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Presbyterian Youth Triennium (PYT) director Gina Yeager-Buckley loves the juxtaposition of the recently unveiled “Here’s my Heart” 2019 PYT theme.
The battle had begun just over a month before, on Feb. 19, 1945. In the intervening 29 days, combat had raged 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In one particularly bloody battle, the Meat Grinder, 850 Marines had lost their lives. On March 21, the time had come to commemorate the more than 6,800 who had given their lives on the American side. Nearly 20,000 Japanese draftees had defended the rough rock island of Iwo Jima. Most of them had perished.
As congregations change and traditional church buildings age, the question of what to do about buildings and property becomes paramount. Older congregations wonder if they should continue allowing the building to provide a sanctuary for the members who had sustained it. And new church development leaders must decide whether to commit to bricks and mortar or continue renting space even though the weekly setup and cleanup can siphon off energy that could be used in other ways.
Done right, service to God is not an easy task. From the beginning, the people of God struggled with the issue of faithfulness; and those who were chosen to lead them, especially the prophets, were often confounded by the worldly challenges around them and the inner challenges of disobedience within the community of God’s people.
On a sunny July morning, I drove into the Waldheim Jewish Cemetery in Forest Park, a suburb west of Chicago, to attend the burial service for a former hospice patient. Waldheim was founded during the second wave of Jewish immigration to the city in the late 19th century, and it has been the final resting place for women like Sara, a Holocaust survivor from Russia who lived into her 90s.
In a culture where women often go unheard, the fisherfolk women of Sri Lanka made certain their voices were loud and clear.
Their story began in 2010 when the Sri Lankan government, as part of its plan to attract more tourism and conference business, decided to build a seaplane project in the Negombo Lagoon.
They began marching just after dawn from the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, 50 years to the day after the civil rights leader was assassinated.
Next to the entrance of Lucy Janijigian’s apartment is a drawing that her granddaughter made. It depicts Janjigian, her granddaughter and the words “My grandmother helps orphans in Armenia. She inspires me to hep other people.” Her granddaughter has pigtails. Janjigian has a superhero cape.
A joint commission of Turkey’s major Christian denominations has published a historic book of Christian doctrine, receiving the unprecedented endorsement of all the nation’s Orthodox, Catholic, Armenian, Syriac and Protestant churches.
The Rev. Leslie Vogel, a longtime mission co-worker, has answered the call to serve as Presbyterian World Mission’s new regional liaison for Guatemala and Mexico. She begins her new duties June 1.
