The Matavera Ekalesia Church are preparing for the 34th Cook Islands Christian Church (CICC) General Assembly which will be held from July 9-16, 2023.

The working group committee has completed the repainting of the Sunday School Gibeona Hall and are now focused on refurbishing the churchyard grounds.

Secretary of the Matavera CICC and Member of Parliament Vaitoti Tupa said: “We are respectfully inviting the families who have graves of members of their family inside the churchyard to please come along and paint their graves, or they can donate a little something to help out and we can paint it for them.”

The last major repainting job of the church and its yard was carried out in 2015. The working group will be repainting the church and the cemetery.

“When that is completed then we will be building some bed bases for the mattresses upstairs in the Sunday School Hall,” Tupa said.

“We usually have about 20 delegates from overseas which we will hosting.”

Soon after the 34^th CICC General Assembly, the 200 Year Commemoration of the Arrival of the Gospel celebrations will begin starting with the Pa Enua of Nga-Pu-Toru – Atiu 19 July, Mauke 23 July, Mitiaro 22 July – followed by Rarotonga on 25 July.

Initially the General Assembly was scheduled to be held in October 2021 to coincide with Aitutaki’s Bicentennial celebrations, however, due to Covid-19 the meeting was cancelled and pushed forward to 2023 to coincide with Rarotonga’s Bicentennial.

The CICC has 70 branches: 23 each in the Cook Islands and New Zealand and 24 in Australia.