Mission Yearbook: North Carolina group extends love and aid to flooded Texas

A grassroots organization known for being instrumental in helping the people of western North Carolina to recover from Hurricane Helene is giving back to flood-ravaged Texas as a reciprocal gesture of love.

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BeLoved Asheville is a grassroots organization based in North Carolina. (Photo courtesy of BeLoved Asheville)

BeLoved Asheville, a North Carolina-based grant partner of the Presbyterian Hunger Program, recently sent cleaning supplies and other goods to beleaguered Texas, where more than 130 people died as a result of catastrophic flooding in early July.

The outreach by BeLoved Asheville is the group’s way of giving love back to one of the states from which compassionate volunteers showed up when Helene devastated western North Carolina last September.

“Probably more than nine months ago, one of the first people that came to Asheville … were people from Texas,” said Ponkho Bermejo, a co-director of BeLoved Asheville. “So, when all this happened in Kerrville, our first reaction was thinking how we can support them because they supported us in the darkest time in western North Carolina.”

The outreach to Texas is documented on BeLoved Asheville’s Facebook page, which says in part, “After driving over 20 hours, we reached Kerrville, Texas — and it felt like returning to that Sept. 27 when Hurricane Helene tore through our WNC community. The devastation, the heartbreak ... but also the memory of Texans driving 20-plus hours to bring us supplies. … Love given can only be repaid with love.”

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These days, BeLoved Asheville is reciprocating love from the people of Texas and also assisting people in North Carolina. (Photo courtesy of BeLoved Asheville) 

The Rev. Amy Cantrell, a co-director of BeLoved Asheville, said the desire to help was “visceral” when they heard about the destruction and loss of life in Texas. Among the casualties were at least 27 children and staff at Camp Mystic, and Jane Ragsdale, a ruling elder at First Presbyterian Church of Kerrville who was camp director at Heart O’ the Hills Camp for Girls in Hunt, Texas.  

“We felt it in our bodies, that trauma and what those folks are going through, and we wanted to show up,” Cantrell said.

She added that BeLoved Asheville also is "supporting organizers on the ground in the wake of storms in Texas and central North Carolina, sharing wisdom and support as people who have been through disaster.”

Reaching out to others in need is a way to bring about unity and also to foster healing, Bermejo said.

In the days following Hurricane Helene, “I remember people coming from all over the country, and us being wowed, like, oh, people came from North Dakota, they came from Texas, they came from California, New York,” Cantrell said. Also, “I remember saying to people, ‘If it happens to you, we're coming.’ … We have this deep sense and understanding of mutuality, of kinship.”

BeLoved Asheville was a key source of help in North Carolina in not only Asheville but throughout devastated parts of the Appalachian region.

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Devastation in Asheville after Hurricane Helene. (Photo by Bill McMannis via Wikimedia Commons)

“Our impacted zone was so wide,” Cantrell said. “We were serving about 15,000 people every day throughout the impacted area here in western North Carolina, which is about two hours in either direction.”

“We shared millions of resources — food, water, hygiene, first aid. We had hike teams going out hiking five miles into inaccessible areas," Cantrell said. "We set up temporary water infrastructure for schools and childcare centers and communities to be able to function again, so we were just doing all sorts of different things,” including getting medication to people.

And the work is continuing. The group just completed its 100th major home repair/rebuild, Cantrell said.

BeLoved Asheville's day-to-day work focuses on creating home, health, equity and opportunity for all, according to the group's website. Projects include building an affordable housing village in East Asheville, and there’s a second village slated for hurricane-ravaged Swannanoa.

Jennifer Evans, an associate for PHP communications and national partnerships, said the work that BeLoved Asheville does is particularly important at a time when the powerful are unraveling the country’s social safety net.

BeLoved Asheville embodies “what it means to be a beloved community, rooted in justice, responsive in compassion and committed to collective care — not just for their local neighbors, but for those facing disaster across state lines. Their witness reminds us that community can rise up to stand in the gap when systems fail.”

