The plantation people of Sri Lanka harvest some of the world’s finest tea, yet they don’t get to enjoy it themselves. Instead, they are only allowed to take the bitter dust of the leaves. It’s a metaphor for their lives.
Dr. Fredrick O. Shoo is presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT). He is also author of a “Welcome” in the Handbook for the upcoming World Council of Churches Conference on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME). A 12-member delegation from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will attend the conference to learn from and share experiences of global mission.
In an age of tightened budgets and limited financial resources, congregations are understandably counting the cost to engage in mission. Supporting the work of African partner churches in areas like evangelism, poverty reduction and reconciliation does, after all, take money.
A group representing several ministries of the Presbyterian Mission Agency (PMA) visited Sri Lanka in January in fulfillment of an overture aimed at eradicating slavery from supply chains. Program representatives included personnel from Presbyterian World Mission, the Presbyterian Hunger Program and Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI).
Videos, recently broadcast on CNN, show the brutal torture of migrants from Sub-Saharan African nations. Men are whipped and burned, begging their families for ransom. With increasing political instability in Libya, forced labor and human trafficking are growing.
Critical peace talks began in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on February 6 aimed at ending the ongoing civil war in South Sudan. PCUSA partner, the Rt. Rev. Peter Gai and his ecumenical colleagues, Archbishop John Baptist Odama and Archbishop Paulino Lukudu Loro opened the talks with prayer.
As a mission co-worker and cultural worker in the Philippines, sometimes I am utterly exhausted. There are periods that require quite a bit of travel related to meetings and theater-based trainings for children, youth, church workers, teachers, women and others. When I am in Dumaguete, days sometimes stretch into late evenings for rehearsals with our youth theater group or with Silliman University Divinity School students preparing for the annual church workers convocation. So a few years ago, when asked by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) program if my husband, Cobbie, and I would consider reopening the Philippines YAV service site, we pondered, could we? Should we? Could we say no?
The Rev. Robert I. “Bob” Rasmussen, a mission co-worker in Malawi from January 1986 until his retirement in August 1992, passed away at his home in Michigan on Thursday, Jan. 25, at age 90. After he retired, Rasmussen and his wife Edith returned to Malawi many times, sometimes for months at a time, to train pastors and to preach and teach.
Presbyterians do mission in partnership. For the Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) program, now celebrating its 25th recruitment season, partners are at the heart of the program’s success.
It has been 10 years since I stepped off an Ethiopian Airlines flight and placed my feet on Kenyan soil. However, the impact of my Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) experience has left me feeling, at times, as if it were yesterday. I don’t remember how I came to know about the YAV program. I vaguely remember filling out an application. What I do remember is my interview with Phyllis Byrd and my excitement about the possibility of serving for a year on the continent of Africa. I vividly remember her stern and stoic demeanor and my desire to convey how much I needed this experience.
