A “narrative of hate and rejection” is spreading across Mexico in response to the caravans of migrants from Central America and elsewhere, a Mexican lawyer and human rights defender told the 150 or so people attending the “Responding to an Exodus: Gospel Hospitality and Empire” celebration of 35 years of Presbyterian border ministry last week.
The Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) and World Mission organized a gathering with ecumenical representatives from around the world last week in Bangkok, Thailand. The purpose was to have deeper conversations about worldwide crises such as climate, weakened democracy within nations and increasingly divisive practices among nations.
“They said their teacher has not come,” said Peter, the education facilitator for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) partner Across, translated from Anyuak to English.
As a boy growing up in Brazil, the Rev. Dr. Cláudio Carvalhaes said he was afraid of the dark. At bedtime it comforted him that his father had the light on in the next room. “I could see the light where he was, and that was my resting place,” said Carvalhaes, associate professor of worship at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, during last week’s “Responding to an Exodus: Gospel Hospitality and Empire” celebration of 35 years of ministry by Presbyterian Border Region Outreach’s Frontera de Cristo. Carvalhaes led a Friday morning workshop he called “Preaching from the Darkness” at First Presbyterian Church in Douglas, Arizona.
Raised in both Douglas, Arizona and nearby Agua Prieta, which is just south of the U.S.-Mexico border, artist and community college instructor M. Jenea Sanchez has an interest in the kind of public art that’s a simultaneous expression of hope and resistance.
Recent flooding in South Sudan and ongoing political unrest in Haiti have prompted the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to provide humanitarian aid to partner organizations in those countries to help individuals and families affected by the crises.
In the shadow of what many consider the worst refugee camp in Europe is a beacon of hope, operated mostly by volunteers, a group called Lesvos Solidarity.
Thirty-six presbyteries in the United States have formal ties with partner churches in Africa. There are good and practical reasons for that, the Rev. Debbie Braaksma told worshipers in the Presbyterian Center Wednesday.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been committed to interconnectional ministry in God’s mission at the local, national and global levels since 1837. Since that time, more than 8,000 mission co-workers have shared the good news of Jesus Christ with millions of people worldwide.
