Sowing the seeds of peace

Peace & Global Witness Offering supports the PC(USA)’s reconciliation efforts across the US and around the world

by Emily Enders Odom | Presbyterian News Service

“Fresh Start: Loads of Love” is a laundry outreach program of Presbyterian Church of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. (Contributed photo)

LOUISVILLE — The local laundromat in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, was Linda’s chapel.

It was where she first shared a prayer concern that had been weighing heavily on her mind — and on her family’s heart — to say nothing of their budget.

At the time, Linda was dealing with stage 4 cancer.

“Since I got sick, my washer and dryer can’t handle the volume of blankets and bedding,” she confessed to the pastor and volunteers from the Presbyterian Church of Waynesboro. “And the expense of doing my laundry would have been difficult to handle without your help.”

The help that had become a lifeline for Linda and other families — for whom the escalating cost of health care was threatening to drive them even deeper into poverty — was the church’s “Fresh Start: Loads of Love” laundry outreach program.

“Every two months we provide quarters, snacks and connection,” said the church’s pastor, the Rev. Caroline Vickery, who worked as a community organizer before graduating from McCormick Theological Seminary. “We bring children’s bulletins, paper and markers, information about our church and other spiritual materials. We go on the last Monday of the month since people on public assistance are running low on money at the end of the month.”

The ministry began when the church’s Outreach Committee started looking for a community program that could be handled by a small congregation. When committee member and deacon Sarah Stains discovered a laundry ministry on Instagram, the church agreed to give it a try.

Vickery shares, “I happened to be living in an apartment with no laundry facilities at the time, and I started to use the nearby laundromat and had to relearn how expensive clean laundry could be. What I like about this ministry is that it’s something that’s doable for a church of our size.”

But the program goes well beyond clean clothing.

“The other main thing is that it personalizes poverty,” said Vickery. “It puts a face on it.”

Not long after launching the “Fresh Start” initiative, the congregation received validation in the form of a grant from the Presbytery of Carlisle’s portion of the Peace & Global Witness Offering, which empowers congregations and individuals to become peacemakers in their communities and in the world.

Traditionally received on World Communion Sunday, which this year falls on Oct. 6, the Offering is unique in that half of it is directed to peacemaking and global witness efforts at the national church level to address critical issues around the world. Twenty-five percent is retained by congregations for local peace and reconciliation work, and 25% goes to mid councils for similar ministries on the regional level.

“The Waynesboro church’s laundry outreach program exemplifies the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s longstanding commitment to peacemaking,” said the Rev. Wilson Kennedy, the PC(USA)’s associate director for Special Offerings and Appeals. “Even the simplest tasks, like washing clothes, help sow seeds of peace like Jesus commands us.”

Vickery said that ever since the Fresh Start volunteers met Linda and [her daughter] L., the extended family has come to many of the church’s outreach programs.

Vickery recalls, “Linda, L., her sister and their two children attended, making wreaths out of dried flowers, while the children made sticker nativity posters. We have several lovely photos of the multi-generation family, which are treasured, as Linda died in February. We give thanks to God for her life.”

As the church continues to grow in its understanding of what it looks like to live out the call to peacemaking, Vickery knows one thing for certain.

“We know that Jesus makes it clear that how we treat the vulnerable is how we treat Jesus,” she said.

And, because of the presbytery’s gift to the church from the Peace & Global Witness Offering, the congregation was also given its own “Fresh Start” in that the grant helped the congregation see the ministry in a new light — as something valuable.

“There are many other small churches who want to improve the lives of people in their communities so that the love of God can be made visible through their ministries,” said Vickery. “By giving to the Peace & Global Witness Offering, people can help other small churches make God’s love real — in their town and around the world.”

Seeking reconciliation on the road

While traveling across the American Southwest last spring, Kathy Mitchell was caught by surprise.

Not as much by the many vistas that were new to her as by the stories of her fellow travelers.

“Everybody has a story,” said Mitchell, a ruling elder at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Chinle, Arizona, in the heart of the Navajo Nation. “Everybody deserves to be heard because their stories are beautiful. People’s stories of resilience, love, hope and triumph are important.”

The 2023 travel study seminar, “Native Lands of the Southwest: The Doctrine of Discovery and its Legacy Today,” was a collaborative effort among the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, the Presbytery of Santa Fe and the Synod of the Southwest. (Contributed photo)

Mitchell’s deeply held desire to share peace and seek reconciliation — both “with those parts of yourself and who you are called to be” as well as through others along life’s journey — unfolded over nine days on the road from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Phoenix during the last of three travel study seminars hosted in 2023 by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program.

Titled “Native Lands of the Southwest: The Doctrine of Discovery and its Legacy Today,” the Peacemaking Domestic Travel Study Seminar was a collaborative effort with the Presbytery of Santa Fe and the Synod of the Southwest, of which Mitchell is a former moderator.

Mitchell’s call to peacemaking and reconciliation — including addressing and seeking to heal the trauma inflicted by the Doctrine of Discovery — is made possible, in part, by gifts to the Peace & Global Witness Offering.

