minute for mission

Minute for Mission: Africa Day

Africa Day, commemorated on May 25, celebrates the vibrancy and diversity of Africa’s societies and cultures, marks the progress achieved toward liberation of the continent’s peoples, lifts up a vision of pan-African unity and cooperation, and invites reflection on the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.

Minute for Mission: May 15 Palestinian Nakba Remembrance Day

Mahmoud Darkish once said, “Whenever they find the reality that doesn’t suit them, they alter it with a bulldozer.” It is the reality of the Palestinians facing the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948. You know, the Nabka didn’t happen only in 1948; it has been happening since 1948, as the leveling of villages is still occurring. House demolitions are on the rise, confiscation of lands is still ongoing, children, young adults, and others continue to be imprisoned, ethnic cleansing still occurs and unemployment is skyrocketing. It was a shocking war of 1948, a war which led to “independence for Israel” but a Nakba for the Palestinian Arabs in which 750,000 at least were forced to leave their country, and where 600 villages were destroyed.

Minute for Mission: Fair Trade Day

Jesus fed the hungry and told his disciples to do the same. Yet, we know that hunger is an extremely complex phenomenon with economic, political and social causes. The Presbyterian Hunger Program does root cause work that addresses the underlying questions of why people are hungry in order to reduce ongoing hunger. That work includes accompanying Presbyterians in questioning our economic lives as we move beyond what our dollars do in the offering plate, to considering what our dollars do in the marketplace.

Minute for Mission: National Day of Awareness & Action for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit People

Indigenous communities have been struck by the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit people (MMIW) for decades. This epidemic is a systemic failure where Indigenous women are going missing and being murdered at alarmingly high rates with minimal justice. Within the past several years, the MMIW movement has brought awareness of this violence to the public’s attention. Still, there is much work to be done.

Minute for Mission: Mental Health Awareness Month May 2023

May is Mental Health Mental Awareness Month. This week provides a time for mental health advocates across the country to come together as one unified voice to decrease the stigma surrounding mental health and illness, to increase visibility of treatment options and to support those who deal with mental health concerns.

Minute for Mission: Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day

The men were taken first, and then the women and children were brutalized. Witnesses saw the Euphrates run with blood, and women plunged into the river to escape the terrors of the desert march.

Minute for Mission: Earth Day

In the first quarter of this year, we have experienced some severe weather occurrences in most parts of our country — fire, flooding, drought, wind and snow. Globally, the same is true. It is no longer far from most of our minds how we are connected to, and dependent on, the earth.

Minute for Mission: Holocaust Remembrance Day

On this day, communities around the world observe Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. Together we stand in solidarity with the Jewish people and pay tribute to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust. An estimated 6 million European Jews and at least 5 million prisoners of war, Romany, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals and other victims were murdered by the Nazis in one of the most horrendous campaigns in human history. On this day, as we pay tribute to the victims of the Holocaust, we also come together knowing that this act of remembrance is a commitment to a shared responsibility for humankind to ensure such crimes never happen again.