Blessings Without Boundaries

The PW Mission Pledge
Interpretive Materials

“People will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down at the feast in the Kingdom of God.” (Luke 13:29 gnt*)

*Scripture quotations marked (gnt) are from the Good News Translation in Today’s English Version — Second Edition Copyright © 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by permission.

Since the mid-1800s Presbyterian women have given unselfishly in celebration of God’s grace, building a community of faith that witnesses to the promise of God’s realm.

There are no boundaries to the blessings your PW Mission Pledge provides. The PW Mission Pledge is second-mile giving — generously given gifts that go beyond regular pledging to the church. While donations to the church fund many important programs, financial support of PW’s Mission Pledge allows for additional churchwide mission work and supports Presbyterian Women at churchwide, synod, presbytery and congregational levels. Sacrificial or second-mile giving helps PW and PC(USA) mission thrive, and betters the lives of people throughout the world. With the challenges people face in every part of the world to live healthy, productive lives, your PW Mission Pledge gifts are more crucial than ever before to the church’s ability to respond to their needs.

• Blessings Without Boundaries
• The PW Mission Pledge witnesses to the promise of God’s realm in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• The PW Mission Pledge witnesses to the promise of God’s realm in south Florida.
• The PW Mission Pledge witnesses to the promise of God’s realm in one woman’s understanding of giving.

Blessings Without Boundaries
By Emily Enders Odom

Just ask any Presbyterian woman why she gives to the PW Mission Pledge and the talk invariably turns to walking.

“When we support the mission of Presbyterian Women, we walk in the footsteps of our foremothers,” says Hazel Fuhrmeister of Mystic, Connecticut. “Not only is the PW Mission Pledge a great legacy and a vital part of our giving, it is also a living expression of our Christian faith and our calling.”

In a world where restricted giving is increasingly on the rise, Presbyterian Women holds faithfully to the model and the witness of its predecessor organizations — United Presbyterian Women, Women of the Church, and the 198th General Assembly (1986) that created Presbyterian Women — to call boldly for giving without strings attached.

“Making a mission pledge is one time I don’t mind saying, ‘I’ve always done it that way,’” says Carolyn Jordan of Birmingham, Alabama. “As we are reminded in Psalm 26, we are called to walk in our integrity and to trust God without wavering. It is God who guides the allocation of our Mission Pledge funds through the voices of our elected and appointed PW leadership.”

For the Presbyterian woman, giving to the Mission Pledge is a sacred responsibility, as the monies collected constitute the organization’s lifeblood, the basic source of funding for its program and mission at all levels — congregation, presbytery, synod and churchwide. All gifts are channeled through and administered by Presbyterian Women, with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as the Mission Pledge’s largest beneficiary.

“While much of our giving is to special offerings in response to specific needs, the Mission Pledge is our opportunity to give simply because we are blessed and want to give,” Fuhrmeister says. “It is a ‘no-strings-attached’ gift that enables Presbyterian Women to use the money where it will do the most good.” 

Known more familiarly as “second-mile giving,” the PW Mission Pledge challenges each woman to give above and beyond the tithe that she makes to her own congregation.

“It is critical that women support the PW Mission Pledge because it is our opportunity to plug into what the denomination is doing around the world in mission,” says Jordan. “Walking the path of ‘second-mile giving’ takes us where we couldn’t ordinarily go.”

So much talk of walking naturally evokes Micah 6:8, with its clarion call “to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.” In fact, Micah’s message on behalf of the marginalized and the oppressed resonates well with both the goals and the beneficiaries of the PW Mission Pledge. 

Mission Pledge funds have been used in the past specifically for many ongoing PC(USA) programs, including new mission workers who have not yet developed funding networks, the Presbyterian Hunger Program’s Enough for Everyone ministry, International Health Ministries, the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program and other vital ministries.

For the PW organization itself, Mission Pledge funds provide support at all levels. At the national level, Mission Pledge funds are used for administration, program work and contributions to various PC(USA) mission partnerships and programs — Presbyterian Health, Education and Welfare (PHEWA), National Network of Presbyterian College Women (NNPCW), Racial Ethnic Young Women Together (REYWT) and global AIDS relief efforts, among others.

