Today in the Mission Yearbook - All ages fight hunger at First Presbyterian Church in Winchester, Virginia

On a recent Saturday, congregants packed 28,000 meals in two hours

May 26, 2020

Dr. Terry Sinclair and his wife, Diane Sinclair, package meals together at the First Presbyterian Church in Winchester, Va. They have been members of the church for almost 46 years. (Photo by Jeff Taylor)

Packaging thousands of meals to feed the hungry goes a lot faster when music is playing.

As feel-good hits from Creedence Clearwater Revival, Neil Diamond and Michael Jackson played from a loudspeaker in a corner of the Fellowship Hall, volunteers at First Presbyterian Church in Winchester, Virginia, packed more than 28,000 bags of rice, soy protein and dried vegetables in about two hours on a recent Saturday afternoon.

It was the second time First Presbyterian had participated in Rise Against Hunger, an international relief organization with the mission of eliminating hunger by 2030.

“First Presbyterian Church is a hunger action congregation,” said Rev. Dr. Dan McCoig, pastor of First Presbyterian. “We take seriously Jesus’ teaching to feed the hungry. Rise Against Hunger is one of our many hunger action ministries. It’s an opportunity for members of the congregation to learn more about hunger in the world and to do something concrete about it, such as making and packing meal packets for shipment to food insecure regions of our world. We get a sense of following Jesus and serving our neighbor.”

As the music played, teens and able adults stood shoulder to shoulder to fill bags with uncooked food. Other volunteers, some in wheelchairs or hooked up to oxygen tanks, handled sedentary tasks such as sealing or weighing each bag. Children, barely tall enough to see over the tables, carried large buckets filled with food from one station to another.

“I think it’s a good project for us because it brings together different generations,” said Rev. Amanda Maguire Thomas, the church’s associate pastor, as she looked at the dozens of volunteers. “The last time we did it, the youngest was 4 and the oldest was 84. We really feel it’s good for all ages and all ability levels.”

First Presbyterian, with about 840 members on the books, is located on a pedestrian mall in Winchester, a small city 75 miles west of Washington, D.C. With its prime downtown location, the church regularly hosts outreach programs, including a Thanksgiving dinner that feeds thousands and Jubilee Kitchen, which has provided a hot lunch every Saturday to community members in need for 25 years.

But the church’s mission statement calls for it to serve “Winchester and beyond,” Thomas said. Rise Against Hunger, established by a Methodist minister in 1998, helps with the “beyond.” The packaged meals are sent to places that need emergency relief during droughts, floods or political unrest. Meals are also delivered to impoverished communities that require a steady safety net of food.

Rise Against Hunger supplies the food and equipment. The church was responsible for paying for the shipping costs. “It’s really a credit to this church and this congregation with their faith and ministry. We’re not a budgeted item. It’s all donations,” said ruling elder Patrick Pearson. “The church is really big into hunger relief.”

First Presbyterian’s first Rise Against Hunger event was in June 2019 during a fifth Sunday when the church typically rolls its three services into one, often making time to complete a service project. More than 200 people showed to help that first time, and none had been assigned to a station. The line was out the door. Plus, all the packaging was completed during the regularly scheduled worship service. “I preached a sermon and then we packed the meals,” Thomas said. “This time, we said, ‘Let’s just have a dedicated time to do this.’”

Despite the slow start, the volunteers managed to get more than 14,000 meals — or one pallet of boxes — packed in one hour the first session. “I thought we should be able to do two pallets this time no problem,” said Pearson, adding that he hopes to make Rise Against Hunger a yearly event.

First Presbyterian will find out in a couple of months exactly where its packaged meals are going. Whether the meals stay close by or are shipped thousands of miles doesn’t matter to 71-year-old Jan Smith, who has attended First Presbyterian her entire life. The reason for helping doesn’t change with geography, she said.

“We do it because Christ tells us to,” Smith said. “That’s what it boils down to — this is what Christ tells us to do.”

Robyn Taylor, Reporter and Writer, The Winchester Star, Winchester, Virginia, written for the Presbyterian Foundation

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Dave Dinkel, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
Carla Dobson, Presbyterian Foundation

Let us pray:

Most powerful Creator and gracious God, be our guide. Inspire us to build unity and trust among your people. Teach us to live as you would have us live. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Pursuing peace in the midst of chaos and fear

This Memorial Day, we give thanks for those who gave their lives for our country

May 25, 2020

Chaplain (CDR) Walter (Sonny) Dinkins, SOTF-SE Afghanistan leads a memorial service

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27 NIV).

