“It was a very painful but meaningful time to think again about what it means to live as a Christian and as an American in this world.” This was a comment from Dia, one of the Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs) from 2016–17, after we visited No Gun Ri, the site of a massacre of Korean civilians committed by U.S. soldiers at the beginning of the Korean War. Believing the civilians to be communists, the U.S. military killed 250–300 people, mostly women and children, from July 26 to 29 in 1950, attacking them as they sought shelter under a railroad bridge. Visiting this site is always painful for me. As a site coordinator who is also a Korean, learning about my own history that is related to the U.S. along with YAVs is a powerful and meaningful experience. Stories like these are often ignored or well-hidden, even though there are people who are still suffering from the wounds of these incidents to this day. Learning stories like this may lead to discomfort as we come to face a distorted tragedy. Nevertheless, I believe that we must uncover and retell the stories like this. History can teach us not to repeat gruesome mistakes and it can also teach us how we can live our lives more responsibly in our present day. Read more »
July 23, 2020
Minute for Mission: Celebrating Young Adult Volunteers
“It was a very painful but meaningful time to think again about what it means to live as a Christian and as an American in this world.” This was a comment from Dia, one of the Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs) from 2016–17, after we visited No Gun Ri, the site of a massacre of Korean civilians committed by U.S. soldiers at the beginning of the Korean War. Believing the civilians to be communists, the U.S. military killed 250–300 people, mostly women and children, from July 26 to 29 in 1950, attacking them as they sought shelter under a railroad bridge. Visiting this site is always painful for me. As a site coordinator who is also a Korean, learning about my own history that is related to the U.S. along with YAVs is a powerful and meaningful experience. Stories like these are often ignored or well-hidden, even though there are people who are still suffering from the wounds of these incidents to this day. Learning stories like this may lead to discomfort as we come to face a distorted tragedy. Nevertheless, I believe that we must uncover and retell the stories like this. History can teach us not to repeat gruesome mistakes and it can also teach us how we can live our lives more responsibly in our present day. Read more »
Charles and Melissa Johnson served as ruling elders in their home congregation, Northwood Presbyterian Church in San Antonio, and now as mission co-workers in Zambia. In both places they found joy and strength in the strong sense of community that surrounded them. Now sheltering in place in Atlanta at Mission Haven, short-term housing for mission co-workers, they are busy staying connected to partners, supporting churches and finding that sense of community in new places. 
As June turned to July, Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles needed a place to store food. 
The Rev. Dr. Doug Oldenburg, a pastor, Moderator of the 210th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) held in 1998 and the seventh president of Columbia Theological Seminary, died Tuesday at the age of 85. 
As the Rev. Brian Heron was preparing pastoral leaders and clerks of session in the Presbytery of the Cascades for their first presbytery-wide meeting in eight months, federal agents deployed to the city of Portland, Oregon, by the Department of Homeland Security were starting to show up. 
Stony Point Center and Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary, at the request of the Presbyterian Mission Agency, are teaming up to develop online and eventually in-person curriculum to support the Matthew 25 vision. Courses center on the three focuses of the vision: nurturing vital congregations and communities of faith, dismantling structural racism and working to end systemic poverty. 
The COVID-19 pandemic is growing rapidly in Indonesia, which has one of the highest number of coronavirus cases in Asia. But with fewer than 100,000, the total number of confirmed cases is still relatively small compared to those in the United States. 
Until in-person visits can resume safely, there has never been a better time to invite mission co-workers to visit your congregation virtually than right now. 
Korean immigrant churches in the PC(USA) continue to be less inclined to have female pastors, but Korean clergywomen are finding other ways to serve. 
The coronavirus has inflicted any number of health crises on Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregations — but in some tangible ways it’s also enhanced their ecclesial health.