Mission Yearbook: Jazz musicians close Stewardship Kaleidoscope Conference

When the three-day Stewardship Kaleidoscope Conference ended in New Orleans, they were glad they packed a pair of dancing shoes.

Because the final worship service sure brought them to their feet.

The jazz stylings of three of New Orleans’ finest musicians, Big Joe Kennedy, Zach Lange and Kelly Cuppett, found participants not only energized for their journey and ministry, but also dancing on their way.

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Kelly Cuppett, Stewardship Kaleidoscope's Worship Co-Director. (Contributed photo)

“‘Jazz Mass’ or ‘Jazz Service’ is a common tradition here among churches during Carnival season, where a church will bring in jazz musicians to play instead of their usual pianist or organist,” said Cuppett, a New Orleans-based pianist and board-certified music therapist who served as Stewardship Kaleidoscope’s worship co-director. “The music in those services is still sacred but often features more spirituals or puts a jazz flair on traditional hymns. It's very cool and really fun.”

In planning the closing worship, Cuppett thought immediately of reaching out to two outstanding musical colleagues, Kennedy and Lange, to give attendees an authentic New Orleans experience.

Of soulful pianist Big Joe Kennedy, OffBeat magazine wrote, “BJK is one of NOLA’s better-kept secrets. He’s got a strong pianistic touch, immersed in the NOLA tradition of Dr. John and James Booker.” Lange is a gifted trumpeter and educator.

Themed “Stewardship: The Art of Resiliency,” this year’s conference was held from Sept. 22–24 at the Sheraton Canal Street, New Orleans. Drawing leaders from across the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and other ecumenical partners, Stewardship Kaleidoscope was designed to ignite generosity in faith-based communities, give practical tools for cultivating generosity in congregations, expand the leadership capacity of those who lead stewardship initiatives and cultivate adaptive approaches for funding Christ’s mission.

Featured keynoters and preachers this year were the Rev. Dr. David P. King, Karen Lake Buttrey director of the Lake Institute on Faith and Giving; the Rev. Dr. Corey Nelson, pastor and head of staff at First Presbyterian Church in Fort Collins, Colorado; the Rev. Jean Marie Peacock, organizing pastor of Be Well-Come Together in Harvey, Louisiana; the Rev. Dr. Becca Ehrlich, an ordained ELCA and author of the 2021 book “Christian Minimalism: Simple Steps for Abundant Living; and the Rev. Dr. Alonzo Johnson, coordinator for the Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People Program in the Interim Unified Agency of the PC(USA).

Emily Enders Odom, Former Associate Director of Mission Communications (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Michael Wade, Production Clerk, Hubbard Press, Administrative Services Group
Donald Walker, Executive Vice President & Chief Investment Officer, Investments, The Board of Pensions

Let us pray:

Gracious God, we give you thanks that, without our knowledge, you have filled our baskets to overflowing. Help us to see the hunger in others and recognize that we can share our plenty with those in need. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: PC(USA) leaders visit Peru to see impacts of mining, other industries

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The PC(USA) delegation was in Lima, Peru, with the Evangelical Association of Theological Education and the Young Adult Volunteer program. (Photo courtesy of Jed Koball)

Could the heart of the Amazon hold wisdom that can heal the planet? Could the people of Peru point the way for U.S. Presbyterians to repair relationships with the land they live on and the Indigenous people in their own contexts?

A delegation of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) leaders, including the Rev. Tony Larson, Co-Moderator of the 226th General Assembly of the PC(USA), recently traveled to Peru in pursuit of answers to these questions. They spent eight days in conversation with Global Ecumenical Liaison the Rev. Jed Koball and local partners about the impacts of extractive industries like mining on the environment and Indigenous communities.

The delegation also included Dr. Dianna Wright, director of Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations; the Rev. Edwin González-Castillo, director of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance; the Rev. Dr. Laurie Kraus, director of Humanitarian and Global Ecumenical Engagement; and Valery Nodem, Associate for International Hunger Concerns.

Two other trip participants — the Rev. Annanda Barclay of the Presbytery of San Jose and Dr. Clarice Hutchens of the Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy — embody what Kraus considers an exciting expansion of how PC(USA) moderators engage with global partners and mid councils and congregations here in the U.S.

