Read reflections from Mission Challenge participants
After an entire day of meetings at Northern Plains Presbytery (and still continuing on after my presentation), they were so very responsive and attentive. One man even told me I was the best part of the day! Though I knew they were tired, I felt I had their interest while I spoke.
At a youth presentation for Trinity Presbyterian Church in Woodbury, Minnesota ... It was encouraging and refreshing to be with the young ones and see their interest and curiosity.
—Chenoa Stock, Sri Lanka
I was visiting a church in Grand Junction that was a mission-receiving congregation of the Presbytery of Western Colorado. They felt called to reach out in mission to the neighbors around them. To step out in faith and begin offering mission and ministry to Hispanics in the community, many of whom are seasonal workers from Mexico. The outreach has evolved in recent years and now has become a blended community of faith. Sunday worship begins with song and prayer together. At the time of the sermon, the Spanish speakers and the English speakers hear the gospel in separate rooms in their own language and come back together to present the offering, sing, offer more prayers and receive the benediction.
It was my pleasure, after having an opportunity to give a children's message to the whole gathering, to then go into an adjoining room with the Spanish speakers and a translator. On this Sunday, not much translation was needed. One gentleman was from Mexico and another from Honduras. The older gentleman from Honduras had stopped me before we went into the classroom to proudly show me his picture on the bulletin board. It was of several weeks prior when he had been baptized and joined the church. He told me he could understand much more English than he could speak. I said it was the same for me and my understanding of Kreyol. I am still not as fluent in Kreyol I wish to be. We laughed together as we both knew how special it was to be helped learning a new language.
I then showed them the DVD. He watched so very intently and needed very little translation help from his friend. After watching the DVD we sat quietly for a few minutes. I could see he was trying to take it all in. After a minute or so he looked over at me and said, "What a great big Church WE all belonged to." It made him proud that he not only was a member of the church and fellowship of believers he had just joined but he felt connected and proud of the work the church he joined was all doing around the world. He was amazed and so proud to give Glory to God for God's mission and the part he felt in it.—Pix Mahler, Haiti
Things are going swell! I'm really enjoying itineration, and I've felt well received everywhere I went. In fact, I just got a Facebook friend request yesterday from someone I spoke to on Tuesday, letting me know that their mission committee had met Wednesday night and decided to partner with a mission co-worker for the first time ever in the memory of any of the members — some of whom had been active for more than 30 years. I love seeing the message spread!
... The strangest question I've gotten so far would have to be "What type of shoes do you wear in the field?" That was from a young boy, excited about mission because he'd been to Haiti the summer before, whose parents own an orthopedic shoe company and he wanted to know if we needed any shoes to pass out.—Amy Robinson, U.S./Mexico border ministry
Frank Dimmock (Lesotho) did a great job preaching at our presbytery meeting, and we are not easy to please! He is a wonderful person to be around — a kind, gentle spirit who lives out the faith in such extraordinary ways but is so humble and unpretentious about it all. We worked him hard, I fear a little too hard, but all of the feedback I've received has been extremely positive. Our churches out here are not very well connected at all to PC(USA) missionaries, so this is kind of introducing many of them for the first time to what the PC(USA) is doing in mission. It's a long journey back to the PC(USA) for these folks, but Frank helped us make an important step forward. He was perfect for us.
Our mission committee realized how many churches have no overseas mission connection whatsoever. We discussed as a possible focus for us next year to really challenge our churches to connect to a PC(USA) mission co-worker somewhere in the world. We'll see…
—Rev. Heidi Worthen Gamble, Presbytery of the Pacific
Monmouth Presbytery had a wonderful week with Choon and Yen Hee Lim, from Taiwan! Our Mission Council (the strategic planning group for the presbytery) unanimously voted to set a goal that every congregation be in a relationship with at least one PC(USA) mission co-worker by the end of 2010. This will be brought to our November presbytery meeting. We are also developing a new Web site to communicate and celebrate all the mission that our presbytery is involved in. The idea is to get the stories out and have a place to share them. I'm hoping for the day when we will step up to a challenge of supporting one co-worker, but I think this is an amazing step for us. Thank you for all you've done!
—Phyllis Zoon, Monmouth Presbytery
In a message to Mark Adams
"Thank you for everything you do and for coming to speak to us. We never know how or when something we say or do will have an impact. I feel God will call me to international work. My husband and I have felt for years that our future would hold this ... We remain open to God's continuing call."
—Barb Heptigm, Student at Brite Divinity School, and Candidate for Master of Divinity degree, Fort Worth, Texas |
