For most of last year, I had a lot of health challenges. Surgery, complications from surgery, adverse reactions to medications, and more emergency room visits than I can remember had been an unfortunate fact of life for us as a family. When we’d go to the emergency room, I was always prepared for, yet staggered by, a question the triage nurses are required to ask of everyone: “Are you safe at home?”
A new HIV/AIDS awareness mission toolkit is available just in time for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s World AIDS Sunday, June 24, and National HIV Testing Day, June 27.
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.
