CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA (October 19, 2010) – Celina Camarillo, who serves as events manager for the Evangelical Covenant Church, is among several Covenanters attending the Third Lausanne World Congress on Evangelization currently under way.

She is overseeing the management of breakout dialogue sessions for the event, which includes 4,000 leaders from more than 200 countries and continues through October 25.

Other participants include Curt Peterson, executive minister of the Department of World Mission, who is representing the Covenant; missionary Leonid Regheta, and Adam Philips, an ordained Covenant pastor who now serves as faith relations manager for ONE, an advocacy and campaigning organization that fights extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa.

Conference participants are discussing responses to critical issues such as reaching out to other world faiths, poverty, HIV/AIDS, the environment, and persecution. The conference is being held in collaboration with the World Evangelical Alliance.

“To work with Lausanne is a great honor,” says Camarillo. “It’s an incredible opportunity.”

She brings a wealth of experience. As Covenant events manager, she oversees the planning and coordination for the Midwinter Pastors Conference, Annual Meeting, CHIC, and the FEAST. Prior to directing the events office, Camarillo served in a similar role with Urban Youth Workers Institute.

Camarillo says she especially has enjoyed the chance to work with a team of people from around the world. Everyone is able to speak English, which has made the collaboration easier.

The international makeup of the committee has presented some logistical challenges, however. Conference calls had to be arranged for times that would be possible for everyone to participate. “I did a conference call at 6 a.m.”

Camarillo has previous experience with Lausanne, which sponsored a Younger Leaders Gathering in Malaysia that drew 500 younger leaders in 2006. As with the larger Lausanne conference, onsite attendance was by invitation only.

She had to apply to participate and was encouraged by a co-worker to submit her name.

“That was probably the most rigorous application process I have ever been through, including applying for college,” Camarillo says.

Attending the nine-day conference with young leaders from around the world “felt like a little bit of heaven,” Camarillo says. Planners drew from the young leaders gathering to help organize the Cape Town event.

Covenant News Service is publishing reports from the conference on Twitter, Facebook, and the denominational website.