The Fiangonan’i Jesoa Kristy eto Madagasikara (FJKM), PC(USA)’s partner denomination in Madagascar, believes strongly in spreading the gospel and helping people improve their lives. The FJKM also believes that Christians have a responsibility to help preserve Creation. Church leaders often quote Genesis 2:15, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (NIV). Helping people improve their lives while helping to preserve Madagascar’s unique biodiversity is especially challenging given the extent of hunger and poverty in Madagascar and the environmental degradation threatening many species with extinction. The climate crisis is intensifying these challenges.
When Pittsburgh Presbytery’s International Partnership Ministry Team began thinking about a way to create space for young Malawians and young Pittsburghers to meet together for mutual enrichment, encouragement and growth, the idea for a youth pilgrimage to Malawi was born.
Dave believed so strongly that in life and in death, we belong to God,” said Mary Katherine Robinson, pastor and head of staff at Black Mountain Presbyterian Church in Black Mountain, North Carolina, the home church of the Rev. David Vines Miller and his wife, Polly, since their retirement from mission service in 1994.
“As a missionary of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for 40 years in Africa, he spread that good news all over Congo, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and every corner of the world he touched!” Robinson said of Miller, who died at his home in North Carolina, surrounded by family members, on Dec. 23, 2019 at age 93. “Even though our hearts are broken over the loss of this vibrant and faithful servant of God, may we continue to be a people of hope as we witness to the resurrection.”
I sat next to Rachel Obal outside of her home in rural South Sudan, listening to the story of her uncle who, as a boy, was taken from his home by Arabs to be sold as a slave near Khartoum, Sudan. Obal’s words painted a vivid picture as she spoke of how her father followed his brother to rescue him and had to witness the small boy, with hands tied behind his back, paraded in front of crowds to be sold. I could see the boy with his hands tied, his knees pressed into the dusty market ground. I could even picture his thin, brown body, still bound at the wrists, placed on a boat. In my mind’s vision, no one else was on the boat; he was a child all alone, floating toward slavery. My heart ached as I listened.
Recent flooding in South Sudan and ongoing political unrest in Haiti have prompted the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to provide humanitarian aid to partner organizations in those countries to help individuals and families affected by the crises.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been committed to interconnectional ministry in God’s mission at the local, national and global levels since 1837. Since that time, more than 8,000 mission co-workers have shared the good news of Jesus Christ with millions of people worldwide.
Caroline Kurtz felt exiled to a foreign country — not when she traveled with her parents and sisters to Ethiopia, but when she returned to the United States to attend college in Illinois.
Cameroon has been in turmoil since 2016, as a result of the Anglophone crisis. This discord followed complaints by English-speaking Cameroonians of their marginalization within the Republic of Cameroon.
“Pray for a new Sudan to come” was the heartfelt plea given by Dr. Aida Weran to the members of the South Sudan/Sudan Mission Network that recently met at the New Wilmington Mission Conference at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pa. Weran is an instructor at Nile Theological College in Khartoum, Sudan, an institution that Weran described as being at the “crossroads of the violence.”
Just as one country became two with South Sudan’s independence in 2011, Nile Theological College, offering both Arabic and English curriculum tracks, also split into two campuses in two countries the same year.