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The PC(USA) delegation is photographed in La Oroya, Peru, with members of the Conservation Committee of Villa El Sol. (Photo courtesy of Jed Koball)

“We have not historically looked at how we might engage our mid council and congregational partners in these efforts, beyond an expectation that the Moderator would share the stories and results of their visit in their work around the Church,” Kraus said. “This, we realize, is a lost opportunity for our Church, as well as for the partners who have taken time and effort to share their work and vision with us. This time, instead of limiting the trip to staff leads and the Co-Moderator, we intentionally invited leaders from two presbyteries that have been involved in the Joining Hands work in Peru.”

Koball, a Global Ecumenical Liaison for the PC(USA), says this trip has been in the making for at least five years. It developed out of work with the Presbyterian Hunger Program — particularly its Joining Hands Initiative, which seeks to address systemic causes of hunger in countries around the world. Koball says during that time, Joining Hands has identified its work, globally, as addressing and dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery.

The 15th century Doctrine of Discovery established by the Catholic Church granted Christian European nations the right to claim lands and resources they “discovered” from non-Christian peoples. In Peru, this doctrine led to the conquest of Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples, including land theft, disruptions of spiritualities, and genocide.

Koball emphasized that the destructive mentality of conquest in Peru, and many other places including the United States, is not just historic, but ongoing.

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The delegation is seen In Callao, Peru, with people from Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. (Photo courtesy of Jed Koball)

“That relationship with the land is defined today as we talk about extractivism,” Koball said, “where we see the Earth as something that is a resource for generating wealth.”

By contrast, Indigenous communities have maintained a more harmonious relationship with the environment.

“Humanity is dependent on a harmonious and healthy relationship with the Earth, and those most equipped to promote that relationship are Indigenous peoples,” Koball said. “So, getting land in Indigenous hands is ultimately kind of the goal here.”

The purpose of the delegation’s time in Peru was twofold: to see how this ongoing mentality of conquest and the extractivist industry of mining are impacting both the environment and the people there — especially Indigenous and Afro-descendant people — and to learn how Peruvians are addressing these issues so that knowledge might inform how Presbyterians engage in similar efforts in the U.S. Several members of the group come from presbyteries already working on addressing the impacts of extractivism on their local environments and Indigenous communities.

Over the course of eight days, the delegation traveled to three different regions of Peru. They visited La Oroya in the Andes, home to a smelting operation that has earned the city a reputation as one of the most polluted places in the world and where people have been protesting for more than two decades. On the coast around Lima, the group encountered the literal downstream impacts of mining: a contaminated river and beach. They also traveled to the Amazon to meet with a federation of native peoples working to prevent encroachment and extractive activity on their land.

Layton Williams Berkes, Communications Strategist

Let us join in prayer for:

Judy Walton, Vice President, Lending Services, Presbyterian Investment & Loan Program
Laura Wampler, Operations & Rights Associate, Operations, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation

Let us pray:

Lord, thank you for opportunities to serve you. Bless us as we share our loaves with the children, youth and adults. Help us to remember that in John’s Gospel, the sharing of loaves began with a child. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Racial wealth gap is subject of third video in series

In the third installment of the Center for the Repair for Historic Harm’s video series “Zero to One: A Congregation’s Journey to Repair,” Oak Grove Presbyterian Church in Bloomington, Minnesota, turns its attention to one of the most persistent and measurable legacies of systemic racism in the United States: the racial wealth gap.

The episode, “What is the Racial Wealth Gap?”, explores how Oak Grove’s members came to understand that the economic disparities between white households and Afro-American and Indigenous households were the result of deliberate policies and practices. This understanding led the congregation to take concrete steps toward repair.

Ruling Elder Jim Koon offered a sobering breakdown of the numbers: the median wealth of white households in the U.S. is approximately $284,000, compared to $44,000 for African American households and $29,000 for Indigenous households. “If all wealth were distributed equitably,” Koon explained, “the average would be about $244,000."

Restorative Actions, an organization that worked with Oak Grove through their reparations process, estimated from household wealth data in 2020, that across the nearly 86 million white households in the U.S., the aggregated wealth accumulated above parity has grown to just under $13 trillion, a racial wealth disparity that has tripled in the last 30 years and “is expected to grow exponentially in the future.”

The congregation members asked themselves what this gap meant for people of faith. Ruling elders like Mark Pridgeon and Bob Heise reflected on how learning about Reconstruction’s collapse and broken treaties with Indigenous nations helped them to see the racial wealth gap not just as a national issue, but as a local and spiritual one. “You can’t heal it unless you give the people what you promised,” Heise said, referencing the U.S. government’s failure to honor agreements with Indigenous communities.

