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Mission Yearbook
Starting this reflection about youth in the church while an Old Testament king is on my mind might seem like a strange place to begin. My “today” mind is full of the images I am enjoying on social media of young people participating in summer mission immersions, camps, service projects and other summer activities. But my “writing” mind is thinking about what King David, has to offer us about youth in the church and the world. David, who is buried in the city he helped establish, once stood as a young man, among his sheep, in the shadow of a giant enemy, with his best friend, Jonathan, with his music and poetry and indeed, with his God. That part of his life, along with his leadership, his goodness and his … not so goodness, is all part of his legacy.
People used to tell Monique Misenga Mukuna’s father that he did not have children because he had more girls than boys — 11 girls and three boys, to be precise.
In many African cultures, including Mukuna’s native Democratic Republic of Congo, women and girls have second-class status, not enjoying many of the advantages of men and boys. Mukuna’s father wasn’t having that.
Nearly two years after the devastation of Hurricane Maria, the 36 members of the Iglesia Presbiteriana Rosa Gonzalez southwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico, have concluded that a good way to serve their Guaynabo community is through a church-provided health-care facility.
In a single month, Elizabeth Little vacationed, all expenses paid, at Westin’s resort in Los Cabos, Mexico, as a top sales leader; oversaw a $150,000 bar mitzvah at The Westin Charlotte in North Carolina, as senior catering manager; and took a mission trip to Mexico’s Yucatan, where she slept in a hammock in a village where no child had access to middle school.
On The Way Church, a Spanish-speaking multicultural 1001 new worshiping community in Atlanta, held a “Pray for Venezuela” day in June for those impacted by that country’s worsening economic and political crisis.
Just steps away from the Reformed University campus where he teaches, Presbyterian mission co-worker César Carhuachin comes face to face with some of Colombia’s most marginalized people.
He encounters Venezuelan refugees who seek to survive by selling candy on the streets. Earlier this year, the United Nations estimated that 3.4 million Venezuelans have fled their homeland, where political repression has created severe economic hardship and pervasive shortages of food and medicine.
Sherrill’s Ford Presbyterian Church has a tenacious grip on the good that a sure-footed creature can bring to impoverished communities overseas.
This 99-member congregation in rural North Carolina collected $12,104 for 68 pairs of goats this spring through the Presbyterian Giving Catalog. Every March the congregation observes “Goat Month” and highlights how goats improve people’s lives in the developing world.
As we look ahead to the final weeks of summer, we’re reminded that a seasonal shift is upon us. Our Sunday newspapers are littered with ads that boast the best “back-to-school” sales, as our grocery stores beckon us to stock up for “one last summer BBQ.” With cooler, less humid days on the horizon, we prepare to say goodbye to summer and to welcome autumn and all that it brings.
Why are 20 veterans a day taking their own lives? That’s the question the Rev. Tom Davis has been asking since August
2015, when a magazine cover on veteran’s suicides grabbed his attention. After all, he thought, aren’t these the same men and women who fought so hard to stay alive during active duty, as Davis did during his combat service in Vietnam?
For 40 years, the World Hunger Ecumenical Arizona Task Force (WHEAT) has been tackling hunger in the Grand Canyon State through education, advocacy and empowerment. But there is one thing people are consistently surprised that the organization does not do.
