It’s a pretty port of call. Mere blocks from where cruise ships pull into San Juan terminal, visitors can find enticing Old San Juan, with its mix of history, shops and restaurants, all open for business, even on a warm but quiet Tuesday night. Veering right, visitors can find conveniences such as bike rentals and a CVS pharmacy, all up and running. “People go to hotels, Old San Juan and they see the stores open, lights … and they say, ‘Oh, everything is back to normal,’” the Rev. Edwin A. González-Castillo says. Except it’s not.
Ask the Co-Moderators of the 223rd General Assembly what they think of their first six months in office and they will tell you a lot has changed since they were elected in St. Louis last summer. Their election came seven months after they decided, in a telephone call, to stand together as co-moderators.
Fall is beginning to chill the land here in Korea, and yet some extraordinary events are slowly thawing the Cold War atmosphere on the Korean peninsula.
“The dishwashing detergent is lost.” In Cuba, one would say, “El detergente de lavar platos está perdido.” That means that you will not find dishwashing detergent in the store these days. As we enter our fourth year as mission co-workers in Cuba, we realize how easy it is sometimes to forget that we are strangers living in a foreign land.
For the past four months, Olivia Thomas has been seeking God’s call for her life. The Baton Rouge, Louisiana, native focused on urban studies and studio art at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, but upon graduation, she wasn’t sure where God was leading her.
Growing up Methodist, Thomas, like many college students, stepped away from church for a few years but then connected with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Back in 2013, I joined a German colleague of mine who was working in Ghana at the time on a visit to a rural health clinic run by the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. The clinic was in the community of Kwahu Praso, about three hours northwest of Accra, the capital of Ghana, and for several years, it had been receiving financial support from some German Protestant congregations. The visit was a chance to learn more about the place and see how it was doing.
Pastor Juan Rodas, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Honduras, loves to tell the story of how two remote churches, El Horno and El Sute, joined the denomination.
When I was a little boy, my family took me on a trip to visit my uncle and aunt in Africa. They were both doctors, medical missionaries in Rwanda. We visited a game preserve where we watched lions, elephants and other wild animals from the precarious safety of our jeep. One night, my parents told me that the house we were sleeping in was right on the equator. I asked, “What is the equator?” My dad said it was an imaginary line running around the world. But what I heard him say was that it was “a lion running around the world!” That night, I couldn’t sleep. My eyes remained wide open as I imagined the lion running around our house all night. I didn’t think it was Aslan, but more likely the devil, waiting to devour me.
A group of 16 Young Adult Volunteer alum, family and Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) national staff gathered in Puerto Rico earlier this month for a Relief and Reflection Service Trip commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) program.
It’s Christmas! Every time we celebrate Christmas, we affirm that the Kairos of God has arrived with the force of a hurricane yet the gentleness of a breeze.