April
5, 2010
Mission Advocates and Friends Newsletter
I’m
not sure if this is a late issue for March or an early issue for April.
At any rate, here are updates that I hope are useful for you.
Items
in small cuttable-and-pastable paragraphs for sharing with everyone:
Two
mission co-workers will be changing assignments from Equatorial Guinea to the
Mexican Border. Andres and Gloria Garcia will be the new U.S.
Coordinators for Puentes de Cristo, located at Reynosa, US/Mexico Border.
The Garcias worked in El Salvador and Costa Rica for 16 years before serving in
Africa. I attach a summary of the Garcia’s new assignment.
Chris
McReynolds, who has been a long-term volunteer for the last three years at
Proyecto Amistad, another border ministry near Laredo, Texas, will now become a
mission co-worker. Chris will continue as the US director of the
project. Here is the website where you can read his biography and
letters: http://www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/profiles/mcreynoldsc.htm
Mission
co-workers often develop special bonds with the first churches that come
alongside them in ministry, so if you would like to be among the very first
supporters for the Garcias or Chris, please email bruce.whearty@pcusa.org for
more information. We expect more new co-workers to be identified in the
coming months before the next co-worker orientation in July.
To
find out what mission speakers are available in your area, please go to http://www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/speakers/speakers.htm
Please read the instructions that let you know how to invite a speaker and then
click on “Find a Speaker by State.” (You may, of course, want to check
neighboring states.) This list includes former mission co-workers and
Young Adult Volunteers, as well as current mission co-workers who are back in
the states on their interpretation assignments.
I
am available to attend your presbytery or congregational mission committee
meetings! Well, I’d like to be able to attend in person, but we can use a
speaker phone or Skype instead. If you think that it would be good to have
me ‘present’ at one of your meetings to answer questions about missionary
sending and support, or to take part in the discernment process for selecting a
mission co-worker to support, or simply to hear your advice for PC(USA) World
Mission, please feel free to invite me and we’ll see how our schedules mesh for
your meeting times.
Items
more for you, the Presbytery Mission Advocate:
I
will be attending part of General Assembly. I’ll be in Minneapolis July
5-8. If you are going to be there, too, that might be a chance for us to
meet in person. I suspect that I will be spending most of my time at the
PC(USA) World Mission display, so it should be fairly easy to find me. I
hope to see you there!
I
am developing quite a list of contacts in presbyteries. Would you like your
name shared with neighboring (or not so neighboring) presbyteries? I
think that would give us more opportunities for answering each other’s
questions, for taking advantage of each other’s resources, or for cooperating
around hosting missionaries or attending conferences. If you would like
your name and email address to be shared among this growing network, please let
me know. Those who choose to have their contact information shared will
be listed in the next edition of this newsletter, along with their presbytery
and email address.
Will
you please let me know if you are the correct contact person in your presbytery
for the International Peacemakers Program? If not, who is?
That office will be sending out information later this month about the IP
program this fall, and it will help to know who in your presbytery should
receive it.
If
your presbytery has a newsletter, either paper or electronic, would you please
add me to the mailing list? Thanks!
I
attach the latest update to the ‘World Mission Giving Opportunities’ booklet so
that you are aware of changes in our mission personnel since last
September. All churches should have received an ‘Opportunities’ booklet
last fall, but this update will be helpful for a church looking for a mission
co-worker to support. New co-workers attending July’s orientation will be
added as paperwork is completed.
Mission
Co-worker Speakers:
Available now:
Taikjoo & Young Kim
(through May)
Annette George, Thailand
(through May)
Nadia Ayoub, Ukraine
(through June)
Nuhad Tomeh, Lebanon
(through June)
Debbie Chase, Malawi (until
July)
Barbara Nagy, Malawi
(through late July)
Paul Matheny & Mary
Nebelsick , Philippines (until July)
Eric & Becky
Hinderliter, Lithuania (until mid-August)
Available soon:
Sook Hee & Kook Jin
Bae, Korea (late April to September)
Jeff & Christi Boyd,
Cameroon (July to October 2010)
John & Gwen Haspels,
Ethiopia (July to December 2010)
Taborn, Emiko &
Sanford, Japan (July 2010—Jul 2011)
Al & Ellen Smith,
Russia (August 2010 to May 2011)
Katie Griffin,
Argentina (September to December, 2010)
Becca Young, Indonesia
(September 2010 to January 2011)
For availability of mission co-worker speakers from
sensitive areas, please contact Carol Somplatsky-Jarman at 1-800-728-7228, ext.
5826, or carol.somplatsky-jarman@pcusa.org
Resources
in past letters (so we can remember where to find things):
January
(that is, the introductory letter that I wrote to you):
my introduction
weblink for reading mission co-worker newsletters.
weblink for ordering free material:
‘Highlights’ magazine
‘World Mission Giving Opportunities’
‘Partner with World Mission’ DVD.
World Mission 100% Challenge paper
February
Subscribing to ‘Highlights’ magazine, both hard copy and online
2 new co-workers from January’s orientation
8 new co-workers for July orientation
How to help in Haiti
How to host a co-worker as a mission speaker in
your presbytery
How to order a list of your presbytery’s churches
that designate to particular co-workers.
Thank
you so much for your willingness to lift up PC(USA) World Mission around the
world!
Love
and peace,
Bruce
Whearty
World
Mission Church Support
100
Witherspoon Street
Louisville,
Kentucky 40202
office:
888-728-7228, ext. 5157
mobile:
(502) 407-9636
fax:
(502) 569-8039
email:
bruce.whearty@pcusa.org