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Nepal
Dr. Beverley Booth has been a mission co-worker since 1984, first in India and now in Nepal. Since May 2000, she has served as the director of policy and strategy with the United Mission to Nepal (UMN), helping the organization work through a strategic change process. “UMN used to be primarily an implementing organization,” she writes, “that carried out a phenomenal amount of work in the areas of health, education, and development in Nepal. Now we are an organization that facilitates Nepali organizations in the work they do.” Bev asks for prayers for the Nepali people as they struggle in the aftermath of a ten-year Maoist insurgency. With the associated breakdown of the country’s infrastructure, the poor and marginalized are increasingly at risk.
Sri Lanka
In September 2005, PrajaAbhilasha (“People’s Aspirations”) was formed as the Joining Hands network in Sri Lanka. The groups comprising PrajaAbhilasha saw the need for a collaborative and unified network in the country that focused on a land rights’ campaign for those affected not only by the 2004 tsunami, but also by war, natural disasters, and development.
Disasters and upheavals affect everyone in this multireligious country of Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians. In this context, PrajaAbhilasha works as an interfaith network, reaching out beyond religious differences and sharing in the faith and knowledge that all people, suffering and exploited, deserve peace and wholeness. “We are one community, and religion cannot overcome that call for justice among us,” writes Joining Hands companionship facilitator and mission worker Chenoa Stock.
PC(USA) People in Mission
Dr. Beverley Booth, director, policy and strategy, United Mission to Nepal
Chenoa Stock, facilitator, Joining Hands Against Hunger [Sri Lanka]
Partners/Ministries
United Mission to Nepal: Jennie Collins, executive director
National Churches Fellowship of Nepal: Rev. Simon Pandey, general secretary
National Christian Council of Sri Lanka, Presbytery of Lanka: Rev. Kumbukage Piyadasa, moderator
Theological College of Lanka: Rev. Dr. A. W. Jebanesan, principal
PC(USA) General Assembly Staff
Theresa Goodlin, GAMC
Cindy Goodman, GAMC
Rev. Jean Hilton Goodwin, FDN
Dear Lord, help us to answer your call for justice and love, not only for our neighbors and fellow Christians, but for all of your children. We thank you for the work of Praja Abhilasha and the UMN, and ask that you would continue to guide them as they serve you. Amen.
Ps. 96, 148 Ps. 49, 138
Dan. 12:1–4, 13
Acts 4:1–12; John 16:1–15
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