The video opens with a biblical verse from Luke 19:8. This is the story of Zacchaeus, who upon encountering Jesus pledged to give half his possessions to the poor and to repay those he has defrauded fourfold. Luke's account anchored Oak Grove’s journey as a model for economic repentance.

Ruling Elder Elona Street-Stewart, executive of the Synod of Lakes and Prairies, and the Rev. Jermaine Ross-Allam, director of the Center for the Repair of Historic Harms, helped to frame the church’s actions within a broader movement. They emphasized that restorative action is not charity but a spiritual discipline rooted in surrender. “Christian people in the United States are not in a position to be philanthropists, donors or benefactors when it comes to people of African descent and Indigenous nations,” said Ross-Allam. He noted that the credible witness is in realizing “I’m not giving but I’m actually unburdening myself of wealth I wouldn’t have in the first place if others had been treated with equity.”

Oak Grove’s response was to create two investment trusts — one for Afro-American communities and one for Indigenous communities — entrusting the funds to leaders from those communities to determine their use. Finance Committee Chair Sue Greimel recalled the moment the church voted to allocate $267,000: “It was a relief. We were lucky to have the ability to invest. Now we’re giving others that same opportunity.”

Koon made an economic case for reparations, arguing that inclusive economies would grow faster. He cited how during the 1960s and early 1970s, when the U.S. invested in civil rights and job programs, the gross domestic product (GDP) grew at 4% annually. Today, according to Koon, it's growing at less than 1%. “If we invested in inclusivity again,” he said, “the return would more than offset the cost of reparations within a generation.”

The video series, “Zero to One: A Congregation’s Journey to Repair,” was released weekly.

Oak Grove’s story reminds viewers that repair is not a one-time act, but a journey of transformation. From understanding the racial wealth gap to surrendering wealth as an act of faith, this congregation is moving from reflection to action — and inviting others to do the same.

Watch the full series and learn more here.

Read the series’ introduction and follow-up article on the second video, “Is Racial Justice Possible?”

Beth Waltemath, Communications Strategist (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Tonia Trice, HR Generalist, Human Resources, Administrative Services Group
Stephanie Vasquez, Manager, Global Language Resources, Administrative Services Group

Let us pray:

Lord, help us glorify you well by the way we work together in ministry. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: New class of Young Adult Volunteers is commissioned

Forty-five Young Adult Volunteers for 2025–26 were recently commissioned during a worship service held online and in the Chapel at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville. Those worshiping in person laid hands on the young adults, committing themselves “to support this class with prayer, encouragement and resources, so that Christ’s reign of peace, justice and love will be known in all our communities and throughout the world, until Christ comes.”

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The 2025-26 group of Young Adult Volunteers were commissioned Wednesday in the Chapel at the Presbyterian Center. (Photo by Teresa Mader)

The scriptural basis for the commissioning was, not surprisingly, Matthew 28:18–20, the Great Commissioning, where Jesus disperses the disciples throughout the world and promises to be with them to the end of the age.

James Martin, a YAV alum who’s the site coordinator at the U.S./Mexico Borderlands in Douglas, Arizona and Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico, offered a reflection during the service.

During his own YAV years in San Antonio, Texas, and at the Borderlands, “I spent most of those two years trying to figure out what was coming next,” Martin said. Go to medical school? Teach in his native Washington state? Neither prospect stirred Martin with much excitement.

Especially at the Borderlands, “I spent a lot of my energy figuring out where I was supposed to be. I realized in the end I did not want to do any of those things. What I wanted to do was what was around me,” Martin told the current class of YAVs, some of whom, like Martin did, shared in the worship experience online. “On the Borderlands, I felt more connected to a community than ever before.”

 

Marin said faith became even more relevant as crosses were planted to remember migrants who perished in the Sonoran desert on their way to the United States. He found community in marching together and enjoying meals with neighbors.

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The Young Adult Volunteers Class of 2025-26 displayed a playful side following Wednesday's commissioning service at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Teresa Mader)

“My traits and gifts — adaptability and flexibility — were much more useful here,” Martin said. “I think I was conditioned by society that life should be more determined by who society thinks we should be rather than who we actually are as beloved human beings.”

