When individuals and small groups are ready once again to travel to places like Guatemala to learn about and walk alongside that nation’s welcoming people, CEDEPCA, the Protestant Center for Pastoral Studies in Central America, is ready to handle all the details and deepen visitors’ experience.
When migrants began arriving in large numbers, the Methodist Church Milan started discussions about how to create a culture of welcome. But members didn’t just talk. They are living fully within their own creation that has become a model for like-minded congregations around the world.
As the Rev. Shanea D. Leonard began to talk about radical welcome from Montreat Conference Center, they put on an apron and began to reflect on childhood holidays.
I am an immigrant and a former refugee. I came from Cuba to the United States via Spain in the late ’60s. I belong to that group of people from the “Global South’’ who began migrating to this country by the millions after the liberalization of immigration laws in 1965.
Of the 13,000 people who live in Clarkston, Georgia, as many as half are refugees, according to World Relief Atlanta. The majority of these refugees have fled war and persecution in their homelands in search of a better life.
The Presbyterian Intercultural Network, a grassroots network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), will host its 2016 Intercultural Regional Conference August 22–24 at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia.