When mission co-workers speak at churches around the country, they seek to educate. But sometimes they motivate, and that’s what happened to Nina Geist, a fourth-grader at Rogers Park Elementary, who attends First Presbyterian Church in Anchorage, Alaska.
Young Presbyterians who enjoy camping and love spending time with friends in their church youth group have an opportunity during 2019 to do both — and help people who are living in poverty while they’re at it.
Compassion fatigue — that malady that many pastors, first responders and others in helping professions suffer that can leave them feeling isolated, tired, trapped or worse — can be overcome, and there’s help for those who, as the Rev. Dr. Dana Sutton put it, “are healing the world and need to heal themselves.”
I told that to myself many times as I took three arduous 2 ½-hour tests, as well as a black belt practice test, all leading up to a final exam. This was over and above four years of rigorous classes, color belt tests and a binder full of requirements toward the rank of “1st dan,” the first-degree black belt in tae kwon do, a Korean martial art that emphasizes kicking techniques.
If Luis Ramos Salgado had tried to ride the storm out in his home, he wouldn’t be able to walk down his street today.
“I’d be dead,” he says through a translator, standing in the kitchen of the only home he’s ever known in San Juan’s Caño Martín Peña area.
Saying “Christ is a God of peace,” the general secretary of the National Council of Churches in Korea says he finds reasons for hope in the most recent inter-Korean summit.
“The dishwashing detergent is lost.” In Cuba, one would say, “El detergente de lavar platos está perdido.” That means that you will not find dishwashing detergent in the store these days. As we enter our fourth year as mission co-workers in Cuba, we realize how easy it is sometimes to forget that we are strangers living in a foreign land. We still remember many embarrassing instances when we called household items a different name from what residents called them. Yes, we have spoken Spanish since childhood, and day-to-day conversations are easy. But regional nuances in the way people in Cuba talk to each other provide learning experiences for people like us.
Back in 2013, I joined a German colleague who was working in Ghana on a visit to a rural health clinic run by the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. The clinic was in the community of Kwahu Praso, about three hours northwest of Accra, the capital of Ghana, and for several years, it had been receiving financial support from German Protestant congregations.
Pastor Juan Rodas, moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Honduras, loves to tell the story of how two remote churches, El Horno and El Sute, joined the denomination. The communities of these churches are at the top of a mountain in the department of Comayagua, Honduras. They are so remote, so small and so economically poor that the utilities that built electric transmission lines overhead, crossing the mountaintop, didn’t bother to connect the communities to the lines. Most people in the communities are of indigenous Lenca descent and are farmers, of coffee, mostly, and of corn, beans and other staples. There are roads, but not good ones, so most people walk, or if they’re well-off, ride mules or horses. It’s a five-hour walk to the nearest paved road.
Jesus’ concern and respect for women is evident in Scripture — and quite astonishing for the day. He healed a very ill woman on the Sabbath (Luke 13:10–17); stood by a woman accused of adultery (John 8:1–11); raised from the dead the only son of a grieving mother and widow (Luke 7:11–15); publicly recognized the extravagant gifts of the poor widow (Mark 12:41–44) and the “sinful woman” (Luke 7:36–50); gave permission to set aside domestic chores for more important matters (Luke 10:38–42); shared the message of living water with a Samaritan woman at a well (John 4:7–30); and even appeared first to women after his resurrection (Matthew 28:1–10). Despite his radical care and consideration for women in his day, in our day many girls and women struggle to find a way to thrive in a world that often disregards (sometimes violently) their right to live into God’s intended abundance.