Darla Carter, Communications Strategist, Interim Unified Agency (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Marissa Galvan-Valle, Associate, Hispanic Resources & Relationships, Growing Faith Resources, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation
Greta Garbo, Accounting Clerk, Accounts Payable Office, Administrative Services Group

Let us pray:

Most gracious God, we seek your presence whenever and wherever we gather together in Christ’s name. We know you watch over us and lead us. Continue to bless us as we look for ways to share our ministry with siblings near and far. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: A sermon on Amos challenges assumptions about sanctuary

Whose sanctuary is this, anyway? 

That was the provocative question the Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson, president and CEO of the Children’s Defense Fund, recently explored during a sermon based on Amos 7:7–17 at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. Watch Wilson’s sermon here. 

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The Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson

“I’m glad those are not my words!” Wilson said after relating the words of Amos’ prophecy of doom for King Jeroboam II and his people. “This is the Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.”

“This conversation and conflict comes up between one who is a priest, Amaziah, and one whom we have deemed a prophet, Amos,” he noted. “Here at Bethel there is a dialogue about whose sanctuary this is.”

In this context, sanctuary “is an open-air space, spaces in nature where those who gather might have direct contact with God,” he said. “God’s open space in nature had been … sanctified and set apart by those who engage in priestly ritual to distinguish between the sacred and the profane, that this is holy ground.”

Just before this text, Amaziah engages in conversation with the king “about Amos before he talks to Amos,” Wilson noted.

“Where I’m from [Wilson served congregations in Missouri and Texas before beginning his work with the Children’s Defense Fund], we are a little bit careful about people who talk about you to the authorities before they talk to you. We’re careful about people who would rather talk to the police than talk to their neighbors. … We have a short word for that: We call them ‘snitches.’”

“Some feel more comfortable with proximity to power,” Wilson said, “than they do with [proximity to] God’s people.”

Go back to your own neighborhood, Amaziah tells Amos. “Don’t speak this way here,” is how Wilson put it, “because this is the king’s sanctuary.”

“Amaziah’s declaration may sound far-fetched. We can hardly imagine someone coming here into the hallowed grounds of New York Avenue Presbyterian Church and saying, ‘this is the president’s sanctuary.’ We would never say, ‘this is [Mayor] Muriel Bowser’s sanctuary.’ But I want to suggest there are many of us who do so each and every day.”

Amaziah “is not only claiming property rights for a building, he is also gentrifying ground, claiming a portion of Creation that God made for God’s self. Who does he think he is?” Wilson asked.

The question can also be asked, “whose sanctuary are you, anyway?”

“The challenge of dual citizenship in this world and in the kingdom of God is presented in the context of this text,” Wilson said. “The question of allegiance to the things of God or the things of the kingdom, the empire, the nations of this world, is a realistic question we must answer as we begin to shape our beings as God’s people.”

Amaziah “calls Amos a prophet and Amos says, ‘nah, bruh,’” Wilson said. “If you let others define your identity, your community, your call, you’ll be left to pick up the broken pieces of the narrative they construct for you.”

Amos’ answer to Amaziah has lessons for us today, he said.

For one, “prophecy is not a profession but a commitment to principles.”

Amos is saying, “I don’t have papers for this. I’m not a member of the guild … I am a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees. Amaziah has done what many of us have done when it comes to ministry: he has delegated the ministry of God’s Word to a select group of people who hang together in the sanctuary, tarry around the church” and wear garb like the stole Wilson wore on Sunday.

“Your call,” Wilson said, “is to live out the reality of what the red doors of your sanctuary really mean.” Church doors that are red historically signal there’s refuge and safety from violence inside. “In a world where people are knocked out and grabbed up for being different, what does it mean to live a witness that among us, they are fully and completely safe to be their whole selves?”

