Around the world, the stories of students are as diverse as the cultures and lands from which they come. Individuals furthering their education may do so out of a sense of hope for the future, that they might improve their lives and be exposed to ideas that challenge and change them. This period of transformation and growth comes at a time when many students are physically separated from their support networks and communities of faith.
LOUISVILLE – If you’ve ever been to Montreat, North Carolina, it’s easy to get caught up in the beauty of the mountains, trees, and streams. The small community has drawn many visitors for spiritual re-awakening, prayer, and a place to call home.
Presbyterians believe that baptism envelops our lives as Christians. As part of the covenant community, we baptize children as they grow into their faith. Believers are baptized as they make a decision to enter the covenant community and to follow Christ. When Christians die, we say that they have completed their baptism in death.
At the end of the Gospel of John, Jesus tells Peter, “I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” According to the Gospel writer, Jesus said this to indicate by what kind of death Peter would glorify God.
Situated on the north end of downtown Atlanta, North Avenue Presbyterian Church began its life over 100 years ago as a suburban church. But the city grew, the neighborhood changed and the people who originally lived around North Avenue migrated farther out.
ZAMBIA – It was dark, really dark. And it is not always the wisest choice to drive through the rough bush roads when the sky is black and evening has turned to night. But the radiator was leaking and the starter motor was broken. So every 40 minutes we had to stop and find water at the nearest borehole and ask some people from the villages to help push the truck. We were hours from our destination and not sure where to stop. I stood by the side of a quiet street where the truck was stopped yet again, wondering if I could sleep in the bed of the truck, wondering where my colleagues would rest if we did not make it to a guesthouse of some sort.
If you talk with people living along the coastline of North and South Carolina, they will be quick
to tell you they’ve had enough rain to last a lifetime. Hurricane Matthew and 2015’s “one-thousand- year rainfall” have caused some significant problems for many, especially in the Charleston area.
EL PASO. As we move through traffic, I think how much we must seem like ants scrambling to find space as they rush through each other. I am back in City, and each time I come here I am struck by how dense and congested this city is. Just when I think not another person could fit in, more houses are built on precarious mountainsides or on the margins now gobbled up by urban sprawl. It sends me back to another image: Fathers sharing their first warm meal with their children in weeks.
Several years ago I had an opportunity to visit Westminster by-the-Sea Presbyterian Church in Daytona Beach Shores, Florida, for a Sunday worship service. I had always enjoyed my visits to this church, knowing that I would hear outstanding music and an excellent sermon by their senior pastor, the Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Sumner. But I also heard another important message that day. Dr. Sumner spoke of the need for parishioners to attend to their physical health as well as their spiritual well-being. And on this particular Sunday, there would be an opportunity to do this by taking advantage of a free screening for skin cancer that a local dermatologist would be providing immediately after the worship service.
LOUISVILLE – In a newly published video message, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Stated Clerk J. Herbert Nelson II says the mission of PC(USA)-related racial ethnic schools and colleges “are more critical now than they’ve ever been.”