“Where you feel the most life and happiness is perhaps where God wants you to be,” Martin said. “Even today, what I do as a YAV coordinator is what I was learning during my YAV year.”

“Everyday life turned out to be more important than what I thought I should be doing instead,” Martin said.

Shortly after Martin’s reflection, YAV Coordinator Destini Hodges asked the YAVs who were present in the Chapel to come forward for their commissioning. “Today we have the honor of recognizing the YAV Class of 2025–26, joining in God’s mission all over the world,” Hodges said. “They have accepted Christ’s call into mission service, but they do not serve in isolation.”

Barry Creech, deputy executive director for Administration in the Interim Unified Agency, said it’s the YAVs’ calling not only to share the good news of God’s love exemplified in Jesus Christ, but “to address the root causes of poverty, and to seek reconciliation of people with one another. … As God’s people connected in effective mission, we can indeed be a compelling witness to Jesus Christ in our world.”

“This class of YAVs is being sent by God through the church to serve around the world,” Hodges noted. “God calls each of us into the world, not alone but to minister as a community of Christians.”

“As we surround the YAVs,” Hodges told those in worship, “we will lay hands on them and offer a prayer.” Those worshiping online were asked to extend their arms as well.

The Rev. Dr. David Gambrell, associate for Worship in the Office of Theology & Worship, offered a prayer asking God to “establish them in your truth, and guide them in your Holy Spirit, that in your service they may grow in faith, hope and love, and be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.”

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

Let us join in prayer for:

Joel Townsend, Desktop Support Analyst, Administrative Services Group
Cuong Tran, Mail Clerk, Mail & Print Services, Administrative Services Group

Let us pray:

Almighty God, on the steep path of our calling, we ask that you keep us faithful. Lead us to weep with those who weep and to rejoice with those who rejoice. We praise you for the gift of your Holy Spirit, who is alive in all that is good. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Texas Hill Country gets help after flooding from PDA

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Flooding of the Guadalupe River near Kerrville, Texas (Photo by U.S. Coast Guard)

As David Rauer eyed the Guadalupe River during a recent Presbyterian Disaster Assistance deployment to Texas, it was hard to fathom how the seemingly innocuous river could have grown so ferocious during the weekend of July 4.

“It's not a big river,” said Rauer, a member of PDA’s National Response Team (NRT).

Yet, in about two hours, the river rose from hip-height to three stories tall, leading to devastating flash flooding, according to The Associated Press.

“It's hard to imagine that difference when you look at this mild, small river, and you realize how much water was coming down it during the worst part of the flooding,” Rauer said.

Rauer was one of four PDA National Response Team members who traveled to the Texas Hill Country Aug. 7–12 to listen, learn and provide support, following catastrophic flooding that killed at least 138 people.

The deployment by Rauer, the Rev. Pat Ashley, Jan Spence and the Rev. Jim Reitz focused mostly on Kerr County, where at least 119 people were killed, many of them children in places like Camp Mystic.

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From left: The Rev. Bobby Musengwa, transitional general presbyter for Mission Presbytery; the Rev. Laurie Palmer, Mission Presbytery's stated clerk; and David Rauer, Pat Ashley, and Jan Spence, who visited Texas as part of a deployment of the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance National Response Team. (Photo courtesy of David Rauer/PDA)

Though Kerr County was the hardest hit, “there's widespread flooding and disaster from this same storm throughout that mid to western side of Texas,” said Rauer, team lead for PDA’s Long-Term Recovery ministry.  “A lot of homes have been impacted and people’s lives are upturned because of this flooding.”

The deployment enabled the National Response Team to see some of the damage for themselves, talk to people affected by the disaster and connect with representatives from Mission Presbytery, Synod of the Sun and others involved in the recovery.

“It was an initial deployment, so the primary purpose was assessing immediate needs” but also to discuss “possibilities around long-term recovery,” said Ashley, a retired Presbyterian minister who’s been with the NRT for about 15 years. “And, of course, emotional and spiritual care is always a part of it because so many of the people we meet are affected.”

The team — which was joined by the Rev. Kathy Lee-Cornell, director of the Synod Partnership for Disaster Recovery — also was able to share information from previous disasters, Rauer said. “They were very appreciative that we came in to give them some knowledge of recovery from other disasters to help them as they navigate this,” he said.