“Mission Pledge funds enable PW participation in leadership training, denominational conferences and ecumenical events, thus enriching lives and PW immeasurably,” Fuhrmeister says. “It has been a joy for me to not only be involved in such growth opportunities myself, but to watch women grow over the years, developing skills they may not have known they had and becoming advocates for issues that they first encountered through these wider experiences.”

Such ecumenical events include Church Women United, World Day of Prayer, Fellowship of the Least Coin, the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches.

So far-reaching, in fact, is the impact of the PW Mission Pledge that a fitting, new campaign theme has been adopted — “Blessings without Boundaries” — based on Luke 13:29, which captures the Mission Pledge’s bountiful and unrestricted nature. “People will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down at the feast in the Kingdom of God.” (gnt*)

After so much walking, it’s good at last to sit down in the eternal presence of God!

— Emily Enders Odom, a member of the PW Fundraising Task Group, is associate for communications for The Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts and Hands of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and a minister member of Salem Presbytery.

What does your Mission Pledge make possible?

The PW Mission Pledge witnesses to the promise of God’s realm in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Cheri Harper talks about how the PW Mission Pledge helped shape PW’s mission projects.

When Together in Service was introduced last year, I thought it would be easy to find new projects to update our hands-on mission program. All our committee needed to do was talk to our Presbyterian partners in the United States and abroad and the perfect program would simply jump out. Unfortunately, searching for a new overseas mission program from the comfort of my office was much like shopping for a new house online. Pictures and stories could convey some important information, but without meeting the potential new neighbors, trying out the new living space, and taking in the sights, sounds and smells of the new surroundings, it was nearly impossible to get a good feel for where we should put down some roots.

Thanks to funding from the PW Mission Pledge, I did not have to seek out a new program from afar for long. In May 2007 I went on a two-week trip to learn more about Presbyterian mission work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Seeing the country with my own eyes, visiting with our mission coworkers and getting to know our partners in the Presbyterian community of Congo gave me a much better look at the neighborhood, so to speak.

As I traveled around the country, I took in the sights and sounds of women singing with joy, pastors and hospital workers opening their arms with overwhelming hospitality, and children giggling with excitement as they encountered a fascinating foreigner. I also saw people working tirelessly to eke out a living in a country that nearly has been destroyed by war, mismanagement and neglect. My heart broke as I saw school-age girls and boys wandering around instead of getting an education. I visited hospitals where patients lay on the floor because the beds had no mattresses. I held back tears as I held a nearly weightless baby suffering from severe malnutrition.

With the trip nearing its conclusion, my hope for a new mission project was realized when the Presbyterian Women Palm Project indeed jumped out for us. The people of Congo need much more than a single donation toward health, education and evangelism programs. For our Presbyterian partners in Congo to have effective ministries, they must have better methods of income generation. The PW Palm Project will allow women to donate funds toward the establishment of palm plantations that will produce palm oil for cooking. One $20,000 investment from PW will generate $200,000 per year for 30 years to subsidize the work of the Presbyterian community of Congo. The Mission Pledge not only offered me a transformative experience in Congo, but also made it possible for the Spirit to move Presbyterian Women into a new mission opportunity that will help the people of Congo in life-changing ways.

— Cheri Harper is a PW Program Associate.

The PW Mission Pledge witnesses to the promise of God’s realm in south Florida.

Ann Ferguson talks about how the PW Mission Pledge expands the ministries of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

Because your PW Mission Pledge is given as undesignated funds to General Assembly Council (GAC) Basic Support, it takes a little digging to find out what it is doing here at home. You have to look beyond the narrow boundaries of the GAC structure to see it at work. I was reminded of this when Angel Suarez, GAC staff for New Immigrant Ministries, told me about a project in which he is involved.

In South Florida, your Mission Pledge dollars will help plant multicultural Bible study groups, the first step to growing a new and vibrant congregation. In 2007, the Presbytery of Tropical Florida and several General Assembly offices began a cooperative project to plant a Portuguese-language multicultural ministry. When offices such as New Immigrant Ministries in the U.S.A., Multicultural Ministries and Small Church and Community Ministries partner with presbyteries, your Mission Pledge dollars to the Basic Support budget of the General Assembly Council are stretched to do more than they could alone.