“It’s not a professionalized ministry that is somebody else’s responsibility,” he said, “but rather is the call of the entire congregation.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Adam Foster, Accountant, Financial Reporting, Administrative Services Group    
Penny Franklin, Executive Relations Coordinator, Executive Office, The Presbyterian Foundation        

Let us pray:

Loving God, help us to be people of faith, hope and love in a world that needs them desperately. Help us to express your love. Teach us to cling to the possibilities of your transforming power and allow us to help others to do the same. In your loving and welcoming presence, we pray. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Finding healing in community through shared stories

PC(USA) pastor and former Boston television news anchor the Rev. Liz Walker presented what she’s learned from a community of trauma victims during a recent episode of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast.” Listen to Walker’s 51-minute conversation with podcast hosts Simon Doong and the Rev. Lee Catoe here.

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In her recent book “No One Left Alone: A Story of How Community Helps Us Heal,” Walker, the former pastor of Roxbury Presbyterian Church in Boston, discusses the “Can We Talk? Community Conversations on Trauma and Healing” gatherings that go on at Roxbury Presbyterian Church and 20 other locations. People come to briefly share their stories around trauma, then sit down and listen to other stories.

When Walker began her pastorate at Roxbury, “the neighborhood was in the midst of a gang war. Our church wanted to do something more than the usual [advocacy for] improved policies or the allocation of funds,” she said. Church leaders decided to focus on “people in pain: people who had lost loved ones to gun violence, and people who sometimes commit violence.”

Some of the research they conducted uncovered “this notion of collective trauma: an entire community could be victimized by any violent act,” Walker said.

“The way we decided to deal with it was to invite people to the basement of the church — lots of good things happen in church basements — to talk about their pain, their experiences, their trauma, their violence, but to talk about it from an emotional standpoint, not to talk about it to fix it,” she said. “We’ve learned over the past 10 years that story sharing helps people feel not so alone, to process the pain they are in, and ultimately can heal a community — not heal in the sense of fixing things or resolving these issues, but healing in the sense of bringing people together and finding ways to work with each other.”

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Rev. Liz Walker

She described the community transformation that occurred as “soft transformation, that person-to-person transformation. It’s something I believe the church absolutely is primed to do.”

The story sharing program began with a death in the church. A young member died as a result of gun violence in the neighborhood. He was out with his half-brother near his home when they were caught in a shooting.

When the man was killed, “his family was devastated, as were his neighbors,” Walker said. “The church comes alongside the family and does the best it can to support this family. There’s a funeral, and we come over and sit with the family. But then we leave, and the world moves on — but the family is stuck in that moment of trauma. There are victim support groups, but there is always an expiration date on the support of families of homicide. The pain doesn’t go away.”

As she’s listened to people’s stories, “what I have learned is grief is a rollercoaster. Trauma can happen over and over again,” Walker said. This young man’s mother, a deacon and a leader in the church, “had already dealt with the funerals of lots of other people, but had never experienced anything like this.”

“She didn’t say she felt like God had deserted her, but she didn’t want to have anything to do with God,” Walker said. “That’s what we know about trauma: You disconnect from your neighbors, from yourself, and from your higher power, from God. That’s a bad place to be lost in, and it’s an isolating place to be lost in.”

“We have made the road as we’ve walked it, in many ways,” Walker told the hosts. “We’ve realized our nation is now full of traumatized people for all kinds of reasons. By sharing your story, you start breaking out of that stuck place.”

Doong pointed out that sharing one’s story “is not going to change the fact that a loved one is gone or that someone has experienced something very tragic.” But story sharing “does allow someone to feel heard and to feel connected, and sometimes that’s worth its weight in gold, even when it’s not something you can measure.”

New episodes of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” drop every Thursday. Listen to previous editions here.

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Shawn Ford, Internal Auditor, Internal Audit, Administrative Services Group
Lynne Foreman, Major Gifts Officer, Stewardship and Major Gift Officers, Administrative Services Group

Let us pray:

Almighty God, giver of all good gifts, bless our efforts to provide to the people of this world. Through these efforts, may more of your children know the abundant life that Christ came to bring us. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Rethinking how to care for church leaders

How can clergy and other church leaders be more resilient and avoid burnout?