Memorial Day calls us as individuals and as a nation to remember all who have died in military service to our country. Our Memorial Day dates to the Civil War, as mothers and widows, both north and south, decorated the graves of their loved ones who had perished. The 30th of May became the traditional date for remembrance. Now we remember our fallen on the final Monday of May.

Presbyterians pursue peace between and among all people in our communities and across the globe — a lasting peace, not as the world knows, but as God has given and called us to seek and to share.

As we observe Memorial Day this year during the COVID-19 pandemic, let us remember and be thankful for those throughout history who have sacrificed their lives in response to our nation’s call. During the 1918 flu pandemic, more military members died from disease than from combat in World War I. Even today, because of their dedication and service with honor, we continue to enjoy freedom to celebrate life, act freely, pursue justice and proclaim the Good News of the Gospel.

Informed by the selfless service of those we remember, may we increase our actions and efforts to bring unity and trust between and among all people regardless of our differences. Let us unite in Matthew 25-inspired ministries and use our gifts to complement the sacrifice of those who purchased and preserved our freedom.

May your Memorial Day 2020 be both a day of challenge and thanksgiving as together we pray for our leaders, engage the travails of these times and look forward to the promised peace of our Lord.

Lyman Smith, CAPT, CHC, USN, Retired, Director, Presbyterian Federal Chaplaincies

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff

Dawn Diggs, Presbyterian Foundation
Rebecca Dimon, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray:

Gracious God, we are grateful for those who gave their lives in hope of worldly peace and unity among humanity. Their service came not only at the cost of their future, but dramatically changed the lives of their families and loved ones as well.  With thankful hearts, we ask that you inspire each of us to use our gifts, our time, our talents and treasure to bring unity in the midst of diversity, and to proclaim and live out your peace that transcends the challenges of this current age. Amen.

Minute for Mission: Intercultural Church Sunday

May 24, 2020

The 223rd General Assembly (2018) approved the initiative to “Declare an Imperative for the Reformation of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) in being a Transformative Church in This Intercultural Era.” The 223rd General Assembly also declared the period from 2020 to 2030 as the “Decade of Intercultural Transformation” by focusing on transformative priorities and initiatives across the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

The intercultural initiative calls for the PC(USA) to become a transformative church that is truly inclusive and genuinely appreciates each other’s distinctiveness and differences. The initiative makes it clear that living in an intercultural society brings opportunities for the church to engage in effective and relevant ministries that model God’s community, where mutual recognition and understanding of differences through self-examination, relationship-building and equitable access to power are not mere ideals but actual practices. Presbyterians are challenged to change by interacting and building deep relationships with people of different races and cultures, by educating in cultural humility and intercultural ministry, and by being involved in intercultural coalitions with other people of faith as allies, advocates and partners in making a reality the vision of becoming God’s intercultural community.

One of the intercultural initiative’s mandates is to urge all councils of the church, seminaries and other church entities to “take action to be intercultural in their life, work and worship.” Yes, it is time for Presbyterians to take decisive action to become a transformative church in this intercultural era. We pray that this initiative may be the beginning of a new Reformation Movement in the church where all of God’s people who have already come from the east, west, north and south sit together at the Lord’s table and welcome one another as Christ has welcomed us.

Lemuel García-Arroyo, Associate Director of Racial Equity & Women’s Intercultural Ministries, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Michelle Diallo, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
Christy Dickson, Presbyterian Foundation

Let us pray:

God of love, we give you thanks for all of the cultures, races, ethnicities and languages of your people. Give us the wisdom and the courage to be faithful to the call of loving all of your people as you have loved us and to be transformed into a church that truly reflects who you are and who you love.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Fellowship is not just social time

Showing up for one another — and God — is a necessary practice

May 23, 2020

Years ago, I had the pleasure of talking with Bruce Joel Rubin, a screenwriter who won an Oscar for his screenplay of the romantic thriller “Ghost.”

The next project he would direct was “My Life.” It was a film about a young man dying of cancer played by Michael Keaton. The movie premiered the same weekend as “Mrs. Doubtfire,” starring Robin Williams. Guess which movie the public went out in droves to see?

Rubin felt bad, until he met a young man who told him how much the movie had meant to him. His mother was dying of cancer and she could see that her son was having trouble dealing with her impending death. She suggested that they see “My Life.” They came home able to talk more freely about their situation, and they wept together.

“I realized that I had made that movie for those two people,” Rubin said. “And that was enough.”

