June 2008

MIJHH receives half-million dollar anonymous gift

Funds for six new overseas mission positions brings campaign total to 31

LOUISVILLE — Citing deep concerns for the health, education and well-being of the world’s children, an anonymous donor has made a gift of $510,456 to the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands (MIJHH). 

The funds have been received and will ensure that six new mission co-workers will be sent to serve in positions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Poland, Pakistan and Costa Rica.

MIJHH is the five-year campaign of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to raise $40 million for new international mission personnel and for church development in the United States, particularly racial-ethnic and immigrant congregations. The campaign will continue to receive pledges toward its goal through the 218th General Assembly (2008), with payments accepted through Dec. 31, 2012. [Read more]

May 2008

A letter of prayer

Carol Dolezal-Ng, a PC(USA) mission worker funded through the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands, is a development associate for interpretation and support with the Near East School of Theology in Beirut, Lebanon. She is U.S. based, working from her home in Berkeley, Calif.  As the violence in Lebanon escalated, she wrote on May 8 with a request for prayers for the people, the church, and the PC(USA)'s partner organizations in Lebanon. On May 12, she shared a letter of thanks from NEST's president, Dr. Mary Mikhael. [Read more]

May 2008

CNN’s ‘Planet in Peril’ to feature La Oroya, Peru

GREENSBORO, NC — Jacob Goad, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) long-term mission volunteer funded through the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands (MIJHH), recently accompanied a team of journalists from CNN to La Oroya, Peru, to shoot a segment there for its series, “Planet in Peril.”  

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission worker Jacob Goad (right) describes the environmental and health effects of the Doe Run smelter operation (in the background) to CNN, which is producing a documentary on the church’s work in La Oroya.  Photo courtesy of CNN

MIJHH is the five-year campaign of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to raise $40 million for new international mission personnel and for church development in the United States, particularly racial ethnic and immigrant congregations.  
 
Goad, who is based in Lima, serves as coordinator for PC(USA) delegations and mission teams visiting Peru, working in cooperation with the Evangelical Presbyterian and Reformed Church of Peru. [Read more]

April 2008

Mission Initiative reaches 25th missionary deployed

Wheartys are latest new mission personnel fully funded by campaign

LOUISVILLE – With the announcement that Bruce and Lora Whearty will begin their mission service in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in August, the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands (MIJHH) is celebrating the deployment of its 24th and 25th new mission co-workers since the campaign was launched at the 214th General Assembly (2002). [Read more]

April 2008

‘Like riding a wave’

Taylor experiences Highlands Church as among the denomination’s most inspiring congregations

Caleb Landon, director of worship arts at Highlands Church, leads the Easter Sunday celebration in Paso Robles, Calif. Photo by Joy Rose.

PASO ROBLES, Calif. — When Tom Taylor was invited to preach at the Highlands new church development here on the Sunday after Easter, he never envisioned addressing an overflow crowd.

“Imagine preaching to 700 people on the day the church traditionally calls ‘low Sunday,’” said Taylor, the PC(USA)’s deputy executive director of mission.  “It completely wowed me, what God is doing.  It’s simply astonishing what is going on here in only a year and a half’s time.” [Read more]

March 2008

A place of belonging

Salvadoran-American pastor puts Christ at the center of  new Houston congregation

The Rev. Mauricio Chacon (left), pastor of the Fuente new church development, and his wife, Gladys (right),with the burgeoning congregation. Photo by Courtney Forbes

HOUSTON — Even as a young law student in his native El Salvador, Mauricio Chacon knew that someday he would work for justice.

Little did he imagine, however, that it would be not as a lawyer, but as a community pastor, called to plant churches in new immigrant communities, first in San Francisco and now here.

Chacon, who came to the United States in the late 1970s before civil war broke out in El Salvador, was educated at McCormick Theological Seminary and ordained in 1993 by the San Francisco Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). [Read more]

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