conference president Pastor Ted Wilson is slated to visit the country next month.
The 69-year-old is expected to jet in the country on 7 February through Kamuzu International Airport for his four day pastoral visit.
Confirming the development in a telephone interview on Thursday, Malawi Union president Pastor Frackson Kuyama said Elder Wilson is expected to have various engagements in the country before flying out on 10 February.
“What a way to kick-start the new year. I would say we are very excited as a church for his scheduled visit. This is something we cannot take for granted, even as a nation, owing to the ever-tight schedule of his office. As we speak, the church eagerly waits for the visit,” he said.
Kuyama, who argued his office will later release a detailed statement on the president’s itinerary in the country, added that Wilson’s visit stands to consolidate the church even further. He said: “It is actually a manifestation that SDA is indeed a global church. The fact that he has included Malawi on his tours this year means a lot to us as a church, and to me as a leader here. We can only be grateful to God for the grace bestowed on us.
Sketchy details indicate that the global leader will, among a few African countries, also visit Angola and South Africa on this same trip, before he tours Papua New Guinea later in March. This will not be the president’s first visit to Africa. He was in Uganda in 2018 before visiting Rwanda in August last year where he baptised 100 000 Christians.
Famed for his passion in advocating for religious liberty, Wilson is reported to have “commended the spirit of camaraderie he observed [as] the nation continues to heal after genocide claimed the lives of as many as 800,000 people in 1994.”
Elder Wilson is currently in his second five-year-term as head of the global church, after succeeding Jan Paulsen in 2010.
The church’s official website reports that there are about 20.7 million members worldwide, as of 2017. The numbers may have risen owing to various mega evangelism conducted over the past two years worldwide.
Notably for Malawi, the church held the Saturation 2017 Crusade in the capital Lilongwe which was heavily televised and consequently reaped many souls. In the just ended year, the Blantyre4Christ Crusade headlined various evangelism efforts in the commercial capital, Blantyre.
- Written by Fatsani Gunya
