The Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis was delivering an impromptu sermon at the end of a long, hot day riding around Western Kentucky on a bumpy bus when she turned to the story of a leper who approached Jesus.“The leper said, ‘If you choose, you can heal me,’” Theoharis said. “’If you choose, you can heal me.’“Now that leper had gone a lot of places up to that point. He went to the HMOs of his day, and they turned him away. He went to the hospitals nearby, they had closed down. But Jesus traveled around the land opening up free healthcare clinics, never charged a co-pay. The leper said to Jesus, ‘If you choose, you can heal me.’“The question before us this afternoon is, ‘Do we choose?’”
With eradicating systemic poverty as one of the three goals of the Matthew 25 invitation, Presbyterian Mission Agency Board members took two hours Thursday to hear from a panel what’s being done about it and, around round tables, to discuss poverty’s implications and challenges for congregations, mid councils and other groups.
Choosing a protein for a meal is no easy task. Can you afford it? Is it good for you? If you have kids, will they eat it? Then there are the less common and more challenging questions: Was the earth harmed? Were the workers treated well? Did the animal suffer? And how is our protein consumption contributing to carbon emissions and climate change?
The Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball team lost its showdown at the University of Tennessee Saturday, but that didn’t dampen the warmth of the spirits of those watching the game on a big projector screen at Maxwell Street Presbyterian Church next to the UK campus.
Like many churches across the country, Irvington Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis celebrates Palm Sunday with people in the congregation waving palm fronds to commemorate Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem shortly before his death and resurrection.
Erica, it’s simple. People who grow food have too much, while some people go hungry. There must be a way to get the excess produce from the growers to the hungry.
Last month, the Stewpot, a ministry of First Presbyterian Church of Dallas, served its 8 millionth meal — equivalent to 13 million pounds or 2,800 pallets of food — marking a major milestone in the ministry’s 44-year history.
If Luis Ramos Salgado had tried to ride the storm out in his home, he wouldn’t be able to walk down his street on this sunny morning.
“I’d be dead,” he says through a translator, standing in the kitchen of the only home he’s ever known in San Juan’s Caño Martín Peña area.
It’s a pretty port of call.
Mere blocks from where cruise ships pull into San Juan terminal, visitors can find enticing Old San Juan, with its mix of history, shops and restaurants, all open for business, even on a warm but quiet Tuesday night. Veering right, visitors can find conveniences such as bike rentals and a CVS pharmacy, all up and running.
“People go to hotels, Old San Juan and they see the stores open, lights … and they say, ‘Oh, everything is back to normal,’” the Rev. Edwin A. González-Castillo says.
Except it’s not.