With the help of PW Mission Pledge funds, the General Assembly Council is able to work with the Presbytery of Tropical Florida to minister to Portuguese-speaking people in south Florida through a multicultural worshiping community. The new cooperative project will set the foundations for a new multicultural congregation that enables people of all ethnicities, ages and socio-economic groups to experience a whole-hearted worship of God, inspiring heartfelt fellowship, valuable discipleship, healing and meaningful ministry and mission in the Reformed tradition. It is just one of the ways your PW Mission Pledge makes it possible to share God’s love.

— Ann Ferguson is PW program coordinator.

The PW Mission Pledge witnesses to the promise of God’s realm in one woman’s understanding of giving.

Frances Jones talks about how she determined her gift to the PW Mission Pledge.

Gifts to Presbyterian Women’s Mission Pledge are over and above regular church support.

I’ve always known that. My grandmother and mother tithed regularly to the church and then made additional contributions to Presbyterian Women. Grandmother gave to PW out of her egg money; my mother gave chicken money.

Every spring, when Mama bought baby chicks to make replacements in her laying flock, she got enough so we could eat chicken all year. Then she bought 25 extra chickens, which she sold as fryers. That money went to Presbyterian Women. She sold live chickens for 50 cents each. If she killed the chicken, picked off the feathers and dressed it for the skillet, she charged 75 cents.

One morning, while Mama and I were shelling peas, Thelma Hornbeck called, all in a flit. Her husband was bringing company for lunch and she had no meat. Could my mother get a chicken dressed for her by 11:00 am?

“Yes, I’ll have it ready,” Mama told her. She set aside her pan of peas, went out to the chicken yard, caught the fryer, killed it, scalded it, picked off the feathers, dressed it and had it cooling in the refrigerator before 11:00.

Thelma whirled into the driveway at 11:05. My mother asked me to run out and get the pan Thelma brought in which to carry the chicken home. Mama wrapped the chicken in waxed paper, put it in the pan, and we took it to Thelma. I put it on the front floor of her car. She handed my mother two quarters.

“It’s 75 cents,” Mama told her.

“Oh.” Thelma frowned. She rummaged in her purse, hesitated, then brought out two dimes and a nickel and put them in Mama’s firmly outstretched hand.

Then, ignoring Mama, Thelma looked at me. “I’m so glad the chicken is dressed. You know, I just can’t imagine sticking my hand inside a chicken and pulling out those warm entrails.” She gave a little shiver, shifted the car into gear, backed out and drove away.

“Well, she wasn’t very nice,” I said, staring after her car.

Mama didn’t say anything, just started into the house.

I said, “I don’t like her. She didn’t even thank you for getting that thing ready on short notice.”

Mama shrugged. “I have God’s 75 cents. That’s all I care about.”

That day I learned sacrifice isn’t always giving time and energy — sometimes it’s enduring disdain and criticism.

Mama and her chickens came to mind this year as I prayed about my contribution to Presbyterian Women. I counted back. I hadn’t increased my giving since 1980. A sacrifice then, now it was just extra money I had. I was embarrassed.

“Yes, Lord,” I prayed, “I’ll make a sacrificial gift this year. I’ll double — no, triple — what I’ve been giving.”

“That will please God,” I thought, expecting a spiritual pat on the head. The blessing didn’t come. I fretted a few weeks and prayed again, “Well, four times the old amount?”

Nothing.

“Six times? That’s getting up there, Lord.”

Nothing.

After a couple of months, giving God plenty of time to reconsider, I tried again. “I'll give eight times more than last year.”

I heard a breath stir. “Close, but no cigar.”

Not until another two weeks, when I got to 11 times, 11 times, last year’s contribution, did I, at last, sense God’s approval. I wrote a check for almost $300.

My mother put up with live chickens, feathers, entrails and, occasionally, condescension as she earned her second-mile money for Presbyterian Women. All I had to do was gather up the clothes catalogs on my desk and throw them away. I’ll be wearing these tan jeans another year. They’re my Presbyterian Women sacrificial pants.

I’m honestly pleased that my donation to Presbyterian Women will help set up clean water systems serving hundreds of people in the developing world. Part of the money will be used for counseling and guiding teenagers and feeding hungry people right here at home. I’m glad about all that. But amazingly, it’s as if I’ve received sudden abundance and it’s my cup that’s running over!

— Frances Jones is a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She served as co-moderator of Presbyterian Women at First Presbyterian Church in Bend, Oregon.