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That was the question posed to a recent guest on “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast,” hosted each week by Simon Doong and the Rev. Lee Catoe. Dr. Kate Rae Davis, the founder and executive director of the Center for Transforming Engagement at the Seattle School for Theology and Psychology, said she starts with the understanding that “people are already resilient.”

“Pastors are resilient, or they wouldn’t be [in church pulpits] every Sunday. Our lay leaders are resilient, or they wouldn’t be showing up to do the work they care about, even above and beyond their normal work,” Davis said. “We already have resilience. How can we tap into it?”

Listen to the 44-minute conversation here. Resilience resources can be found here.

Research by the Center for Transforming Engagement helped distill contributors to resilience among church leaders into three areas: people, practices and purpose.

People form a leader’s community of support. Practices, Davis said, refers to “everything you do to keep yourself well and healthy in every meaning of the word.” Purpose “is about meaning-making and calling. It’s about the bigger picture of why I do what I do. What’s the lesson I learn from setbacks and hardships that makes me more equipped” to face them? she asked.

For many of the pastors she works with, “purpose is the one we live in. … It’s inherently connected to the work of pastoring,” Davis said. “Meaning-making is what we’re training to do for the church and for others” with services that include pastoral care. “It’s all the same work. We tend to get into ministry because of some sense of call, some sense of ‘there’s something bigger than just my life that I want to dedicate my life to.’”

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Dr. Kate Rae Davis

Practices are habits “most of us know we’re supposed to be doing. It’s a matter of getting ourselves to actually do it,” she said. “We know we should be spending more time in prayer and meditation and less time stressing over our in-box. It’s how we stack those habits, and more importantly, how we put together a community of accountability.”

The piece that’s often overlooked in ministry is people, Davis said.

“The people we care about ministry leaders having is the person who can say, ‘hey, you just went through something really stressful in your church. How are you handling that?’ Or, ‘you just had this big event. How are you taking care of yourself?’ That’s a different level of friendship than what we often have access to, which is much more often where we’re the ones offering care, if you’re in a traditional ordained ministry role.”

“Even for our lay leaders, it’s a level of intimacy to invite that kind of feedback from others,” she said. “That’s the piece we see people most hungry for.”

Catoe asked: How do we navigate church cultures that have formed around suffering servant models for their leaders?

“The boundarylessness we have in ministry, we have to unlearn that,” Davis said. “We have to learn other stories of what it means that Jesus died for me, died for us, and what his ministry looks like in my life.”

The dilemma we are facing in this “possibly reforming era of being the church right now is congregations won’t yet know how to treat a pastor who isn’t bleeding out for the ministry, and pastors won’t quite know how to be boundaried with their ministry,” Davis said. “How do we relearn leadership skills more aligned to what God wants for us?”

Davis said the Center for Transforming Engagement added a fourth “p” word, “place,” to the list of three.

“We can do a lot to condition ourselves to heat. I love a good sauna for 20 minutes, but I don’t want to live in that kind of heat,” she said. “It’s the same with some of these leadership positions. We can do them for short periods, but if the heat gets too much, we can’t live there.”

New editions of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” drop every Thursday. Listen to previous episodes here.

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Tina Finley, Accountant, General Ledger Office, Administrative Services Group
Rob Fohr, VP, Strategic Alignment & Mid-Council Relations, Strategic Alignment, The Presbyterian Foundation         

Let us pray:

Gracious God, by your Spirit you inspire our efforts to feed the hungry, preach the good news and share your love. Your people, all your children, are hungry for food, for friends, for peace and for the good news. As you have fed us, bless our efforts to feed each other, for we serve in your name. Amen.

Minute for Mission: Reformation Sunday

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John Knox (Pearl Digital Collections PHS)

On Reformation Sunday, Presbyterians celebrate the tradition that grounds their faith. 

