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]

February 2008

Faith, the simple life and coffee

Jacob Goad and Elvira Nélida Saccaco Vasquez are serenaded by a Peruvian musician while sharing a cup of coffee. Photo courtesy of Jacob Goad

LIMA, Peru – Unbeknownst to Elvira Nélida Saccaco Vasquez, hidden in the midst of the coffee beans — one of her great passions in life — was an even more precious gift.

The beans concealed an engagement ring, signifying the promise of a mutually shared life in Christ through the covenant of marriage.

“I told her I was taking her out to coffee,” said Vasquez’s fiancé, PC(USA) long-term mission volunteer Jacob Goad. “Well, there was coffee, but there was also another surprise. Live, romantic, Peruvian music, wine and a ring.” [Read more]

January 2008

A unique fundraising vehicle

Before. Photo courtesy of Brad Copeland

Resurrected ’67 Mustang brings new life to Riverside Presbytery’s Joining Hearts & Hands campaign

Riverside, Calif. – Brad Copeland took his son-in-law’s urgent phone call straight from a vacant lot, where the neglected shell of a vintage car had come to its presumed final resting place.

Copeland, pastor of the 350-member Magnolia Presbyterian Church here, listened patiently as Aaron Cohen made his plea. [Read more]

December 2007

A tree on a hill

California NCD lights the way to Christmas

This Christmas, as Highlands Church completes its first full year of ministry in the rapidly growing community of Paso Robles, Ca., it has literally blazed a path toward new birth.

More than 250 people, their way illuminated by a host of “luminarias,” journeyed up a hill recently to watch as a 25-foot Christmas tree made of lights was set ablaze high above the church’s property in the expanding city center. [Read more]

December 2007

Riverside Presbytery partners with Joining Hearts & Hands in $500,000 campaign

80% will support new churches, 20% to fund a new missionary

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. - Riverside Presbytery, headquartered here, voted at its Nov.  13 meeting to launch a $500,000 campaign in partnership with the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands (MIJHH). [Read more]

December 2007

An important call to action from Linda Valentine, Executive Director, General Assembly Council, concerning Joining Hearts & Hands:

Linda Valentine

Because we can accomplish more together than we can individually, I am inviting you to rise with me to a new challenge.

When the Steering Committee of Joining Hearts & Hands met on Wednesday via conference call, we learned that $212,000 stands between us and the deployment of gifted mission candidates to serve where Christ has called them.  Denise England – called to Egypt; Carol Dolezal-Ng – called to Lebanon; Kathy Reeves – called to Switzerland; and other qualified candidates who are ready and waiting need your financial assistance now.  If we do not raise the needed funds by December 15, at least three of these candidates will be unable to fulfill the mission that Christ has laid upon their hearts, as their window of opportunity will have passed. 

You can make a difference in so many lives by making a gift now. You can also learn more about Carol and Kathy. 

The First Presbyterian Church of East Brady, Pennsylvania, voted last week to pledge $10,000 to Kathy Reeves’ position in Geneva.  “We were called by the need,” said Debbie McCanna, clerk of session, “an established mission project that had proven its worth and needed funding.”

I give thanks to God for that congregation’s generosity, and pray that you, too, will be called by the need.

Linda Bryant Valentine
Executive Director
General Assembly Council

November 2007

Peace River Presbytery votes to conclude its Joining Hearts & Hands campaign by year-end

Economic downturn, staff turnover, loss of $1 million pledge cited

FT. MYERS, Fla., November 15, 2007 – At the recommendation of  Peace River Presbytery’s Board of Trustees and the Presbytery Council, the presbytery voted unanimously Nov. 15 to conclude the Peace River Joining Hearts & Hands fundraising campaign effective Dec. 31, 2007. 

The action also called for the formation of a subcommittee to frame the end of the presbytery campaign, the continuation of a presbytery-wide conversation about how best to support the mission projects to which the presbytery committed itself, and sending a letter of thanks to the national MIJHH steering committee. [Read more]

November 2007

Stepping into the unknown

Spiritual signs lead pastor to remote nook of New Mexico

The steeple on the old Mission Church undergoing repairs.

LAS VEGAS, N.M. — Having followed God’s call from the heart of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona into the mountains of Northeastern New Mexico, Randy Campbell understands firsthand what it means to step into the unknown.

Campbell undertook the strenuous journey to Las Vegas — in a rented U-Haul, which developed a flat tire along the way — to serve the First United Presbyterian Church here beginning Nov. 5.

“We really have an experience of the power of Christ when we get beyond our comfort zones,” Campbell said.  “When you move out of your comfort zone, you get more aware of where God is at work, and God was absolutely at work in so many details of this trip.  Signs and affirmations just kept coming.” [Read more]

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