If tears are a gift of the Spirit, then the Rev. Dr. Judi McMillan has been blessed.
Even if some of those tears have been other than joyful.
What began for the PC(USA) pastor 20 years ago with tears of happiness when she relocated from Nebraska to Michigan to accept a call as an associate minister at a large, non-Presbyterian church in a suburban university setting didn’t end as auspiciously as it had started.
A single phone call nearly 20 years ago turned Jenni Whitford’s whole world upside down.
Whitford and her young family had just returned from vacation when her husband’s workplace called.
As a rush of fresh-faced students filed into the Presbyterian Pan American School’s Harte Student Center, Dr. Joey King beamed with pride.
And rightfully so.
The new president of the small, PC(USA)-related college-preparatory school located in the Texas Coastal Bend some 90 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, has exciting plans to flourish PPAS’s most valuable resource, its students.
The local laundromat in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, was Linda’s chapel.
It was where she first shared a prayer concern that had been weighing heavily on her mind — and on her family’s heart — to say nothing of their budget.
At the time, Linda was dealing with stage 4 cancer.
“Since I got sick, my washer and dryer can’t handle the volume of blankets and bedding,” she confessed to the pastor and volunteers from the Presbyterian Church of Waynesboro. “And the expense of doing my laundry would have been difficult to handle without your help.”
The help that had become a lifeline for Linda and other families — for whom the escalating cost of health care was threatening to drive them even deeper into poverty — was the church’s “Fresh Start: Loads of Love” laundry outreach program.
While traveling across the American Southwest last spring, Kathy Mitchell was caught by surprise.
Not as much by the many vistas that were new to her — although they were, of course, breathtaking — as by the stories of her fellow travelers.
The plight of the thousands of migrants in her native El Salvador keeps Carmen Elena Díaz awake at night.
“Knowing their experiences, their stories, and in ministering to the migrant people, my life has been transformed,” said Díaz. “Their stories mark you, transform you, sensitize you. They make you realize what a hard and difficult subject this is.”
Menaul School, in cooperation with two global non-profit agencies, Spiritual Orphans Network (SON) and This Child Here, announced last month that the school has received six Ukrainian students as part of ongoing war relief efforts.
The local laundromat was Linda’s chapel.
It was where she first shared a prayer concern that had been weighing heavily on her mind — and on her family’s heart — to say nothing of their budget.
At the time, Linda was dealing with stage 4 cancer.
