Lydia Cordero Cabrera has a difficult job. As general director for a crisis center in Mexico, she works daily with women who are facing life-and-death situations in their homes. The center, Casa Amiga Centro de Crisis, is in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, across the border from El Paso, Texas.
Like thousands of Presbyterian congregations across the country, the church I serve in Albuquerque, La Mesa Presbyterian Church, knows the reality of food insecurity in the community surrounding the church and among our members. Recent studies indicate that 70,000 New Mexicans seek food every week and some 27 percent of children in the state suffer as a result of food insecurity. Our neighborhood is a lower-income area, so every child at the adjacent elementary school qualifies for a free breakfast and lunch daily, from the federally funded National School Lunch Program.
Presbyterians are celebrating another significant victory for migrant workers’ justice, as the ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s has agreed to sign on to the Milk with Dignity Program , a campaign to improve conditions for migrant workers in the dairy industry.
Michael Pate, who is homeless, recently experienced what he couldn’t imagine.
“I never thought anyone could fall in love with me,” he said. “But I feel full of something right now. That’s the closest I can come to labeling it.”
Throughout 2017, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Reformed churches worldwide have been commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, celebrating the day in late October 1517 when Martin Luther unknowingly spurred a radical movement by posting his 95 theses at the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany.
Freedom Rising, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) initiative “to address and improve the worsening plight of the African-American male,” has received gifts totaling $78,461 from a Pittsburgh-based charitable foundation, two mid councils and an offering collected at a Presbyterian collegiate conference.
Two strong voices in environmental justice and peacemaking have decided to come together in an effort to strengthen their work. Presbyterian Peace Fellowship (PPF) and Fossil Free PC(USA) have announced a formal partnership in which FFPCUSA will operate as a project within PPF. Leaders of both organizations say the move is in recognition of the “crucial link between environmental justice and peacemaking.”
In her lifetime, Dr. Su Yon Pak has occupied many chairs.
A native of South Korea — and a cradle Presbyterian — Pak immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 10. After graduating with a degree in organic chemistry, she earned her master’s degree in Christian education at Princeton Theological Seminary. Pak has since lived in Scotland, where she worked at Shakti Women’s Aid in Edinburgh, a women’s shelter and center for women of color.
As our society continues to age, we hear more and more about the challenges of dementia. There are now about 5 million people living with Alzheimer’s disease in the United States, and that number will grow. Alzheimer’s is one of the most feared medical conditions, and there is still no cure. What starts as forgetfulness becomes increasing disability, disconnection, dependence and death.
It was partly cloudy and windy as Be’sha Blondin, with the Yellowknife Tribe, led a “Fire and Water” ceremony along the river banks at Celilo Park in northern Oregon. Joined by attendees of the Presbyterians for Earth Care (PEC) Conference, Blondin sang to the east, west, north and south and along with the rest of the group, poured water and placed a piece of tobacco into the river. It was part of a two-day program that allowed attendees to hear and learn about traditions dating back thousands of years.