When I was a young pastor, I had a recurring dream that the church would be full, and I had no sermon. I’d wake in a sweaty panic. Now I wonder if pastors have the opposite dream. They’ve got a sermon, but no one shows up. I’m thinking about this because I have a sneaking suspicion that churches hold and treasure a spiritual practice I personally prize above all others: coming together in fellowship. But in our busy world, it’s hard finding the time to get together, and not just for social events. Fellowship goes deeper than socializing. Fellowship is participating with God and with one another in the trials and blessings of life together.

In seminary I served a little white-steepled church. When I was ordained, a group from that church came to the service, including a grandmotherly lady named Jean. She took me aside after the service to tell me how I had helped her once. I didn’t remember, so she filled me in.

“Remember when you called me and asked why I wasn’t at the party where we decorated the church for Christmas? And then you came and got me?” she asked. “Before that day, I had decided I was too old to be going out at night. But I had such a good time that night, I decided that perhaps I was being too hasty in retiring from life. I went back to my doctor and said I’d like to go ahead with those treatments for my arthritis he’d been after me to try. I felt so good I decided I’d go on a cruise. I met a man on the ship, we fell in love, we got married and …”

Everything for Jean had changed and she had chalked it up to a phone call inviting her not to retire from life.

The spiritual practice of fellowship is also important because it reminds us that no one is expendable, especially in a small church.

In my first, small church, there was an elderly usher named Eddie Gatzke. No one could remember a time when Eddie wasn’t the usher. He was warm and quiet, and before Christmas he always, very quietly, handed me a card with $20 in it.

When he died, no one jumped into the position of usher, because no one presumed they could fill Eddie’s shoes. So, for over a year we were sloppy when it came to getting bulletins into people’s hands. We couldn’t imagine the church without Eddie and there was something sweet as well as bitter about that. It just made the church all the more precious.

What does the spiritual practice of fellowship look like? In the words of Frederick Buechner, “It should have us throwing our arms around each other like people who have just discovered that every single man and woman in those pews is not just another familiar or unfamiliar face, but is our long-lost brother and our long-lost sister because despite the fact that we have all walked in different gardens and knelt at different graves, we have all, humanly speaking, come from the same place and are heading out into the same blessed mystery that awaits us all.”

Scott Dalgarno, Lead Pastor, Wasatch Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Sheldon Dennis, Board of Pensions
Ann DeVilbiss, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation

Let us pray:

Gracious God, thank you for how you are using us to inspire your church. We pray that each of us would recognize how we are — and can be — part of a church participating with you in drawing others closer to Jesus. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Matthew 25 in Iran

The seeds of mission planted in the 1830s are still bearing fruit

May 22, 2020

A reunion of former student Iran Kashkooli Murphy and Peace Corps volunteer Lynne Meena, who reuinted in California on Valentine’s Day after 56 years. (Contributed photo)

A reunion between a Peace Corps volunteer in Iran in the 1960s and one of her students recently made the national news.

The former student, Iran Murphy, who pronounces her first name “E-Ron” and who lives in California, had been searching for her favorite teacher, Lynne Meena of Louisville, for more than 56 years — a record, according to the Peace Corps. Murphy, who immigrated to the U.S. from Iran in the 1970s, spent most of her life thinking about how much her teacher had changed her life. With help from the Peace Corps and the internet, these two friends reunited in San Francisco on Valentine’s Day. CBS News covered the reunion.

More than five decades had passed, but the bond of friendship that connected these women in English classes in Iran was still as strong as ever.

Murphy’s son, Rosstin, also served a term in the Peace Corps in China eight years ago, in part because he had heard his mother talk about “Miss Meena” his entire life.

It was President John F. Kennedy’s challenge, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country” that prompted Meena, then 22, to join the Peace Corps after graduation from the University of Louisville. She asked if she could be assigned to work in the Middle East because her grandparents were from Lebanon.

Meena’s brother, David, also served in the Peace Corps in Tanzania, and her step-grandson, Ben Rapp, 24, will be teaching English with the Peace Corps in Sri Lanka, beginning in June.

Before leaving the U.S., Meena completed a 12-week training program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the site where, on Oct. 14, 1960, then-Senator John F. Kennedy shared his vision for what would become the Peace Corps.

When Meena’s group of 70 Peace Corps volunteers arrived in Iran in September 1964, they stayed at Alborz College in Tehran for two weeks of orientation. The educational work of the Peace Corps in Iran from 1962 until all volunteers were pulled out in 1976 was made possible, in part, through the groundwork and seed planting of the American Presbyterian Mission, which began in 1834 when the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions appointed the Rev. Justin Perkins as its first missionary to Iran, then known as Persia.

Perkins planted a church, opened a school for boys and a school for girls and established a printing press. He also translated the Scriptures into the Syriac language, a derivation of the Aramaic alphabet.

