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Mission Yearbook
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27 NIV).
Memorial Day calls us as individuals and as a nation to remember all who have died in military service to our country. Our Memorial Day dates to the Civil War as mothers and widows both north and south decorated the graves of their loved ones who had perished. The 30th of May became the traditional date for remembrance. Now we remember on the final Monday of May.
Americans celebrated the first Earth Day 50 years ago this spring, on April 22, 1970. That same year the United Presbyterian Council on Church and Society undertook a study on threats facing human survival on an increasingly crowded and polluted planet. The study culminated in the 1971 United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. General Assembly adopting the council’s report, Christian Responsibility for Environmental Renewal.
Fighting hunger is at the heart of the Presbyterian understanding of mission. Jesus fed the hungry and told his disciples to do the same. Yet, we know that hunger is an extremely complex phenomenon with economic, political and social causes. The Presbyterian Hunger Program celebrates the vital work of local congregations and we complement it by doing “root cause” work to help address the underlying questions of why people are hungry in order to reduce ongoing hunger.
Faith has always played an important role in the Rev. Dr. Sam Miglarese’s life. He spent most of his life as a Catholic priest, but decided to become Presbyterian and became a teaching elder at First Presbyterian Church in Durham, North Carolina.
International Roma Day is an opportunity for those of us who know little about the Roma (often pejoratively called “gypsies”) to learn about and celebrate their culture, history and people, moving past stereotypes and media depictions.
Last year, I took more than two dozen flights. In many cases I could have taken a bus, but for little extra cost, I opted to save time. A flight from Lima (on the Pacific coast) to Tarapoto (in the Amazon) takes a little over an hour. The bus takes more than 25 hours. So, for about $25 more per flight, it seems worth it to travel by air. I know my knees are grateful. But, like so many things in life, there are usually more costs than those that simply make a dent in our wallets. There are environmental costs, too.
Of the 12 entries in our Book of Confessions, odds are you’re most familiar with the Apostles’ Creed. Every branch of Christianity’s family tree accepts it. It’s often recited at baptisms. But of its 110 words, four have tripped up Christians for centuries: He descended into hell.
The Presbyterian Church of Kabuga, Rwanda, has two primary schools — Kabuga (with 310 students) and Muyumba (with 192 students). Parents, students and teachers are celebrating the fourth consecutive school year that students in Primary 6 in both schools have achieved a perfect score on Rwanda’s national examination.
When discussing the issue of forced migration, we see images in the U.S. of violence and economic inequality in Central America, South America and parts of the Middle East.
Urgency filled the room. On Jan. 19, the Rev. Jacqueline Troncoso had just been elected as moderator of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Chile (IEPCh), the first woman to hold this post. The synod assembly had just approved a powerful pastoral letter calling on all Chilean Presbyterians to support the drafting of a new national Constitution.
