If Black Friday and Cyber Monday’s commercialization of Christmas has left you discouraged, you may be able to recover your holiday joy by supporting Presbyterian ministries on #GivingTuesday.
In a besieged corner of Aleppo, Shahe, a victim of sudden blindness lost his only source of income as a dental technician. He and his wife, Talin, struggled to stay in their home when the monthly payments became impossible. While their oldest son was excelling in school, the younger boy’s autism required special care, and the wonderful Armenian institution on which they had relied closed, another casualty of war.
When a mobile medical clinic arrived in the tiny village, offering free health screenings to women, they found Karine Petrosyan. Day and night, pain gripped her abdomen. Massive fibroids were silently consuming her uterus. Karine needed emergency surgery. In this remote corner of Armenia, there was little to no access to basic health care until Jinishian began the reproductive health program in 2016. Without early screenings, breast cancer is deadly, making mortality in Armenia is among the highest in the world—a devastating toll that Jinishian is determined to reverse one village at a time.
In Lebanon these days, there is one Syrian for every four citizens, which doesn’t help the delicate economic and sectarian balance of the small country. Unless that one Syrian is Mardig, a young man quietly putting diapers on the elderly or nursing them after surgery. When Mardig first walked into the Jinishian office, he did not look the part. He was covered in tattoos and had no possessions at all, no home and nothing to eat.
The election earlier this month revealed deep divisions in our country and raised many important questions for Christian people of faith as we look to our future as the Church. For many faithful Presbyterians, one of the questions facing us this week has a particular urgency: How can we navigate the tensions surrounding the Thanksgiving dinner table with friends and family who voted differently from us?
The Governance Task Force of the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board (PMAB) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is seeking input from agency committee and ministry partners that receive representatives from the PMAB. Citing the current board size, budget limitations and time demands for board members, the Governance Task Force believes the existing deployment model is “not sustainable.”
The Presbyterian Mission Agency Board is pleased to announce that it has accepted an invitation from the Presbytery of San Juan to hold its March 2017 meeting in Puerto Rico.
Rhonda Kruse and William McConnell recently accepted positions as mission engagement advisors with the Presbyterian Mission Agency (PMA) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
