Twenty-seven years of Saturdays, approximately 1,400 consecutive weekends of serving the “best meal in town,” is a pretty good track record of commitment. That’s how long Third Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York, has been running its dining room ministry, a program that serves approximately 80 people each week. But that’s not enough for this 1,200-member congregation in north central New York. Their emergency food program has been similarly active for more than 20 years, and another hunger initiative, the East Avenue Grocery Run, a mere child at 9 years old, might be the most impactful program of all three.
Referenced in sermons from pulpits across the world, printed in fine script within Christmas cards mailed to friends and family, and exclaimed at key moments in holiday movies, the word “miracle” is heard frequently this time of year.
A Letter from Burkhard Paetzold, serving as regional liaison for Central and Eastern Europe and facilitator of work with the Roma people, based in Germany | October 14, 2018
Racially charged violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, sent shockwaves of fear and grief across the United States on an August weekend last year.
Like many other Americans, Presbyterian pastor Jon Brown was distraught to the point of numbness, but on the following Monday morning his hope was renewed.
She was taken to the clinic with a sore on her heel so deep that bone was exposed. The Achilles tendon had broken away a disintegrated portion of her heel bone. Brought to our makeshift surgical suite at the Manos Amigos clinic in La Entrada, Honduras, the patient was touched by people in our medical mission team who used their God-given gifts in the most compassionate, flexible and ingenious ways, despite lacking the technology they would have had in the United States. Used in the surgery were some samples of a new skin-growing material that just happened to have been donated to a podiatrist on our team.
