World Mission

Colombian college celebrates 150 years of academic excellence

The Colegio Americano, an educational ministry of the Presbyterian Church of Colombia (IPC), celebrated its 150th anniversary this month. The school, older than the National University of Colombia, began in 1869 when Presbyterian mission worker Kate MacFerren began to teach English classes to a group of 18 girls in Bogotá.

Consultation seeks ‘mission-centered ethos’

Nearly 40 Presbyterians are gathered here May 10-12 to provide input into Presbyterian World Mission’s strategic planning process. “Together we want to take a new look at the future, what it is and what we need to do in this new world,” said World Mission Director Jose Luis Casal. “The biblical word that there ‘is a new heaven and a new Earth’ is always God’s work.”

World Mission to hold final regional strategy planning session

What does it mean to be a Matthew 25 church today? That’s the key question participants in a series of international consultations and U.S. regional gatherings have been addressing through roundtable discussion across the country and around the world.

‘Yo hablo el amor’

Immigrants seeking a home in a new land and Arizona residents needing home repairs are both learning the language of love through the work of a couple serving as Young Adult Volunteers at the Tucson Borderlands YAV site on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Peas and joy at Okra Abbey

As the team tore down the last of the vines covering the garden gates, Young Adult Volunteer Regi Jones realized they had just helped to unwrap the gift of Okra Abbey for the Pigeon Town neighborhood in New Orleans.

Two women turn past pain into present hope

In 1993 fighting erupted within the small South Sudanese town of Yei (pronounced “Yay”). Machine guns mounted atop land cruisers and men wearing fatigues launched shells of ammunition into the air. Mothers and grandmothers hurried out of gunfire with babies tied to their backs and cooking pans seated on their heads. They emptied into forests, pushed through branches and waded through streams, moving up gravel-covered hills and down shadowed valleys. They assembled at border crossings bulging from the influx of refugees. Thousands flowed across the border of the world’s newest nation into United Nations-sanctioned areas in Uganda.

Churches work to strengthen South Sudan’s fragile peace as insecurity persists

With the many conflicts causing suffering around the world as well as the troublesome policies in the United States, our brothers and sisters in South Sudan are oftentimes forgotten. Church leaders there are working faithfully to shore up South Sudan’s fragile peace and head off new humanitarian crises, even as international agencies find evidence of continuing abuses.

‘Let us fix our eyes on Jesus’

The 114th New Wilmington Mission Conference (NWMC), regarded as the oldest annual mission conference in the U.S., will be held July 19-26 on the campus of Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pa.

Physician dies while treating Ebola patients

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is facing the second-largest Ebola outbreak ever, but that’s not what killed Dr. Richard Valery Mouzoko Kiboung. He died trying to help others.