Bernadette thought that she had seen the worst of it.
For well over a decade, she and her family had unflinchingly withstood Syria’s ever-worsening humanitarian and economic crisis, the country’s ongoing localized hostilities and its collapsing infrastructure.
One of the perks of being a PDA volunteer is getting to wear the infamous blue T-shirt. All you must do to earn a shirt is participate in PDA disaster recovery efforts. Whether you’ve been on a PDA work trip or any mission trip at all, you know how God’s Spirit stirs something within you when you when you volunteer. There’s something humbling and sacred about approaching a service opportunity with open hands and a willing heart. For some, a blue T-shirt may not mean much. But, for many, donning a blue PDA T-shirt is a symbol of pride and reminder of community resilience.
The Rev. Edwin González-Castillo, director of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, spent most of his time on a recent Special Offerings podcast, “Between 2 Pulpits,” talking about pigs and partnerships in the Dominican Republic.
“Trouble the Water,” a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) docuseries that encourages constructive conversations about race and racism, has been selected for wider distribution and is being knitted together into a full-length feature film that will be available for home viewing early this year.
Several Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission co-workers and other employees are moderating workshops and leading discussion groups at the People on the Move partner conference which convened Sunday in Rome, Italy.
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance is helping the church to understand healthy volunteerism through training that it also calls “decolonizing volunteerism.”
The Rev. Edwin González-Castillo, director of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, spent most of his time on the recent Special Offerings podcast, “Between 2 Pulpits,” talking about pigs and partnerships in the Dominican Republic.
A solidarity visit to Hawaii by Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and other representatives of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) generated goodwill and helpful information for future humanitarian assistance. But most of all, it cultivated empathy and compassion for the people impacted by wildfires on Maui, where a historic blaze killed nearly 100 people and destroyed about 2,000 buildings in August.
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance is helping the church to understand healthy volunteerism through training that it also calls “decolonizing volunteerism.”
