On Sunday following worship, members and friends of Belle-Terrace Presbyterian Church in Augusta, Georgia shared both their food and their hearts with members of a team making a solidarity visit following Hurricane Helene that includes Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and the Synod of South Atlantic’s Executive and Stated Clerk, Valerie Young.

With several tables full of clergy and lay people gathered at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Augusta, Georgia, on Saturday as part of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance’s solidarity visit to hurricane-affected communities, the Rev. Jim Kirk set the tone by drawing on the wisdom of consolation and desolation posited by St. Ignatius and taught to Kirk by the Rev. Dr. Laurie Kraus, the PC(USA)’s Director of Humanitarian and Global Ecumenical Engagement and the former director of PDA.

Barbara G. Wheeler, of New York City and Granville, New York, died on October 24 at Calvary Hospital in New York City, with her husband Sam and her son Isaac at her side. She was 79.

Just a few days before visitors from Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, the Synod of South Atlantic, the Presbytery of Tampa Bay, together with the Executive Director and Stated Clerk of the General Assembly for the interim unified agency, the Rev. Jihyun Oh, arrived at Maximo Presbyterian Church in St. Petersburg, Florida, on Thursday, “this place looked awful,” said the church’s pastor, the Rev. Bobby Musengwa.

The first of four sessions exploring the book “Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, The Bible” commenced Thursday with the author, the Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, joining more than 50 participants for a 75-minute discussion that encompassed the book’s first chapter, “Settler Colonialism, Palestine, and the Bible.”

Eleanor and I met by accident. It was an ordinary day. I was browsing Pearl, the digital collection at Presbyterian Historical Society, for eye-catching content, humming along to whatever song dribbled from my computer’s speakers. Scrolling, scrolling, endlessly scrolling, until — a specter, a ghostly figure in white, prompted me to pause, my finger hovering atop my mouse. Or — no. Not a ghost. A woman.

Praying for world peace and an end to the suffering of colonized people, the Presbyterian Ministry at the United States led the midweek service of the Presbyterian Mission Agency on the eve of UN Day.

Dan Bautista once traveled the world with a pharmaceutical rep’s bag. Now all he carries is a Bible. And a burden for the poor. His call to care for the most vulnerable of God’s children led him to leave his position of 20 years with one of the world’s largest biomedical and pharmaceutical companies to become more actively engaged as a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

On Wednesday, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance spent the first day of a 10-day solidarity tour with staff from the Synod of South Atlantic and Peace River Presbytery hearing from some of the faith communities affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

T-shirts emblazoned with the names of local victims of fatal gun violence encircled a cross at Union Presbyterian Seminary on a recent afternoon. The T-shirts, placed on the ground at the base of the cross, called attention to a problem that is all too common, not only in Mecklenburg County but the nation as a whole.