One congregation that is deeply committed to the healing and repair of Indigenous nations and communities — thanks to two of its members who participated in the seminar — is Second Presbyterian Church of Richmond, Virginia.

Not long after Lucretia McCulley and her husband, Dan Ream, returned home, they gave a presentation to the congregation about their life-changing experiences with the travel study seminar. They followed up by submitting a proposal to the church’s Mission and Advocacy Council, which was later approved by the session, resulting in a $10,000 gift to the PC(USA) to help with repairs and necessary improvements at Native American churches and chapels.

Another key learning for McCulley and Ream on this trip was seeing how “the experiences of the Pueblos differed from the Navajo nation and those from Gila River Indian Community.” They said their face-to-face meetings on the trip would help them “to always think of Indigenous people as individuals” moving forward.

“Sometimes the misconception is that all Native Americans are the same, but we’re all so vastly different,” Mitchell observed.

Yet the interpersonal interactions weren’t always easy.

“We had moments where it was hard to tell the truth, but telling the truth in love is also very important,” she added. “It really transformed me. Since truth and reconciliation is what Jesus came for, it’s important for us to be in that heart of learning and in that heart of healing and reconciliation.”

McCulley and Ream said that’s exactly why Second Presbyterian supports the Peace & Global Witness Offering every year.

“We are committed to sharing our gifts that will help address systems of conflict and injustice in the world,” they said. “We also need to live out the denomination’s commitment to peace and justice. Small and large contributions to the Offering work together to make significant changes for peace in the places that we care about.”

Ministering to migrants on the brink of despair

The plight of the thousands of migrants in her native El Salvador keeps Carmen Elena Díaz awake at night.

“Knowing their experiences, their stories, and in ministering to the migrant people, my life has been transformed,” said Díaz, a former PC(USA) International Peacemaker. “Their stories mark you, transform you, sensitize you. They make you realize what a hard and difficult subject this is.”

And migration is a subject that Díaz knows all too well.

In this photo, Carmen Elena Díaz, an international peacemaker, is the fourth person from the left. (Contributed photo)

As an executive committee member and coordinator of the Educational Ministry for the Calvinist Reformed Church of El Salvador (IRCES), Díaz helps to coordinate her denomination’s migrant ministry with scores of deported and displaced people.

Addressing the terror and pain of migrants in a country characterized by high rates of violence, political volatility, high unemployment and escalating poverty entails looking not only at immediate solutions but also at other root causes of migration that have led so many to flee their homeland.

Joseph Russ, who works in partnership with Díaz and her IRCES colleagues, serves as Presbyterian World Mission’s coordinator for migration issues, advocacy and mission in the Northern Triangle of Central America (El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala). Appointed in 2022, Russ has dedicated himself to building bridges between different organizations and strengthening advocacy efforts in the region.

“Together, diverse organizations work to build a society that better respects human rights,” said Russ. “They work for a future where people can stay in their countries of origin, where those that do migrate can have their rights respected, and those who are returned can reintegrate themselves into their countries of return.”

Speaking to the important role that the church plays in the region, Russ said that IRCES has woven a culture of peace into informal education opportunities as well through youth programs, psychosocial support groups and community building.

Such efforts — including the March 2024 launch of the Mesoamerica Mission and Migration Network (La Red de Misión y Migración en Mesoamérica) in El Salvador — are made possible, in part, by gifts to the Peace & Global Witness Offering.

“This new network brings together organizations from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, México and the United States to advocate for more just policies around migration, to educate people about migration and how to work for change, and supports the development of local community projects,” said Russ. “It brings together efforts to address the roots of violence and sow the seeds for peace through social transformation in people’s hearts and minds, in public policy and in local communities.”

Also attending the network launch was Ruling Elder Anton Ahrens of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Topeka, Kansas, in the Presbytery of Northern Kansas.

“The conference was astounding in helping me to understand the context of migration and to hear stories of migration,” Ahrens said. “They washed my eyes to see things in a different way than I had before. To hear [a woman named] Margarita tell her story of having to decide — after her husband was gone — to migrate or not; whether she would travel with her two daughters; I cannot imagine being in that situation. And when I went to her and talked with her about that, my eyes were washed a little bit of my preconceived notions and my perceived understanding. The week was filled with experiences like that.”

As one of the conference’s more than 50 attendees, Díaz felt both strength and hope in such numbers.

“That is why the formation of this network is important,” she said, “to be able to articulate ourselves, and thus have more impact. The impact is less when you are working alone.”

Providing critical support for such collaborative projects of education and Christian witness as the migration network is a hallmark of the Peace & Global Witness Offering.

“Supporting the participation of the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program and connecting more than 20% of the participants in the launch of the new Mesoamerica Mission and Migration Network through the International Peacemakers Program are a testament to the invaluable work of bringing people together to learn and take action,” said Russ.

Of the PC(USA)’s four Special Offerings, Ahrens said that Peace & Global Witness is the Offering with which he feels “most connected.”

“Every Offering is great and is needed, but I don’t think other Offerings give to people in the pews what the Peace & Global Witness Offering gives,” he said. “It’s empowerment for every level: local, presbytery and national.”

Give to the Peace & Global Witness Offering to continue these valuable ministries.