Make A Donation
Click Here >
World Mission
Imagine being so ill or traumatized that you cannot remember where you were born. You have no identification. You cannot work. You have no home.
Fruit trees and agriculture are frequent subjects of metaphors and parables in the Bible. People in Madagascar can relate because, just as in Biblical times, most are subsistence farmers, growing most of their own food. People in Madagascar commonly prepare fields using only spades and hard labor.
Osama (last name withheld) is a licensed Palestinian tour guide. He recently stood with one of his tour groups in the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron with his head bowed and his expression deeply troubled as a group of Israeli Jewish tourists walked through. The last person in line was an Israeli guard carrying a machine gun. It is a traditional sign of respect for visitors of any faith to remove their shoes and for women to cover their heads. This group had done neither. “No respect,” he said quietly. “No respect.”
In response to a commissioner’s resolution adopted at the 223rd General Assembly in St. Louis (2018), a group of 10 Presbyterian Church (USA) representatives visited Israel-Palestine last week to express concerns for the human rights of the inhabitants of Gaza. The delegation was led by GA 223 co-moderator, Ruling Elder Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri, and director of World Mission the Rev. José Luis Casal.
Squeezed together with girls about her same age, Mary sat on a bamboo pew in the sanctuary. It was the first morning of a three-day children’s trauma healing workshop. The list of things written in her new notebook included: too much housework, loss of my parents and missing school.
Sara and I live on the edge of Jerusalem. Often, our paths take us near the Mount of Olives. Tourists and pilgrims come from all corners of the globe and pose for photos on a terrace there, with the breathtaking sight of the “Holy City” in the background.
A young family in a remote region of Armenia runs a fruitful greenhouse business, a venture made possible through a microloan and coaching program offered by the Jinishian Memorial Foundation’s Youth Business Project for underserved youth otherwise ineligible for any loan. The project is motivating young people feeling stuck in generational poverty to realize their dream of owning a business to support their families.
All of us face temptations in the course of our lives. It is an inevitable part of the human condition. We pray “lead us not into temptation,” but temptations are going to come in any event. Jesus was, as a fully authentic human being, also subject to temptation, in this case, at the hands of Satan himself. Unlike us, however, Jesus withstood temptation.
Presbyterians do mission in partnership, and those partnerships are lived out in the real world — a world of complexity, nuance and contradiction.
“When you think of the Caribbean, you probably think of sun, sea and dance. But pain and possibility are closer to the truth,” says Gerard Granado, general secretary of the Caribbean Council of Churches.
