A downtown Los Angeles interfaith center that once served as a synagogue was the site of a historic worship service last week, as dozens of women gathered for Friday Muslim prayers in what is being dubbed the first women’s-only mosque in the United States.

A binational delegation of Presbyterians has spent the last week traveling in Colombia to carry out an evaluation of the Accompaniment Program for Peace that just passed its tenth anniversary in November, 2014. This is a shared ministry of human rights presence held jointly between the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Iglesia Presibteriana de Colombia and the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship.

Jeju Island is known as a choice honeymoon location and one of the most scenic places in South Korea — even referred to as the “Hawaii of Korea” by travel writers. But it has a much darker history that the country has just begun to explore and acknowledge — a history introduced to two Young Adult Volunteers earlier this month. 

[한국어] 

Generosity, good stewardship, and smart planning. Those three virtues, says Detroit pastor Sue Melrose, enabled the local host committee for the 221st General Assembly (2014) last summer to end up with a sizeable surplus.

After paying all the bills, the Detroit Committee on Local Arrangements (COLA), which Melrose served as vice moderator, had about $96,000 left over. And now, $22,000 of that amount has been passed on to COLA leaders in Portland, Oregon, to help pay for the 222nd General Assembly (2016).

The Reverend Dr. J. Herbert Nelson returned this past weekend from ten days in South Sudan. While there, he investigated ways that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Public Witness (OPW) can better partner with World Mission to more effectively engage partner churches and organizations, mission co-workers, and other personnel, for more effective justice advocacy. 

Serious death threats to human rights defenders, many of them church leaders, have been made by a paramilitary group in Colombia. The World Council of Churches (WCC), among other international organizations has called on Colombian government to protect their lives.

As we — 15 Presbyterians on the Voices from the Border and Beyond seminar — prepare to cross the Mexico–Guatemala border, we remember the voice of Olga Sánchez Martínez. 

“I came here to die,” she says, “but I’m still here. The Good Shepherd healed me.”