Janet Guyer

The daughter of Presbyterian missionaries to Thailand, Guyer is an ordained PC(USA) minister. In a letter to friends and supporters in the United States she wrote: "I have thought of you while slogging down a muddy road to a very interesting feeding program started by women in the villages who said, 'These [AIDS] orphans are our children and we need to care for them.'"

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Dorothy Hanson

Dorothy began her assignment in eastern Africa in 2004. She had worked for 40 years as a nurse, a teacher, and a teacher of nurses and spent two years as the international HIV/AIDS project manager for the PC(USA). Hanson is based in Ethiopia, where she grew up as the daughter of missionaries.

Impressed with a drama presented by an AIDS club at a church in Dembi Dollo, Hanson wrote: "The drama they presented was powerful. I wept, as did my friend and many others in the large chapel. I followed the young people out and was able to meet them and pray with them — wow!"

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Caryl Weinberg

Caryl works in western Africa. A registered nurse, she was appointed to mission service in Ethiopia in 1997 and moved to Cameroon in 2002, where she began serving as an HIV/AIDS consultant. In 2004 she accepted a position as regional liaison in western Africa and relocated to Ghana, but she continues her ministry as an HIV/AIDs consultant.

Weinberg has written about encouraging developments in the Presbyterian Community of Kinshasa (CPK) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: "The CPK wanted to 'break the silence' around HIV/AIDS, and it has made a good start. The challenge for them now is to continue the discussions about AIDS, but at the same time to respond concretely to the many needs they are facing. These are people of deep faith."

Currently Weinberg is serving as a missionary in residence in the PC(USA) Worldwide Ministries Division offices in Louisville.

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Shirley Hill

Shirley is now working with the HIV/AIDS ministry of the Presbyterian Church of Cameroon as it seeks to care for people affected by AIDS and provide prevention education. Of Cameroon's population of about 15 million, 11 percent are HIV-positive.

From 1997 to 2002 Hill, a registered nurse, worked as a health educator and parish nurse coordinator. She entered Fuller Theological Seminary in 2002, where she earned a Master of Divinity degree with a concentration in family pastoral care and counseling, and in February 2006 was ordained to the ministry of the Word and Sacrament. She is also pursuing a certificate in spiritual direction from Columbia Theological Seminary.

Hill's position in Cameroon has been funded by Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis, Minn. The congregation pledged $250,000 over a five-year period to the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands (MIJHH), a PC(USA) campaign to raise $40 million for new mission positions and new church developments.

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