For the Rev. Shelvis Smith-Mather, the road to the majestic halls of Oxford University took a journey of nearly a decade and three continents. But it is, he says, a “crazy, wonderful, beautiful story.”
When Tony and Lilia Acabal were determining where to send their children to school, they both carried deep memories of the struggles they faced years ago as new immigrants.
Tony’s family had managed to escape violence-riddled Guatemala in 1987 when he was 15. A decades-long civil war, which claimed the lives of 200,000 people, posed danger at every turn.
From fighting against wage theft to pushing for more affordable housing, the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance has made its mark by challenging injustice in their southern California enclave since 1992.
A recent morning worship service at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville opened with a powerful beat of the djembe, a West African drum, played by the Rev. Dr. Alonzo Johnson, coordinator of the Self-Development of People ministry for the Presbyterian Mission Agency (PMA).
Living in intentional Christian community has been looking different for Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs) in South Korea. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s two Korea YAVs — Susannah Stubbs and Amanda Kirkscey — have lived 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.
As a young adult, I moved to New York City. I wanted to know what it was like to ride in a crowded subway right underneath another person’s armpit. I wanted to know what it was like to walk down a crowded Manhattan street and have to engage with some people who were well and some who were not so well, all co-existing together.
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) partners from the Assembly of Evangelical (Presbyterian) Churches in Iraq are sharing, in their own words, about the Matthew 25 ministries to which they have been called.
Three churches in the Presbytery of Philadelphia were at a crossroads — each considering their future for different reasons.
Some might see a crisis, but the Rev. Ruth Faith Santana-Grace, the presbytery’s executive presbyter, and the presbytery’s stated clerk, the Rev. Kevin Porter, saw an opportunity to help all three find new life.
Anyone with kids and a television set knows Fred Rogers. Three generations of children have grown up with “Mister Rogers” — the friendly sweater-and-sneakers-clad grownup who talks frankly about feelings and invites them to be part of his TV “neighborhood.” What is less widely known is that Fred Rogers is a Presbyterian minister, ordained in 1962 by Pittsburgh Presbytery.
In prison, the Rev. Lane Brubaker has never once felt scared or nervous. In fact, she’s experienced more joy and laughter there than she could have ever imagined.
On Dec. 12, 2018, she entered the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW). Located in Gig Harbor, it is the largest prison for women in the state — and the only one that houses maximum- and minimum-security inmates.
