Outreach Stories

by Jeff Ritchie

My recent trip to Ethiopia came at a time when peace for South Sudan seemed farther away than ever. Upwards of 5,000,000 people in South Sudan were facing starvation. Refugee camps in South Sudan’s neighboring countries were being strained to the breaking point as wave after wave of new refugees fled war and starvation. This terrible situation made us ask ourselves, what can we do to make a difference among so many people? The needs far outstrip the resources that we or others can provide.

Within two days of our arrival we learned that our petition to enter the refugee camps was not approved by the government authorities. We had come to Ethiopia to encourage people traumatized by war. Now our mission was in jeopardy. 

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by Juan Sarmiento

Rev. Dr. Carlos del Pino is the coordinator of the Europe office of the Presbyterian Agency of Cross Cultural Missions, the mission board of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil. He leads a movement of thirty-eight primarily missionary families that serve in a growing number of European countries with a focus on church planting and renewal. 

I first met Carlos when we were both part of the Brazilian delegation to the Fourth Latin American Congress on Evangelization (CLADE IV) held in Quito Ecuador in August 1992. CLADE is series of events sponsored by the Latin American Theological Fellowship (FTL, after its Spanish initials) which since the late 1960s has been the seedbed for a holistic understanding of mission in the region. After that, he went on to pursue both a masters and PhD degree in the Pontifical University of Salamanca, serve as President at the Central Presbyterian Seminary in Goias and then was sent as a missionary from Brazil.

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by Rob Weingartner

Dear friends,

As last year ended, we gave thanks for another year of increasing contributions in support of our work. Now, as we head into the second half of 2017, is a good time to say Thank You for your gifts and prayers that make our work possible. We work to steward your gifts carefully. In 2016 only 10.2% of our expenditures were for fundraising and administration.

Our mission is connecting Presbyterians to build the church's capacity to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ. There are some exceptions, but mostly we connect Presbyterians here in the U.S. with global partners in ways that strengthen the church for God’s mission.

Let me share a few glimpses of what you’ve helped to make possible in 2017.

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by Rob Weingartner

During a recent trip to Europe we visited a small museum in Colmar, France, the last pocket of land to be held by the Germans before the Allied forces pushed them back across the Rhine River, liberating France during World War II. The museum focused on the fighting that raged across the Vosges hills and the valley below. It was during one of these battles that Audie Murphy made his famous stand. 

I was reminded by an object in one of the museum display cases that the Wehrmacht, the armed forces of Nazi Germany, wore belt buckles emblazoned with the words “Gott mit Uns.” That is “God with Us” in English. The phrase was commonly used by the German military going back to the Prussians in the 18th century.

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by Jeff Ritchie

When you think of Ireland, what comes to mind? Leprechauns, shamrocks, St. Patrick’s Day, Guinness Stout, the Blarney Stone, no snakes? How about “Land of Saints and Scholars?” 

After a recent trip to Ireland, what comes to my mind when I think of Ireland are names of saints like Patrick, Brigid, Columba (Columcille), Ciarán, Kevin, and Brendan. I also have been to Glendalough and Clonmacnoise – monasteries where some of these saints lived and have learned about others such as Skellig Michael, Kildare, and Kells. The early Irish Christians have become heroes to me, and I’d like to share some of their contributions in this blog.

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by Juan Sarmiento

When thinking of Latin America, it is easy to see it simply as “our neighbor to the south.” In reality, there are twenty-one countries in the American continent for which Spanish or Portuguese is the majority language, each one of them with very distinct cultural identities and national characters. Along with English and Mandarin, Spanish is among the top three most widely spoken languages in the world. The Outreach Foundation currently facilitates partnerships between churches in the United States and five of those countries. Those partnerships have an effect on several other countries in the region and beyond.

The primary ways in which The Outreach Foundation is involved in Latin America are through joint efforts around the following areas: 

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by Tom Widmer

Through you our donors, God richly blessed The Outreach Foundation in 2016. Because of your trust in us and our responsibility to you, we constantly ask ourselves if we are accomplishing the three priorities set by our Board of Trustees. Below we reflect upon those three priorities and share ministry highlights for each.

Priority 1:  Helping the church live out its missional calling
In Jesus’ Great Commission, he calls us to go out and make disciples of all nations. (Matt 28:19) In light of that, Outreach works with churches across the U.S. to help them better understand Jesus’ command and to help them be more engaged in his work. Kairos Church in Atlanta typifies a church living into that call:

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by Rob Weingartner

There is a lot of talk these days about doing mission in partnership. It is driven, in part, by an increasing awareness of the growing global church and respect for the initiative and faithfulness of brothers and sisters in Christ who are already engaged in mission in places where we are or seek to be involved.

For followers of Jesus the idea of partnership comes to us not from the business world but from God’s Word and the life of the church. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians: I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. The Greek word that Paul uses is koinonia. Sharing. Communion. Participation. Partnership. These English words help to unpack the richness of the term that Paul employs.

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by Julie Prescott Burgess

It was November, 2014, and a small group of American Presbyterians had traveled to Syria with The Outreach Foundation to be with our Syrian brothers and sisters. We arrived in Homs that day, not long after it had been liberated from the extremists who held it for more than two years, destroying buildings and lives. Coming from the Midwest, we see pictures of destroyed places regularly on the news during tornado season.  Yet I had never seen anything like this. Block after block, street after street, five-, six- and seven-story buildings lay in heaps of broken and pancaked concrete. Homes. Businesses. Hotels. Mosques. Churches. Nothing was spared. How does a city go about rebuilding when seemingly nothing is left and most of its population had fled elsewhere? This was the picture that would be in the dictionary illustrating the word hopeless.