In Scotland, the Protestant Reformation was led by the great reformer, John Knox (1514–1572). During his life in the 16th century, Knox was a tutor, a galley slave to the French, a royal chaplain of King Edward VI, a sword-wielding bodyguard, a scholar and writer, and a preacher of fiery sermons at Old St. Giles in Edinburgh. He was a leading figure in the Scottish Reformation, during which time Protestants fought for religious freedom in countries ruled by the Catholic faith. Knox instilled in his fellow countrymen the duty to oppose unfair government to bring about moral and spiritual change.

In 1559, the leading group of the Reformation movement, the Lords of the Congregation, militarily occupied various cities, including Perth and Edinburgh, where they elected Knox minister of St. Giles Cathedral. Later that year, after hearing Knox’s Thanksgiving sermon, the Lords of the Congregation asked Knox and his colleagues to write a confession of faith. They obliged, and four days later offered up “The First Book of Discipline” of the Scots Confession. The Confession was adopted by Parliament in 1560 and remained the Scottish churches’ official theological doctrine until 1647, when it was superseded by the Westminster Confession.

The adoption of the Scots Confession did not mean total freedom — rather, the return of the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots in 1561 erected a few more roadblocks for the emerging Reformation. But the flames of the movement had caught, and John Knox’s influence continued to spread by and large as the Reformation forever changed the Scottish landscape.

McKenna Britton, Communications Associate, Presbyterian Historical Society

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff:

Michael Fallon, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer, Finance, The Board of Pensions
Margaret Farmer, Senior Facilities Specialist, Building Services, Administrative Services Group 

Let us pray:

On this Reformation Sunday, as we remember the bold acts of our forebears in the faith, let us reclaim anew the watchword that is shared by Presbyterians and other Reformed Christians, that we are a Church “reformed and always reforming” through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: First Hispanic-Latina Puerto Rican woman to be ordained to Presbyterian ministry is celebrated for 50 years of ministry

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Blanqui Otaño was ordained to the ministry on June 1, 1975, at the Presbyterian Church of Caparra Terrace (contributed photo

The National Hispanic Latino-a Presbyterian Caucus recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of the ordination of the Rev. Dr. Blanqui Otaño. She was the first Hispanic-Latina Puerto Rican woman to be ordained to Presbyterian ministry.

According to a letter from the caucus, she was ordained on June 1, 1975, at the Presbyterian Church of Caparra Terrace, where she developed leadership skills while growing up. She was the first Hispanic-Latina woman ordained in the United Presbyterian Church in the USA.

The eldest of five children of Miguel and Dulce, Blanqui was introduced to the gospel at the United Presbyterian Church in Lares, Puerto Rico, her hometown. She received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Puerto Rico, and in 1971 earned a degree in divinity from the Latin American Biblical Seminary in San José, Costa Rica. Upon returning to Puerto Rico, she collaborated with her home church and the Christian Education department of the synod.

In January 1975, she was invited to work with the Presbyterian Women unit of the Program Agency of the United Presbyterian Church in the USA and served Hispanic Presbyterian women in the eastern U.S. and in Puerto Rico. Four years later, she was installed as the first woman pastor in the Synod of Puerto Rico at the Presbyterian Church of Guánica.

From 1978–80, she taught religion and ethics at the Interamerican University of Bayamón. In 1980, she received her second pastoral call from the Hugh O’Neill Memorial Church in Old San Juan. Over five years there, she focused on evangelism and leadership development, collaborating with ecumenical organizations and women’s support groups.

In 1985, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) appointed her as a fraternal worker through the Latin American Evangelical Center for Pastoral Studies (CELEP). She was an advisor for the women’s program of the Council of Protestant Churches (CEPAD) and a professor at the Evangelical Faculty of Theological Studies in Nicaragua. She also advised the women’s program of the Baptist Church in El Salvador and the women’s program of the Presbyterian Church in Guatemala.

In late 1988, CELEP assigned her to Brazil to develop a women’s department. Later, she was invited to work with the Alliance of Presbyterian and Reformed Churches in Latin America (AIPRAL), where she organized and implemented several ecumenical gatherings for Latin American women.