During a visit to First Presbyterian Church of Kerrville, the team was able to meet with a caseworker, Bailey Havis, who’s been hired by the church to assist people affected by the flooding. The team also attended a service at the church that included a blessing of backpacks for children going back to school, Ashley said.

Later, “there was a luncheon, and so we had the opportunity to go to that lunch and just talk with people and heard their stories,” she said. It was “human-to-human connection … very connective and heartwarming.”

In this way, deployments help to show that PDA isn’t just an “entity out there but rather people who are concerned and care for them and that we could talk with them about the possibilities that PDA has for working with them long-term,” Ashley said.

Among the local people the team met with during the deployment were the Rev. Jasiel Hernandez Garcia, senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Kerrville, the Rev. Bobby Musengwa, transitional general presbyter for Mission Presbytery, and Mission Presbytery’s stated clerk, the Rev. Laurie Palmer, as well as the Rev. Dr. Dongwoo Lee, a minister at Schreiner University, and Fred Gamble, chief financial officer of Presbyterian Mo-Ranch Assembly.

“I think it was a good starting point with PDA, and my hope is that we'll continue to have more enriching conversations and more direct kind of involvement from them,” Garcia said.

Garcia took the team out to see some of the flood damage and the progress that’s been made, such as the clearing of some of the many uprooted trees, Ashley said. The time with him also gave a clearer picture of the scope of the disaster, she said, since you could see “where the river is now and where the damaged places were that were very far removed from where the river is now.”

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance is one of the Compassion, Peace & Justice ministries of the Interim Unified Agency of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). For more information about the recovery and to see a series of useful videos, go here. To support PDA’s response through your generous giving, go here.

Darla Carter, Communications Strategist, Mission Communications Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Edward Thompson, Senior Church Consultant and Director of Inter Agency Relations, Board of Pensions
Julie Tonini, Director of Production, Publishing & Editorial, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation

Let us pray:

Gracious God, there is no pain you don’t understand, no heart you can’t examine. Hear the voices from the most obscure corners of the world. Just as you were lifted high, may our lives also be lifted. In your precious name we pray. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Author speaks on looming retirement crisis and what churches can do to help

The author of a book on how churches and other organizations can help mitigate the effects of what he calls “the looming retirement crisis” was a recent guest on “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast.”

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Photo by Vlad Sargu via Unsplash

Jonathan Grimm, a licensed investment advisor and author of “The Future Poor: How Families and Communities Can Join Together to Survive the Looming Retirement Crisis,” was the guest of hosts Simon Doong and the Rev. Lee Catoe. Listen to their 57-minute conversation here.

Up to 9 out of 10 people won’t have sufficient assets to live well during their retirement, according to Grimm. “What happens if we have lots of poor seniors running around? What about all the people who don’t retire by choice?” Grimm wondered. Most people don’t retire when and how they want to, he said. They’re forced into it either through aging or employment issues, or for medical, disability or family reasons.

“My book is all about the trajectory of where we’re headed. Most of us are going to be poor in the future,” Grimm said. What do we do about that?

Those demographic pressures could also make things difficult for churches and other nonprofits, Grimm said in response to a question from Doong. “If you have lower church attendance and people’s ability to give decreases over time, that’s not a good model, especially as things become more expensive,” Grimm said. “It’s a problem that’s not isolated in people’s individual financial situations. There are these really deep community situations as well that we’ve got to think about and begin to plan for — and probably do some things very differently moving forward than the way we’ve done them in the past.”

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Despite the lessons learned from the Great Recession of 2007–09, which was brought on in large part by a housing crisis, “we keep returning to 1980s financial advice, saying what worked in the previous quarter-century is the thing that’s going to work for the next quarter-century,” Grimm said. But to make that paradigm work, American workers would each have to save $30,000 annually, which “eliminates most people from the equation,” he noted.

Churches can play “a big part” shaping what the financial future will look like for seniors, Grimm said. The first step is to help scrap the “retire at 65” mentality “and talk about what people need for their entire lifetime, taking a serious look at the statistical data on the likelihood of certain life events happening” and the products in the financial world that can help cover those expenses.

Grimm defines health broadly to include economic stability and access to quality education, medical care and the built environment. “There’s also a social connection piece, making sure people have a social environment they can operate in,” Grimm said.

Churches have historically been instrumental, filling portions of many of those needs. “We used to be deeply involved in those things that make us healthy, but we have backed away,” he said. “I think there’s a real opportunity to return to those, including creating economic stability for everyone attending our church, especially as people age and encounter the serious things of retirement, which is a precarious situation.”

