Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) has been in constant communication with our Presbyterian Leadership in Puerto Rico since January 6th, 2020. Two PDA staff members were on the island when the most powerful earthquake from the earthquake swarm (6.4) struck on Tuesday January 7th. The situation in Puerto Rico, especially in the south of the island,… Read more »
By Susan Krehbiel, PDA Associate for Refugees and Asylum Late yesterday the US Federal District Court put a stop to the Trump Administration’s latest attempt to dismantle the US refugee program by issuing a temporary injunction against Executive Order 13888 (EO 13888). This injunction bars dissenting state and local governments from preventing resettlement in… Read more »
This blog post was written by Savannah Smith, Intern at RELUFA, PDA’s partner in Cameroon. She is also a Vassar College Graduate and Fulbright Scholarship Beneficiary. On Monday, November 11th, I had the chance to join RELUFA’s team with programming to provide temporary relief to Anglophone Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and host families in Yaoundé,… Read more »
Bill Branch, a retired pastor and Presbytery executive, is also a National Response Team member for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. In July, Bill and his accompaniment partner, Beth Newell, participated in Presbyterian Peace Fellowship’s border accompaniment program in Agua Prieta, Mexico. The following reflection is the second installment detailing their encounters and experiences at the U.S./Mexico… Read more »
Bill Branch, a retired pastor and Presbytery executive, is also a National Response Team member for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. In July, Bill and his accompaniment partner, Beth Newell, participated in Presbyterian Peace Fellowship’s border accompaniment program in Agua Prieta, Mexico. The following reflection is the first installment detailing their encounters and experiences at the U.S./Mexico… Read more »
Susan Krehbiel, PDA Associate for Refugees & Asylum, delivered the following sermon on Sunday, September 29, 2019 at First Presbyterian Church of Lansing, MI. The reflections about Elena and Reynaldo are from a trip she took to El Paso, TX and Ciudad Juarez with leadership from the Presbytery of Philadelphia immediately before she delivered this… Read more »
How do we—as a community, a church, and a nation—care for the vulnerable? This is a question we are compelled to examine, particularly when it comes to refugees and forced migrants. Whatever your opinion of U.S. immigration policies, people (such as those attempting to enter through our southern border) are living in precarious situations,… Read more »
RENACERES, Red Nacional de Emprendedores Retornados, is a network of Salvadorans who have been returned to El Salvador from the U.S. or Mexico. It is just one of the integral partnerships that the Reformed Calvinist Church of El Salvador (IRCES) has formed in launching a new ministry to returnees (a term they have chosen for… Read more »
We would like to thank John Tieken for sharing this reflection of the visit he and fellow Grace Presbytery members recently made to the border. Members of First Presbyterian Church of Henderson, TX—John, Michele Goff, Scott Hurst, Tom Laney, Claudia Morgan-Gray, and Kathy Porter—share their observations of what refugees and asylum seekers experience during their… Read more »
It is hard to imagine that globally 68 million people— 25 million refugees—have been forced from their homes. Faced with the largest humanitarian displacement in modern times, the U.S. Government has set the lowest resettlement target since the passage of the 1980 Refugee Act for fiscal year 2019. And yet, of this lowest goal of… Read more »