Article June 5, 2006 Issue

A global CHURCH of local HEALERS

with contributions from HELOISA GELBER RIVAS, DAVID REED

In a recent conversation with her successor, outgoing President of The Mother Church, HELOISA GELBER RIVAS, explained that each President of the Church is given a specific assignment for his or her one-year term. Picking up on the theme of this year's Annual Meeting of the Church, "A Church of Healers," the duties of incoming President DAVID REED will specifically support the individual member's practice of Christian Science healing. Mr. Reed is a Christian Science practitioner based in Boston. This past year, Mrs. Rivas, a Christian Science practitioner and teacher who also lives in Boston, was asked to visit and nurture the Christian Science field in countries where Spanish and Portuguese are spoken. They gathered in a three-way conference call with senior writer Warren Bolon.

In your travels this past year, Heloisa, did you sense more the universality of the healing ideas that are embodied in Christian Science?

There is no location limitation for Christian Science. When you grow up in a branch church anywhere, you don't think that you are in "another country" or culture. You're in the only country you know. I was raised in São Paulo, Brazil, with Christian Science as part of my life, and at that time I wasn't thinking of how universal it is in terms of comparing the United States to Brazil. Christian Science and our churches were part of life in Brazil. By now, I've lived in the States many years, and as President of The Mother Church, my assignment was to visit the Christian Science branches where Spanish and Portuguese are spoken. So I revisited all those churches where I had already been many times before, and I rediscovered that wonderful root of Christian Science that has been planted there for many decades, sometimes nearly 100 years. God is the same God in all places, as is the divine revelation that came to Mary Baker Eddy, which she named Christian Science. In many cities of each of the Latin American countries I saw during this trip, people have been relying on Christian Science for healing, and carrying on church activities.

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