While retirement may not be a “flashy” topic, “it’s relevant to churches now,” Catoe said. “It’s a new emerging mission field many of us don’t know much about.”

Grimm said the PC(USA) “has been on the front end of a lot of social issues, which is great. I think this might be one of the most equal opportunity crises that we’ve had. It cuts across gender, orientation and ethnic lines.

“I’ve asked some of my pastor friends: if 9 out of 10 people in your church are headed toward poverty, would you do anything different in your ministry? Everyone will come to something that’s socially or economically valuable to them. You don’t need to go very far in the Bible to see poverty is something we should be working on.”

“What if the poor is all of us?” Grimm wondered. “If the church becomes the place that creates economic stability for people, what kind of draw could that be? People would see that as revolutionary.”

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:

Tom Taylor. President and CEO, Executive Office, The Presbyterian Foundation
Nicki Thomas, Gift Processing Associate, Funds Development Operations, Administrative Services Group  

Let us pray:

God, remind us to love and serve one another always. Open our hearts in a positive way so we too will know that we have enough loaves to share. Amen.

Minute for Mission: Building Beloved Communities; Dismantling Structural Racism

Too often, I am reminded that few people associate the ministry of reparative justice with deep spiritual joy. While 2025 has been a year marked by discouraging economic and political developments, the Holy Spirit continues to work, steadily weaving unexpected, hope-filled threads into the fabric of our shared life.

This year, I am a witness to the Holy Spirit guiding us from despair and apathy toward new and joyful working possibilities.

In 2025, our work with mid council leaders in Puerto Rico, Alaska, South Carolina and Kansas has been especially life-giving. Through our seven mid council pilot programs, congregations of color with substantial economic challenges across the PC(USA) will soon receive support for up to three years of full-time transformative pastoral ministry.

Also, this year’s collaboration with the National Hispanic Latino Presbyterian Caucus, focused on uncovering and addressing historic inequities affecting Puerto Rican clergy, is strengthening relationships, fostering clearer collective understanding and opening new avenues for interdependent longevity. Even in these early stages, other caucuses are noticing the emerging possibilities and inquiring about collaborative opportunities for moving forward together.

The 2023 work of apology and reparation for the racist closure of Memorial Presbyterian Church in Juneau, Alaska, in 1963 has created a blessed opportunity for faithful follow-up with Native Alaskans. This year, with support from the Stated Clerk, we advanced toward the transgenerational goal of repatriating Raven Helmet. The Center for Repair and the Sitka tribes collaborated with the Kiks.ádi. clan to reclaim this sacred object, unethically possessed by Presbyterians and others for over a century, and thanks in part to a letter from the Stated Clerk, Raven Helmet is now on its way home.

This year, we began partnering with the Youth Desk at the Liberia Council of Churches to examine how the Presbyterian cofounded American Colonization Society impacted Indigenous Liberians and contributed to civil war. Currently, we are translating documents like the Confession of 1967 into Bassa and Kpelle, transforming two centuries of missed opportunities for theological dialogue into living opportunities for a blessed re-encounter. In Peru, through relationships nurtured by the Presbyterian Hunger Program, we supported the publication and English translation of the world’s first scholarly book advocating for Afro-Peruvian reparations.

God’s Spirit continues to move through faithful actions that have blessed us as witnesses. In 2025, the Presbytery of San Gabriel returned land to the Tongva tribe in a joyous public worship celebration, while the Presbytery of Baltimore established a reparative justice fund to respond to calls for justice from African American communities.

Looking ahead, the 2024 General Assembly’s decision to allocate proceeds from the sale of property derived from enslaved Afro-descendants will allow those funds to be returned to living descendants beginning in 2026 — a moment not only for celebration but also to marvel at our habitual shortsightedness concerning the power of God to move his people ever onward!

Rev. Jermaine Ross-Allam, Ministry Director, Center for the Repair of Historic Harms

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff:

Carla Sutton, Operations Admin, Operations, The Presbyterian Foundation
Jonathon Talbott, Administrative Support I/Receptionist, Operations, The Presbyterian Foundation

Let us pray:

Creator, we love you and rejoice in your justice and restoration; grant us eyes to see the unseen and courage to stay the course through the power of your Spirit. Amen.