Global Ministries

Lectionary Selection:  Genesis 1:1-2, 4a

Prayers for Jamaica:  

Creator God, Light and Love, we acknowledge your goodness – as simply part of the essence of your very being, and the goodness of your inexhaustible loving-kindness towards us, your creation, your children, your beloved. Lord of Light and Love, we return love to you. Spirit, we thank you for your abiding companionship. Hover over us. We reach back out to you for comfort and encouragement. Lead us and guide us. We acknowledge your presence in all places, with all people, in all things, and ask for wisdom. We lift up those who are in a process of discernment, those planning and organizing for the “re-opening” of churches, and congregations that have already started to physically meet together again, in the eeriness of COVID-19. Today, we join in prayer with our brothers and sisters in this work in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. As pastors, lay leaders, elders, volunteers, etc., serving you through the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands (UCJCI), and staff at the UCJCI head office together with them, respond to put into place all of the government’s advisement for precautions to assemble in-person safely, we ask for your provision: in addition to wisdom, for courage where needed and caution as needed; for the excitement that brings a breath of new life for those who have grown weary, and for sobered sensitivity and compassion for those who will greet and support others still grieving; for the financial and material resources to make safety for all possible; for Your Spirit that transforms a worship service into a Holy encounter with you. Empower your people, oh God our Creator, Lord of Love and inextinguishable Light in any darkness. You know exactly what is needed, so our prayer is simple and short. Creator God, Comforter and Christ, even as you are all that we need, would you be ever-present in a powerful and palpable way for our siblings in Jamaica and Cayman, now (as many make plans and gather together again) and always. And for those yet unable – for whom the risk of COVID-19 is still too great – we ask that you would make them ever-present on our hearts and minds, so that we can be part of your plan to provide emotionally, physically, and spiritually to them as well. One with you, may we be in tune with your Spirit to partner with you in care for all of creation, to be Light and Love to our siblings in Christ by your goodness and strength. Amen.

I wish you could meet my friend Harpreet. God used her in the waiting period I had before coming to Jamaica. Harpreet is Sikh but she attended a Catholic school growing up in India. Continuing in this vein of diverse perspectives, she is incredibly well-read on a broad range of topics and shares from that wealth of knowledge as plentifully as rain from clouds during monsoon. We worked together in back-to-back cubicles at my last job in Canada. I, being one to frantically work through all breaks needed Harpreet, a seasoned social worker and wise friend who understands many things differently than I, and ‘time’ being an important one.

At the end of my second day at Pringle Home for Children, a girl came running to me out-of-breath and with a most desperate, terrified look on her face. She revealed that a 15-year-old girl living with us at Pringle Home for Children had stripped her bed of its linens, snuck to a far corner of the property under the biggest apple tree, and thrown the bedsheets over a high branch to hang herself. Instinctively, I dropped my bag and ran with this young girl towards her housemate, terrified.

The hustle and bustle of Jamaican streets and roadways is usually invigorating (if you’ve ever visited or lived in this exquisite island-nation, you surely know exactly what I mean), but like most countries globally, the mood and modus operandi are eerily different now in the face COVID-19.

The Global Ministries Child and Elder Sponsorship office is blessed to work with partners all over the world who are providing safe and caring environments for children and elders. Global Ministries mission co-worker Rachel Pellett shares this recent story from Pringle Home for Children in Jamaica.

Introduction:

As we end this year of witnessing God´s presence in Latin America and the Caribbean, we cannot avoid feeling in our spirit, mind and will the spiritual strength of solidarity.  Our partners continued embracing the Spirit through receiving pilgrimages, sponsoring workshops and projects, sharing resources in an ecumenical way and confronting the powers that deny the fullness of life.  The Caribbean Initiative came to closure with resources and experiences that will endure not only in the work of the continent but also globally.  The accompaniment of our partners through civil unrest, migrations, and emergencies awakened a divine presence through the experience of contingency.  The Good News were heard and shared in a powerful way. 

A Reflection on the Caribbean-US Forum on Theological Education and Praxis

The Caribbean Initiative sponsored a pilgrimage called “Caribbean-US Forum on Theological Education and Praxis” from September 24th to October 1st, 2018 in Kingston, Jamaica. On that pilgrimage, representatives of five theological institutions from the U.S. and four from the Caribbean gathered to challenge themselves mutually in the process of developing theological education that can respond to the social challenges in the Caribbean region, as well as in the U.S. 

In April 2018, Disciples women from Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming gathered for the Wild Women of the West, an interregional Disciples Women conference, in Scottsdale, Arizona. These women were joined by five international sisters from Jamaica, Colombia, Democratic Republic in the Congo, India, and Puerto Rico.

Global Ministries is excited to announce new mission priority positions in Jamaica, Haiti, and Lesotho. These are three to four year positions that meet a critical need for our partners.