Today in the Mission Yearbook - Learning from our siblings in the Church of Scotland

A Young Adult Volunteer serving in Dundee, Scotland, discusses her work with the hosts of ‘A Matter of Faith’

September 28, 2022

Victoria Alexander is a Young Adult Volunteer serving in Dundee, Scotland.

A Young Adult Volunteer working this year with a youth group at a church in Dundee, Scotland, sees parallels between an aging Church of Scotland and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) — with both churches having an opportunity to pivot in order to appeal more broadly to people of all ages.

“Anything we do, it’s not going to work forever,” Victoria Alexander, who calls Greensboro, North Carolina home when not stationed abroad serving a YAV year in the cradle of Presbyterianism, said recently on “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast,” which can be heard here.

To help the youth she serves make faith more relevant, Alexander hit upon a service project they can do that works both to feed people and to reduce the impacts of climate change: the youth are reducing food waste by running a larder for the community. “We get food from stores and businesses that would be thrown out otherwise,” Alexander explained to A Matter of Faith hosts Simon Doong and the Rev. Lee Catoe. “We are able to get the food out to people almost immediately so they can use it before the sell-by date.”

The declining membership Alexander and others are seeing in the Church of Scotland “is what the PC(USA) could look like in a couple of decades if we don’t change the way we do things,” Alexander said. “I 100% respect tradition and I know that holds a place in our church, but I also think we have the opportunity to create new traditions. We have so many capable, powerful, enthusiastic young people in our church that we can really tap into.”

“Just ask them, ‘What matters to you? Where do you see God in this work?’” Alexander said. “For some people, sitting in a church pew for an hour on Sunday, that’s not active faith to them. It’s not being the hands and feet of God. Don’t get me wrong: I need my Sunday sermons. They give me food for thought, and all week I’m chewing it over in my head,” Alexander told Catoe and Doong. But “I need to be active in my faith and not sitting in church for an hour and saying, ‘That’s my religion for the week. Great job, everyone! See you next Sunday.’”

“Thinking about taking our faith outside the church and having our faith be active during the week is an exciting prospect. … It won’t mean trying something just once. You’ve got to give it a solid try … before deciding it’s not for me — and it may not be, and that’s fine. I think that if churches can diversify the ways that they worship, that’s really important.”

This spring, Alexander was an online participant and part of the PC(USA)’s delegation to the 66th Commission on the Status of Women, which focused on gender equity and the empowerment of women and girls in the context of climate change.

From the very start of the two weeks of CSW, Alexander said, “the PC(USA) delegation welcomed me with open arms. They were so excited, so encouraging, and it wasn’t performative at all. … I felt like they truly valued the voices of young people in our church.”

During one talk, Alexander heard a speaker say church leaders have two specific powers: the power of convincing and the power of convening.

Church leaders “have a voice of authority. The church is one of the few intergenerational institutions we have left in the country,” Alexander said. “It gave me an appreciation for the role faith leaders can play. … God has brought us together for a reason. Also, God has given us the tools we need to address these crises — whether it’s Covid, racial justice, economic justice — we have the tools to address all these every day.”

“Every church member has their own little passion projects that they love, and that’s wonderful,” Alexander said. “It’s one of the strengths of the church. We all have this commonality where we believe in God. I think if we start there and then we work through that to address all these other issues, we’re unstoppable.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Kevin Garvey, Funds Development Specialist, Presbyterian Foundation
Margaret Gay, Associate, International Property, World Mission, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray

Lord our God, we thank you for calling us to be your people. We pray that we may in gratitude extend your love to the many who still need your touch. We ask that you reveal your will for us daily and grant us the grace to yield to the prompting of your Spirit and to walk in your will. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Prayers and determination bring Peru YAVs home safely

With a lot of help from their friends, here’s the story of their arduous return to the U.S.

September 16, 2020

The three Peru Young Adult Volunteers, Juliana Bernier, Andrew Avram and Rachel Adams. (Photo by Jed Koball)

When the State Department recommended that U.S. citizens return home in March due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Rev. Everdith Landrau, working with the World Mission crisis management team, followed the directive of the Rev. Dr. Diane Moffett, president and executive director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency, to close the five international YAV sites for the remainder of the year. Most of the YAVs were able to obtain flights quickly because they were near major airports. YAV Juliana Bernier, who was serving in Moyobamba, Peru, was able to leave April 2 with a group of American tourists who were staying in the area.

But YAVs Rachel Adams and Andrew Avram were serving in Huánuco, Peru, a 10-hour drive from Lima, in the mountainous central Andes. Adams was working with Casa del Buen Trato, a shelter for female adolescent survivors of sexual abuse. Avram was at Granja Lindero Ecológica, an ecological farm run by the nongovernmental organization Paz y Esperanza, a member of the Peru Joining Hands Network.

On March 15, Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra called for a 15-day lockdown for the entire country. No one was allowed outside unless they were going to a doctor, pharmacy or grocery store. Violators would be jailed. The lockdown was announced that day at 8 p.m. and went into effect at midnight. Adams and Avram had no choice but to shelter in place in Huánuco with their host families. They began making travel plans to leave for the U.S. as soon as the restrictions were lifted.

After two weeks, the lockdown was extended; it’s still active today. Those travel plans had to be scrapped. Heightening the anxiety for the YAVS and for site coordinator Jenny Valles Koball, they were being told the U.S. Embassy would be ending repatriation flights to the U.S. on April 10, just a few days away.

And “we had been told we were very unlikely candidates to be repatriated since we’re young, were far away from the embassy and had a safe place to stay,” said Adams. “At the same time, we were seeing other YAVs arriving home and it was hard. Juliana and I were first to ask to return home because we felt we were an additional burden on our host families and our work sites. We were crushed.”

Koball and her husband and fellow mission co-worker Jed called embassies, police and transportation authorities. It was a 10-hour drive to Lima. They needed transportation waivers and they had to be at the embassy by a certain time or they would lose their seats.

Moffett and several members of World Mission’s crisis team were on the phone and wrote letters to government officials in the U.S., as well as both the U.S. and Peru embassies.

Finally, on the afternoon of April 5, Adams received a call that she and Avram had seats on a flight out the next day. They had to be in Lima at 10 a.m. Monday. As they were saying goodbye to their host families and finishing their packing, the embassy called back and said they didn’t realize they were so far away and wanted them to give up their seats since they might not be able to make it to Lima in time. They still didn’t have the transportation waiver they needed. Adams asked for 15 minutes. She called Koball for help.

Koball was able to reach a Peruvian transportation official who connected her with another official. That person knew how to get the necessary documentation from the embassy. He offered to forward it to the checkpoints they would have to clear on their way to Lima.

At 11that night, Avram’s host father, Johony Rosas, picked them up in a borrowed car to begin the journey to Lima.

They were stopped three times at police barricades. At the fourth, their passports and car were photographed, but for the next several hours they had a police escort most of the way to Lima.

Rosas, who only had a 24-hour travel pass and would be jailed if he violated it, slept one hour and then headed home to Huánuco. Koball said he asked for nothing except a little help with gas money.

Kathy Melvin, Director of Mission Communications, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Rosemary Mitchell, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Lee Mitchum, Presbyterian Foundation

Let us pray:

Dear God, thank you for showing us such great love through sending your one and only Son. Help us to remember the true meaning showing loved to one another. In your name we pray. Amen.