Just after New Year’s Day, before COVID-19 turned life in the United States and around the world upside down, Destini Hodges and Lee Catoe of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) national office went to the annual college conference at in North Carolina.
Take a minute to look back on your life. Who all have you lived with? In the earliest parts of our lives, we might live with parents or grandparents or other caring adults. Perhaps siblings. Over the years, we might live with friends and extended family, family of choice or even sometimes with strangers. And sometimes we might find ourselves living alone.
While Luke Rembold isn’t grateful for the circumstances of the current COVID-19 crisis and the pain and fear it is causing, he is grateful for the way he sees his Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs) responding.
When it comes to keeping mission co-workers safe in the face of a global pandemic, there is no one-size-fits-all decision. Each situation is different, and each decision is individual.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has requested that all mission co-workers with the United States as home-base (United States citizens and U.S. permanent residents) return to the U.S. as recommended by the State Department. World Mission’s crisis management team is meeting seven days a week to coordinate individually with each mission co-worker in each country to determine the best course of action.
With support provided by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP)’s Synod of Zambia created a Health Department in 2016. During its first three years, the CCAP’s Health Department has focused on building and improving infrastructure, strengthening the health of women and girls and ensuring availability of preventative medicine and personnel.
Living in intentional Christian community looks different this year for Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs) in South Korea. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s two Korea YAVs — Susannah Stubbs and Amanda Kirkscey — are living in a school dormitory and a church guest house instead of the previous site model where they lived together, next door to the YAV site coordinator.
Around this time last year, we met with a representative from Faith in Community Scotland (FiCS), an organization giving refugees and asylum seekers a platform to speak about their challenges and the treatment they had received from the United Kingdom’s Home Office. As newcomers representing the Young Adult Volunteer program in Scotland, we were excited to learn more about migration in Glasgow and the United Kingdom. The representative began our meeting with this sobering truth: All of the invited migrants refused the invitation because of their vulnerable status. In the parishes where we were accompanying the Church of Scotland, we were privileged to work with organizations attempting to bridge race, class and citizenship status.
The Lux Summer Theological Institute for Youth at Monmouth College in Illinois is looking for 22 high school students who want to think deeply next summer about their theology around environmental justice.