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Bless my enemies, O Lord. 
Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Enemies have driven me into your embrace more than friends have. 
Friends have bound me to earth, 
enemies have loosed me from earth
and have demolished all my aspirations in the world.
Enemies have made me a stranger in worldly realms
and an extraneous inhabitant of the world. 
Just as a hunted animal finds safer shelter than an unhunted animal does, 
so have I, persecuted by enemies, 
found the safest sanctuary, 
having ensconced myself beneath your tabernacle, 
where neither friends nor enemies can slay my soul. 

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by Rob Weingartner

One of the most compelling videos that I have seen in a long time was sent to friends by the Bible Society of Egypt not long after the tragic Palm Sunday bombings in Alexandria and Tanta, Egypt. Taken together, these two bombings took at least 45 lives and injured many more.

In an April 10 statement, ISIS identified the two bombers as Egyptians, using the pseudonyms Abu al-Bara al-Masri and Abu Ishaq al-Masri. The group threatened further violence, describing Christians as “crusaders” and “apostates” and declaring that “the bill between us and them is very large, and they will pay it with rivers of blood from their children, with God’s permission.”

 

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by Jeff Ritchie

“Can’t Christianity be something simpler than we have made it?” This was the query of a man in the Bible study I attend on Wednesday mornings. The pastor wisely replied, “Yes, Jesus distilled it down to two things: love God and love your neighbor.” Simple? That is true. Easy? Not by a long shot. So how do we go about obeying a simply-stated, but very challenging commandment?

First of all, some people don’t want to be our neighbors, and if the truth were to be told, we would not naturally want to be theirs. A few years ago, my father shared a book with his children: The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded Americans is Tearing Us Apart. The thesis of the book is that we are becoming a nation of people who do not want to associate with, or even listen to, people who are different from us.

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by Frank Dimmock

Recently I was blessed to co-facilitate a trauma healing group session for eight Congolese and Rwandan women living in the Louisville, Kentucky area. (This session was made possible by The Outreach Foundation’s gracious support of my training as a trauma healing facilitator.) Training our partners in listening and recognizing trauma wounds and how to help and when to refer is critical. The African women in this session are survivors of the violence and genocide that have been taking place in their part of the Great Lakes region of Africa. They told stories of fleeing violence, being separated from family, and witnessing and enduring long periods of pain and suffering. Through a series of miracles, they have resettled in apartments within ten miles of my home. I was aware, through the news, books and movies, that refugees from conflict areas (most notably, the Lost Boys of Sudan and Syrian families) had been settled in U.S. communities, but I had not personally heard their testimonies or recognized them as my neighbors. 

Healing the pain of heart wounds requires time and courage. It is a process. Most importantly, it is reinforced through engagement with God's Word.

It requires an understanding of suffering, supported with scriptural references to God’s love, power and compassion (Romans 8:35-39) and God’s personal sacrifice (1 John 4:9-10).

It requires an identification of heart wounds and pain, and with time and courage, a remembrance of a traumatic experience. I was deeply affected by the horrific stories of these courageous African women.

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by Rob Weingartner

It is a common refrain across the churches. “This is not a good time for me/us to get more involved in mission.” Pastors feel the need to focus on their congregations, on their families, on their D.Min. Congregations focus upon themselves, convincing themselves that after they get stronger, gain more members, or finish their capital campaign, then they will be able to turn outward and get serious about mission and living for the sake of others. It often sounds a bit like Tevye’s “If I were a Rich Man” from “Fiddler on the Roof.”

My friend Marj Carpenter, a former Moderator of the PC(USA) and a trustee emerita of The Outreach Foundation, made an interesting, relevant discovery in 1989 when she went to Cameroon to celebrate the church’s 125th anniversary. She describes this in her book “To the Ends of the Earth.”

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by Jeff Ritchie

War was not new to John Jock. It had been somewhat continuous in Sudan/South Sudan since 1983. But this time, as he watched the destruction of his town, Malakal, South Sudan, he knew it was too dangerous for him and his family to remain. In February, 2014, they fled Malakal, leaving all their possessions in search of a safe place to live. In fact, the entire town fled. 

Prior to fleeing, John was a teacher at Good Shepherd Primary School, the flagship school of the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan (PCOSS). When not teaching, John applied his theology training by working in the Department of Education of PCOSS. John knew how important education was in the lives of people, especially those in South Sudan who had little else. Reading and writing skills elevated people from poverty to independence. John dedicated himself to making sure students had the opportunity to learn… until the war interrupted his dream.

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by Juan Sarmiento

One of the most frequent observations that I hear when facilitating exchanges with Outreach Foundation partners in other countries is how joyous they are despite the often-difficult circumstances that they face. I often hear, "Can some of that bliss be brought back home?" There is no doubt that the adventurous thrill of an international visit combined with the naturally hospitable disposition of so many cultures creates the conditions for delightfully memorable interactions. However, when the excitement of the trip fades to make room for the routine and struggles of our lives as individuals and churches, the relationships that are built give us a sense of fulfillment that outlasts our visits. 

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Rev. Roy Soto pastors the congregation Comunidad Cristiana Shalom in Fraijanes, Costa Rica, a rural community with a population of 1,300. We recently had the pleasure of welcoming Rev. Soto to the Outreach office in Franklin, TN, where he shared with us his vision for the church as well as some personal testimony. 

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