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Mission Yearbook
Chaplain Joanne Martindale remembers:
On Sept. 11, 2001, I, as well as all the other chaplains and chaplain assistants of the New Jersey and New York Army National Guards were called to active duty.
These are troubling times for higher education. With the COVID-19 pandemic and racial unrest further eroding an already fragile ecosystem, the challenges facing U.S. colleges and universities continue to multiply. In times like these, alliances that help institutions of higher education understand and manage these challenges are more valuable than ever.
I was born in Nazareth, but spent five years of my childhood in Haifa, Israel’s third largest city, where my father was the Anglican priest.
In some ways, living on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea was idyllic. I remember with joy road trips to Nazareth and fishing excursions with my grandfather. But I also remember having to speak my mother tongue, Arabic, in hushed tones on the street, lest we attract unwanted attention from our Jewish Israeli neighbors and always sensing that somehow, we might be seen as different.
For the second time in two years, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has played a role in research by Abbott Labs that may lead to a vaccine for HIV/AIDS.
“Arthur and the Forgetful Elephant” by Maria Girón explores memory loss from the perspective of both those who forget and those around them. Inside the book, a young boy named Arthur meets an elephant who suffers from memory loss. After a playful day together, the elephant remembers enough to help him reunite with his family. The book, which is ideal for ages 3–7, encourages readers to have compassion for and patience with those suffering from memory loss and it features charming illustrations that progressively become more colorful throughout the story
After COVID-19 forced the cancelation of planned projects and in-person worship, Coastland Commons, a 1001 New Worshiping Community in Seattle Presbytery, moved to Zoom discussions about their city’s history of land use by Black, Indigenous and people of color communities. After about six months of Zoom gatherings, they figured out a safe way to see Seattle anew through socially distanced community walks. They reached out to the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI), which organizes redlining tours in Seattle’s Capitol Hill and Central District neighborhoods.
I am not usually a fan of a pastor or someone in my position using themselves as a good example. If pastors tell a story from their lives in a sermon, I think it should be a story about how they learned something about their faith because of a failing or a shortcoming, or a story about something funny that happened to them. I also think pastors should never use their children as examples, especially if the child is in worship. The last thing preachers’ kids need is to have more attention drawn to them.
Justo Mwale University in Zambia is generally thought of as an educational institution that prepares pastors. It has trained pastors for seven African countries. But this unique place of learning also plays a key role in equipping scholars to go on to train pastors in other African theological schools.
Hannah Drake’s “Do Not Move Off the Sidewalk Challenge” says a lot about allowing people to flourish in whatever body God gave them.
Presented by the Presbyterian Hunger Program, the Rev. Dr. Patricia Tull, an environmental theologian and author of “Inhabiting Eden: Christians, the Bible, and the Ecological Crisis,” recently led more than 50 participants through an online presentation highlighting her and her family’s journey toward building a zero energy home located in Henryville, Indiana.
