Before the sun set on Thanksgiving Day, stores across our country opened their doors to shoppers seeking an early start on Black Friday specials. This “busiest shopping day of the year” is etched deeply into our culture and our economy. In the past decade, another retail phenomenon has developed in the days following Thanksgiving. The technological revolution and savvy marketers have given us Cyber Monday, which is filled with promotions aimed at online shoppers.
The Rt. Rev. Fonki Samuel Forba, moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon (PCC), recently issued a statement urging peace and dialogue in response to ongoing persecution and marginalization of the country’s Anglophone population. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is an ecumenical partner of the PCC and has previously engaged in advocacy on the church’s behalf.
The Presbytery of Philadelphia, which is celebrating its 300th anniversary this year, recently welcomed 2,000 worshipers to a special Saturday service in North Philadelphia.
On the day PC(USA) member Francis Ntowe’s sister was buried, there were six other funerals in her small community in Cameroon.
“One of them was a pastor, and all of them had died from HIV/AIDS,” he said.
Building a church and its membership from the ground up is no small feat. Doing it in a country that persecutes members of your faith makes it doubly difficult. But the Rev. Manh Nguyen, pastor of Evangelical Community Church in Hanoi, Vietnam, continues to grow his church despite a government that frowns upon religion.
For more than 17 years, the Presbyterian Hunger Program (PHP), through its Joining Hands initiative, has been tackling the root causes of hunger and poverty. PHP staff recently gathered with representatives from several countries to look at the progress and where to go from here.
In the first episode of a new podcast called “The Word on the Street,” hosted by the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Charles Wiley and Alonzo Johnson, a Kentucky Hall of Fame broadcaster recalled being in a person’s home during a time of tragedy and being asked to pray for them.
Applications are now being accepted for the 2018–2019 Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) class. This is the 25th anniversary of a program that is helping to shape the next generation of globally aware, faithful and passionate leaders.
Folks living at Westminster Oaks Retirement Community in Tallahassee, Florida, have lived through some of the chapters of history that students study in class today. Chaplain Taylor Phillips reaches out to area high school and college classes, inviting teachers and students to come to the Westminster Oaks campus to hear the residents share their eyewitness accounts of historical moments.
Lucketts, Virginia, is not a place that has diners or coffee shops. The one restaurant in this small town in the food and wine country of rural Southwest Virginia is closed on Mondays.