Last autumn I traveled with mission co-workers and partners in Thailand to visit Hill Tribe persons working to gain such citizenship rights as healthcare and education. The experience showed me just one of the many ways the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is working to address human trafficking. Presbyterians in their own communities have established shelters, resource facilities and computer applications as well. Read more »
December 8, 2016
Minute for Mission: Human Trafficking Awareness
Last autumn I traveled with mission co-workers and partners in Thailand to visit Hill Tribe persons working to gain such citizenship rights as healthcare and education. The experience showed me just one of the many ways the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is working to address human trafficking. Presbyterians in their own communities have established shelters, resource facilities and computer applications as well. Read more »
Melissa Wiginton remembers the first thing she did after being hired by Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in 2011.
“We had to come up with a title for me,” she says. “We wanted to make a statement about the seminary’s commitment to education with people who weren’t going to school here every day.”
Sometimes the simplest questions give rise to the most interesting conversations. That is what I discovered one morning at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Virginia. 
The agricultural metaphor was one of Jesus’ favorites. Speaking to a people of the land, Jesus used the imagery of the land often in his parables and sermons. A sower who went out to sow. A lamp and a bushel basket. Growing seed. Mustard seed. And that is just one chapter (Mark 4). Throughout his ministry, Jesus connected God’s work to the growth from the land. The nourishment and sustenance of the earth became metaphors for the care and support of God’s in-breaking Reign. 
Business is looking good for a group of Somali refugee women seeking to support their families in Columbus, Ohio. The group is part of the Capital Park Women’s Empowerment Project, which gives low-income women the opportunity to forge their own paths and market their businesses. 
In late June 2016, mere days after winning Peru’s presidential election by a thin margin, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski turned his eyes on the troubled community of La Oroya, where for more than 15 years Presbyterian World Mission and the Presbyterian Hunger Program have joined with partners Joining Hands Peru (Red Uniendo Manos Peru) in seeking justice for city’s residents. 
Alex Pappas, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ministerial inquirer under the care of Grace Presbytery, has received the Grace Presbytery Fellowship to fund her full seminary costs as she pursues a master of divinity degree at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. 
In 2014, a year before Madison Presbyterian Church’s 200th anniversary, Jill Wiest and I volunteered to see what information we could find to enhance the celebration. After looking through many old files, we wondered if we had found everything—after all, there are many nooks and crannies in our 1846 church building. 
The Presbyterian Mission Agency Board is pleased to announce that it has accepted an invitation from the Presbytery of San Juan to hold its March 2017 meeting in Puerto Rico. 
What more fitting season of the liturgical year than Christmas for the performing artist, composer, producer, broadcaster, educator, music minister, PC(USA) ruling elder, and interfaith missionary, Warren Cooper, to live out the incarnational nature of his own multi-faceted calling?