Acting as a global citizen

“The action of every Christian is important. We have a deep responsibility to all people because we are all hands of God,” Magnea Sverrisdóttir of Iceland proclaims from the podium.”

The temperature is high and the sun is beating down on the thousands and thousands that have gathered at the Sam Nujoma Stadium in Windhoek, Namibia. The occasion is the global commemoration of the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation during the Twelfth Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation in Windhoek, Namibia. Sverrisdóttir, a deacon from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland is giving a testimony on behalf of the Nordic Region.

“My great grandmother was an ordinary Lutheran woman in the 20th century living in a remote, homogenous society in the Arctic. But in her commitment to God’s mission and by the ways she took responsibility for it, she was already a global citizen,” Sverrisdóttir continues.

It is a powerful testimony about the commitment shown by a woman struggling to get by but never forgetting that she is part of something greater—always sending spare money to the missionary office in Reykjavik to support mission in foreign countries.

“My grandmother wished that everyone could experience the Gospel of the love and the mercy of God for all human beings and for all of creation. She wished that everyone could experience the magnificent beauty, whether in the cold of the fjords or in the hot desert places.”

LWF/Johan Ehrning