When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, the Rev. Jan Dus was in Yemen, working at a hospital on a mission assignment for Doctors Without Borders. He knew immediately he needed to go home to the Czech Republic to try to mobilize help.
“Honestly, I had no idea,” Dus said in an interview recently. “I couldn’t imagine the war would last this long.”
When Jesus began reading from a scroll in the synagogue, Luke’s gospel records that his text came from the book of Isaiah. “He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives,” Jesus says, quoting Isaiah.
When Jesus began reading from a scroll in the synagogue, Luke’s gospel records that his text came from the book of Isaiah. “He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives,” Jesus says, quoting Isaiah.
Friday’s online appearance by Co-Moderator Elona Street-Stewart gave the Presbytery of East Iowa the chance to hear from one of the PC(USA)’s top leaders and to share some of the antiracism work going on in churches around the presbytery.
The storm took 14 million acres or 40% of Iowa farmland, plus numerous barns, silos, and other structures. In Cedar Rapids, more than 1,000 homes have been declared uninhabitable, and most buildings have sustained some damage. People displaced wait in tents for help, while across the state, power and other utilities are still out.
Mount Pleasant is a community of fewer than 9,000 people. It has an idyllic town square surrounded by restaurants and local businesses, just like one would expect when picturing small-town Iowa.
That image changed on May 9, 2018, when dozens of men were seized from Mount Pleasant’s Midwest Precast Concrete plant by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
The Rev. María Bock Barett has a concise answer when asked what she wants to share as one of the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program’s 14 International Peacemakers, coming to the United States in September and October.
On “Day One” of their “Hands & Feet” mission trip to St. Louis, 13 Presbyterians from southeastern Iowa spent the morning shoveling compost at an urban garden.
As wagons full of corn—not to mention truckloads of gravel and dirt—circle the United Church of Crawfordsville, Iowa, surely the harvest is nearing.
Or at least the church’s eagerly awaited harvest supper and auctioneer.
