After spending 60 years as a man, Paul Williams came out to his family as transgender, becoming Paula.
The married father of three was a prominent evangelical pastor before transitioning and recognized that transitioning would not be an easy process, personally or professionally. Nonetheless, “I’d been called [to transition], and you reject a call at your own peril,” Paula said.
It’s a line that appears twice in the documentary, “Flint: The Poisoning of an American City.”
“What happened here is now happening in other places. It could happen in any city in the United States. It did happen in the city of Flint, Michigan.”
As Sharon Gibbons learns more about the challenges women face around the world, it swells her support for women abroad and motivates her to work harder for gender justice closer to home.
Presbyterians who want to help Haitians dealing with the almost simultaneous effects of natural disaster, government corruption, fuel shortages and crop challenges have at least two choices, according to Fabienne Jean, coordinator of FONDAMA, or Hands Together Foundation of Haiti, a network if 11 farmer organizations across the Caribbean nation currently choked with deadly protests that have paralyzed the economy and closed businesses and schools.
Lucia Santos, a young Filipino marriage migrant, lost her Korean husband in their fifth year of marriage. Their two little children awoke one morning without their father at their side. She discovered that her husband had died by suicide.
Mary Jane Veloso has 26 days to provide testimony against her traffickers who are currently on trial in the Philippines. She is the last witness for the prosecution. If she successfully testifies, she may be released from prison in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. If she doesn’t, she will remain on death row, awaiting execution for a crime she did not commit.
The Presbyterian Mission Agency board meeting started Friday morning with a short worship service that took participants back to 1619. But for her talk, “A Conversation on Racism and Matthew 25,” the Rev. Denise Anderson brought up some slightly more recent history — 2016.
According to the U.S. Department of State, the Trump administration plans to set the fiscal year 2020 refugee admissions goal at 18,000, a record low that effectively dismantles the U.S. resettlement program established nearly 40 years ago. Today’s presidential executive order also permits state and local officials to block refugee resettlement in their communities.
This prayer is dedicated to celebrating to the gifts of new immigrants as part of the Special Days and Emphases of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Gifts of New Immigrants is celebrated the last Sunday of September. This year, the celebration occurs on Sept. 29.
