In the fall of 2015, mission co-worker Nadia Ayoub was attending a conference with colleagues in Budapest when the city’s Keleti train station became the epicenter of the refugee crisis overwhelming Europe. She could not forget the images of children sleeping on cardboard, families with not enough to eat and the pervasive fear of what would happen next.
Before coronavirus took over our thoughts in South Sudan, I joined a meeting of women to talk about community development. Women gathered in a circle after the church service, many of them holding young children on their laps. I started the discussion by reflecting on John 10:10, where Jesus expressed his intention to give us “life, and have it abundantly.”
A few months ago, during our Strong Kids/Strong Emotions program for refugee kids, Hadil (not her actual name) was sitting across from me, stringing beads to make a bracelet.
In Hong Kong, new cases of COVID-19 have dwindled to a handful in recent weeks. Concern has now shifted to China’s plan to impose a tough new national security law.
Louise Maxwell “Coffee” Worth, a retired Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission worker, alongside her late husband, George, in Korea for more than 20 years, died on March 25 in Lakeland, Florida after a short illness. She was 100 years old.
As one of the newest regional liaisons hired to serve East Central Africa, I have been traveling a lot, and sometimes it feels as though I am living in and out of airports more than in my home in Lusaka, Zambia. You know what, though? I can’t complain! As I travel within the countries that I serve — Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia — I have the opportunity to see God’s amazing work through the hands, voices, eyes and feet of our international Presbyterian partners. Partners who are trying to repair the brokenness among God’s children. Partners who, in their own ways, are attempting to serve and provide for “the least of these” — through means like building and maintaining community schools and theological institutions; building health facilities and clinics; and ministering in hospitals, clinics and prisons.
“They said their teacher has not come,” said Peter, the education facilitator for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) partner Across, translated from Anyuak to English.
A $9,000 grant from Presbyterian Women, a passion for prevention and plenty of shoe leather are helping raise awareness around preventing human trafficking in the African island nation of Madagascar.
The Reformed Calvinist Church of El Salvador (IRCES) is a unique church partner. Though small in number, it is big in vision and commitment to the gospel. Grounded in their Reformed identity, they are always making time to analyze and discern their call, based on the context in which they serve. From way south of the border, our partners are watching and anticipating the direct impact of U.S. immigration policy as
they turn to longtime U.S. mission partners and confidants to ask, “What are you going to do about this? How can we face this together?”
Just steps away from the Reformed University campus where he teaches, Presbyterian mission co-worker César Carhuachin comes face to face with some of Colombia’s most marginalized people.
He encounters Venezuelan refugees who seek to survive by selling candy on the streets. Earlier this year, the United Nations estimated that 3.4 million Venezuelans have fled their homeland, where political repression has created severe economic hardship and pervasive shortages of food and medicine.