The American Presbyterian Mission established the country’s first Presbyterian churches, the first schools — primary to college level — as well as the first modern hospitals, clinics and nursing schools; the first college and the first college for women. Many of the professional leaders of Iran were graduates of the American Presbyterian Alborz College, where Meena and so many other Peace Corps volunteers over the years completed orientation upon their arrival.

Meena received her assignment to teach English in three girls’ high schools in the southwest city of Abadan. Once she got established, the Peace Corps’ acting director of the Division of Volunteer Support said, “Lynne, there’s a TV station in Abadan. Get on it if you can.”

So Meena visited the TV station, knocked on the door of the station director and said, in the Farsi language, “My name is Lynne Meena. I’m with the American Peace Corps. I’d like to see if I can teach an English class on your television station.”

The director replied in English, “Oh, heck, come on in. I went to San José State.”

“He was just a wonderful guy, and he gave me this TV slot,” Meena said. “He said I could have five minutes, three nights a week.” Due to the popularity of the show, the time slot grew to 30 minutes. People watched from as far away as Iraq and Kuwait. According to the U.S. consulate, more than 10,000 viewers tuned in to learn English with Miss Meena.

In Abadan, Meena worked in partnership with the Ministry of Education of Iran, teaching regular and honors English classes of 40 to 50 girls per class in three Abadan high schools.

Tammy Warren, Communications Associate, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Allison Davis, Office of the General Assembly
Alicia Demartra-Pressley, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray:

Holy One, we seek to be fully alive within and without. Shape us according to your purpose, that we may reflect your glory. Bless us to be a blessing. All this we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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Today in the Mission Yearbook - Presbyterian campus ministry group makes a commitment to Matthew 25

Historical legacy helps University of Georgia’s Presbyterian Campus Ministry to drive anti-racism work

May 21, 2020

University of Georgia students are photographed at the Presbyterian Student Center. (Contributed photo)

The Presbyterian Campus Ministry at the University of Georgia (UGA) is not new. It’s been around since 1940 and housed in its current space since 1959, which served as a safe space for African American students during the tumultuous 1960s.

With the integration of students and the Vietnam War, a historical review reveals that Presbyterian Campus Ministry was taking on unpopular social stances that were difficult — and Christian. That legacy drives the ministry’s work toward anti-racism and dismantling white supremacy today. It also makes the ministry a great fit for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Matthew 25 initiative.

The three focus areas of Matthew 25 are dismantling structural racism, eradicating systemic poverty and building congregational vitality. This bold invitation was launched in April 2019; the university’s campus ministry is now part of over 460 congregations/groups/mid councils to have made the commitment to the Matthew 25 invitation.

The Presbyterian Campus Ministry is not a congregation, but a community of faith comprised of students who minister to each other and the university community. The Rev. Will Norman is the campus minister and executive director of the Presbyterian Campus Ministry, which is housed in the Presbyterian Student Center. “We saw the foundational narrative of how this ministry has been and how the Spirit has been at work on this campus and wanted to continue that,” Norman said.

Beginning in January, the campus ministry started addressing the “false peace” narrative that the United States had reached post-racism because of the election of President Barack Obama. “We are addressing the ways we have proclaimed peace has come and still maintain an inequitable system for non-white folks,” Norman said. “Most importantly, how the Christian faith does and can speak into that reality.”

The Presbyterian Campus Ministry board, staff and students are all reading the book “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo. They are holding weekly discussions that are proving to be challenging as expected with this topic, but Norman said there are “light bulbs going off for students and leaders” in the process.

“‘White Fragility’ is not specifically theological. We are hoping to move to a more theological lens in the reading material selected for fall,” Norman said.

This spring, the campus ministry is emphasizing the faithful pursuit of racial justice, including education, self-examination and intentional anti-racism training. The Journey Toward Justice project is facilitating programs through which students build their capacity to engage thoughtfully in advocacy work. They are following the end of Matthew’s gospel, which aligns with the three areas of focus of the Matthew 25 invitation.

“We had this crazy idea that all these things Jesus said are things we should be paying attention to,” said Norman. “We’ve got the educational piece down. How do we convert it into disciples who advocate for structural change and build relationships across the barriers, across different people groups, racially, economic and otherwise?”

Melody K. Smith, Associate for Organizational Communications, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Kathie Davenport, Board of Pensions
Deb Davies, Office of the General Assembly

Let us pray:

God of boundless love, thank you for meeting us at our place of deepest need. Look with compassion on our brothers and sisters. Fill us with your Spirit, that we may witness to our love in the world. Amen.