This week I vacated my office in the Ecumenical Centre and took another step towards retirement.
It was exciting to be able to look through records, documents, reports from business trips and meetings with our international partners, pictures from these years, draft resolutions for various governing bodies and much more.
I have been professionally involved in ecumenism since 1997. Initially until 2003 as Regional Representative for Mission and Ecumenism in the District (Propstei) of Oberhessen, then until 2009 as Secretary for Development and Partnership Asia and finally until March of this year as the Director of the Ecumenical Centre of the Protestant Churh in Hesse and Nassau (EKHN) and since 2015 of the EKHN and the Evangelical Church of Kurhesse-Waldeck (EKKW). Many experiences, encounters and friendships that will accompany me into retirement! I am very grateful for the richness of my professional life.
Shaping the church in international and ecumenical solidarity, looking for ways to achieve more peace, justice and the preservation of creation has always been a concern of mine. I have found encounters with people of other faiths and the interreligious dialogue always very enriching. I was supported by great colleagues!
In the entrance area of the headquarter of one of our partner churches hangs a banner that summarizes much of what has moved me in these years of service:
I was bid farewell at the end of January in a very moving worship service. I am grateful for the many appreciative words, good wishes, written greetings and the contributions of my colleagues from the Ecumenical Centre. All of this will accompany me into retirement! I am now looking forward to what the new phase of my life will bring. I will remain connected to the ecumenical movement.
