In Lebanon, a country “bursting at the seams” with refugee families, Scott Parker helps migrant children from Iraq and Syria unpack the trauma they have experienced.
Parker, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ecumenical associate, delights in seeing children start coming to terms with their painful pasts, but he acknowledged that deep feelings they express can be unsettling to hear. One day while playing a game with puppets, Parker asked the children to pretend they were on a bus and something bad happened. An 8-year-old boy blurted out, “Oh, a terrorist just exploded a bomb on the bus!”
Mark Eakin and Dennis Hartwig met at the Presbyterians for Earth Care National Conference while getting a fill-up … on the grounds of the conference venue, Stony Point Center.
As the Mission Responsibility Through Investment Committee (MRTI) gathered here for its first meeting since General Assembly in June, MRTI Vice Chair Kerri Allen opened with a womanist theological reflection on 2 Samuel, exploring the story from the perspective of Rizpah, a concubine of the late Saul.
In response to the news of broad devastation by Tropical Storm Florence in North Carolina and South Carolina, Super Typhon Mangkhut in the Philippines and China along with the continuing recovery in Puerto Rico and other areas by past hurricanes, the annual meeting of Presbyterians for Earth Care (PEC)’s Steering Committee took on a renewed sense of urgency.
General secretaries and other high-ranking national church leaders from nine Asian countries gathered here September 4-7 to pave the way for a coherent and well-coordinated Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace (PJP) Asia Focus-2019.
For Emily Donovan, youth director at Little Chapel on the Boardwalk in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina and co-founder of Clean Cape Fear, the fight to protect and nurture children goes far beyond the walls of the church.
In 2015, Pope Francis proclaimed Sept. 1 as the “World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation,” joining Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios I of Constantinople, who earlier extended an invitation for Christians to offer together “every year on this date prayers and supplications to the Maker of all, both as thanksgiving for the great gift of creation and as petitions for its protection and salvation.”
The 223rd General Assembly is just days away from officially opening in St. Louis. Thousands of Presbyterians will spend eight days in meetings, worship, tours and advocacy. The Office of the General Assembly (OGA), along with other agencies and vendors, will be working to reduce the carbon footprint during that time.
Investments can do well – the Presbyterian Foundation believes – and do good at the same time. Through practices of impact investing, corporate engagement, and use of positive and negative screens, the Foundation seeks to manage all aspects of the funds entrusted to them in accordance with God’s call for faithful stewardship.