Her professional journey concluded with her leadership of a private outplacement company in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. She accompanied her husband, the late Rev. Canon Jorge Juan Rivera Torres of the Puerto Rican Episcopal Church, in his ministry.

In June 2023, she was honored by the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico with an honorary doctorate in letters and divinity. Along with other women, she has co-authored three books.

“Puerto Rican clergywomen ordained in the 1970s and 1980s opened the door and paved the way for Latinas from other countries to become ministers of Word and Sacrament,” said the planning committee for last month’s celebration: the Rev. Carmen M. Rosario, Presbytery of the Coastlands; the Rev. Sandra Luciano, Presbytery of Central Florida; the Rev. Zodet S. Zambrana, Presbiterio del Suroeste, Puerto Rico;  the Rev. Zoraida Ramis, Presbiterio del Noroeste, Puerto Rico; and the Rev. Carmen J. Torres, Presbiterio del Suroeste, Puerto Rico.

National Hispanic Latino-a Presbyterian Caucus (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Richard Embry, Systems Developer, Digital Strategy & Information Systems, Administrative Services Group
David English,  AVP Financial & Investment Planning Professional, Trust Services, The Presbyterian Foundation

Let us pray:

Gracious Father, equip us to be an encouragement to those we seek to help, revealing Christ through the way we live. Form us, O God, into a people who praise your name in actions and deeds. Christ be with us. Amen.

Minute for Mission: United Nations Day

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The Presbyterian young adult delegation to this year’s U.N. High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, which took place in July.

This June marked the 80th anniversary of the signing of the U.N. charter, the foundational document that outlines the structure, purpose, and goals of the United Nations. When the charter was signed in 1945, the world was shaken by the horrific events of World War II. Nations were in ruins, tens of millions of people faced displacement, and peace seemed like a distant — perhaps impossible — dream. Still, the world was able to come together. Guided by the shared principles of international peace and security, diplomacy and friendship, human dignity, the self determination of people and multilateralism, the United Nations was established.

Eighty years later, our world finds itself in a similar broken state. As we see war, famine, mass-displacement, human rights abuses and climate crises ravage communities across the globe, many of us are left wondering, “What is the point of still having a United Nations?” The U.N. itself is also grappling with this existential question. And, in addition to global turmoil, the U.N. faces major budget cuts, which threaten the organization’s operations.

Still, the U.N. stands as a beacon of hope amid a broken world. Just block away from the Church Center for the U.N., which houses the Presbyterian Ministry at the U.N., stands the “Isaiah Wall,” inscribed with the text of Isaiah 2:4: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; they shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war anymore.” The “Isaiah Wall” also serves as a popular gathering space for advocates and activists in the U.N. community who lead peaceful protests to show world leaders that their citizens remain committed to the same ideals upon which the U.N. was founded. In a time where walls are too often constructed to create division and hatred, the “Isaiah Wall” stands as a reminder of peace and solidarity with those whom Jesus referred to as “the least of these.”

The “Isaiah Wall” is not the same as the U.N., but its presence reminds us of why the U.N. was created in 1945, and why it continues to be important now. Let us be encouraged by the words of Isaiah 2:4, and continue to fight for, and believe in, a world where we shall “learn war no more.”

Clare Balsan, Advocacy Associate, United Nations Advocacy, Office of Public Witness and Presbyterian Ministry at the U.N.

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff:

Lindy Ebbs, Raiser's Edge Data Administration, Funds Development Operations, Administrative Services Group
Cynthia Embry, Senior Financial Reporting Accountant, Financial Reporting, Administrative Services Group

Let us pray:

God of justice and peace, we pray that you grant wisdom and grace to our world leaders as they make decisions about our world’s present and future. Give them the courage to be driven by the pursuit of justice, love, and peace, instead of power and profit. At the same time, guide us in our words and actions to help make this earth look and feel more like Heaven. Amen.