More than 120 people, including several Presbyterian Mission Agency (PMA) staff, took up banners and pickets this week, as they made their way across the University of Louisville campus. It was part of a campaign to convince the Wendy’s fast food chain that its current practices of buying tomatoes is negatively impacting the lives and rights of farmworkers. 

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was among twenty-four Catholic, Evangelical, and Protestant faith-based organizations that filed an amicus brief March 9 with the Supreme Court of the United States in support of the Obama administration’s November 2014 executive actions on immigration.

Staff members representing the six agencies of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) filled the chapel of the Presbyterian Center this morning for a “Service of Gratitude, Grief, and Grace,” to give voice to their sadness and to express their gratitude for the 26 employees of the Presbyterian Mission Agency (PMA)—their longtime colleagues and friends—who accepted voluntary separation packages effective February 29.

The year 2009 marked the 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth, an occasion celebrated by Reformed churches around the world. For Kathy Reeves, mission associate for Presbyterian Women, the theologian’s birthday also sparked an idea for an international study tour about women during the Reformation.

“It occurred to me that people don’t pay much attention to how women participated in the Reformation,” Reeves says. 

Reeves wanted to bring that history to life—particularly the history of French Huguenots who were persecuted for their faith for more than a century. “I also wanted women to claim persecution as a part of our Reformed heritage,” she says. “So many Christians have been persecuted and continue to be persecuted because of their faith. American Christians don’t really know much about that.”

The “seed money” planted by three people at First Presbyterian Church of Waverly (Ohio) resulted in a harvest of generosity directed toward Presbyterian mission co-workers.

Small churches can have big ministries. Four years ago, the 36-member Lavonia (Georgia) Presbyterian Church had no children’s Sunday school. The church recently counted 12 children in the program. Two years ago on Easter Sunday, nine people were baptized at the 156-member First Presbyterian Church in Vandalia, Missouri.

Thirty-three Presbyterian women, including 14 young adults, will attend the 60th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York this month. The delegation is organized through a partnership involving the Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations, Racial Ethnic & Women’s Ministries, and Presbyterian Women in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). This presence is possible because the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is accredited to the United Nations through the Economic and Social Council.

Thirty participants joined Heath Rada, moderator of the 221st General Assembly (2014) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City for discussion and input on the future of the denomination. New York was Rada’s third stop on a five-city conversation tour. Two previous meeting took place in Atlanta. Upcoming meetings are scheduled March 12 in San Diego, Calif., and March 19 in Ames, Iowa.

Vera White, national coordinator for 1001 New Worshiping Communities, remembers the gratitude she felt and how it came to her. She was about to give a presentation to more than 400 church leaders from around the world at the International Fresh Expressions Conference in Cape Town, South Africa.

For more than 10 years, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) has been campaigning to convince the Wendy’s Company to join the Fair Food Program (FFP), which focuses on the rights of farmworkers. But the Ohio-based fast food chain has refused to join the program even though competitors Yum Brands, McDonald’s, Burger King, and Subway have joined.