Today in the PC-USA Mission Yearbook

The Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study is a daily devotional with 365 inspiring mission stories that come from next door and all across the globe. It inspires thousands of Presbyterians daily as they uphold the mission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in intercessory prayer.

Contributed Photo

Today in the Mission Yearbook: July 2, 2023

IMMIGRATION SUNDAY - “We still have more to offer,” said Stevanie, a young-adult DACA recipient and member of Marturia Presbyterian Church. As the Supreme Court deliberates on how protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program will continue, we are reminded of the millions of people who are in the United States under temporary immigration statuses.

The temporary statuses provide relief from deportation orders and provide access to work authorization but are precarious. They must be renewed every year to every two years, and individuals must put their lives on hold during each renewal process. Regardless of the amount of time someone has been a recipient of these temporary statuses and vetted for renewal, there are no pathways to permanent residency or citizenship. These protections can also be revoked with the change in presidential administrations. Life is precarious ...

• CLICK HERE to read more.

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

Letter to Arthur Greeves: from The Kilns (on his conversion to Christianity)

18 October 1931

Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous different that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God’s myth where the others are men’s myths: i.e. the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call ‘real things’. Therefore it is true, not in the sense of being a ‘description’ of God (that no finite mind could take in) but in the sense of being the way in which God chooses to (or can) appear to our faculties. The ‘doctrines’ we get out of the true myth are of course less true: they are the translations into our concepts and ideas of that wh. God has already expressed in a language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Does this amount to a belief in Christianity? At any rate I am now certain (a) That this Christian story is to be approached, in a sense, as I approach other myths. (b) That it is the most important and full of meaning. I am also nearly certain that it really happened…

• From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis

Today in the PC-USA Mission Yearbook

The Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study is a daily devotional with 365 inspiring mission stories that come from next door and all across the globe. It inspires thousands of Presbyterians daily as they uphold the mission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in intercessory prayer.

Photos by Rich Copley/Presbyterian Mission Agency

Today in the Mission Yearbook: July 1, 2023

CAONGREAGTION LIVES TO A MATTHEW 25 CALLING - Marcy Stroud, the warden at the minimum-security Mt. Pleasant Correctional Facility in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, remembers very well the day she received a cold call from the Rev. Trey Hegar, pastor of First Presbyterian Church ...

• CLICK HERE to read more.

From ServLife International ... "Poverty in India and Nepal"

ServLife International is a movement defined by values of God’s kingdom, not programs built around human efforts and activities. The reign and rule of God should be made apparent to every person on the planet, despite their religion, race or socioeconomic status. We believe that issues of justice are inseparable from the good news that Jesus Christ came to proclaim. ServLife exists to take the gospel of Christ and the hope of a better, more just, world to the lives of people we touch. This happens through individual contributions of time, creativity, resources and dreams.

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ServLife Photo

Poverty in India and Nepal

Since 1992, ServLife International has been working in India and Nepal educating children and empowering families to help loosen the clutches of systemic and generational poverty. Throughout India and Nepal, poverty exists in both rural and urban environments, but in villages in the most mountainous and rural regions, this poverty is rampant.

There are areas that take many hours by car and foot to reach, and families are leaving these villages where they’ve lived for generations to find more opportunities in the cities. This shift out of villages has been gradual and is in response to the rise of technology worldwide. Young people are finding their way out of poverty, but now these villages are mostly made up of the very young and the elderly ...

• CLICK HERE to learn more about extreme poverty and how we can partner together to empower families and children ... 

• CLICK HERE to give a gift to help families and our partners in India and Nepal ...


Join Our Mission

ServLife International propels reconciliation and justice by building global community to plant churches, care for children and fight poverty. Compelled by the message, life and love of Jesus Christ, we seek to care for the spiritual, physical, social, and economic areas of life in northern India and Nepal.  Learn more about our latest news, featured stories, and how to get involved at servlife.org

Support a Pastor Our church planters spread the love of Christ in some of the most difficult environments in the world. • Support Them ...	Sponsor a Child For only $30 per month you can help give a child food, education, care and, most importantly, hope. • Sponsor Now ...	Fight Poverty The HOPE Fund, our micro-finance program, provides start-up funds for a small business, paving a way out of poverty for families in need. • Learn More ...

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 Adam J. Nevins
 Executive Director
 ServLife International, Inc.
 P.O. Box 20596
 Indianapolis, IN 46220
 USA

From @FWMission ... Friday Story: “Embracing Independence”

Founded in 2001, Free Wheelchair Mission is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to providing wheelchairs for the impoverished disabled in developing nations. Headquartered in Irvine, California, FWM works around the world in partnership with a vast network of humanitarian, faith-based and government organizations, sending wheelchairs to hundreds of thousands of disabled people, providing not only the gift of mobility, but of dignity, independence, and hope.

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FWM Photos

Friday Story: “Embracing Independence"

Carlos is a 40-year-old carpenter who lives with his wife and four teenaged children on the coast of Argentina.

About 12 years ago, Carlos was working on a construction site when he fell, breaking his spine in three places and sustaining severe injuries that left him with paraplegia.

His life was forever altered ...

• Read the rest of this story ...

In the News ... Opinion: "Singing to God"

• Today, I want to encourage you to add something to your daily devotion ...

Gian Carlo Villatoro

By Gian Carlo Villatoro, Founding Pastor, Victory Church Odessa, Guest Contributor
• Odessa American

ODESSA, TEXAS - Every believer should have a daily devotion. Do you read the Bible every day? Do you start your day thinking of God? Do you give thanks to the Lord for another day of life? Do you complain to Him? Well, even if you complain, at least you’re communicating with Him. That is better than nothing.

However, we know that babies complain because they don’t know how to handle things. Little ones complain because they don’t understand much about life, and they only care for themselves. Who else complains? Most of the time the selfish person is constantly complaining, rather than being grateful. It’s true, maybe you have the money to pay for things and you expect a good service or product in return. However, is that your personality? Complaining all the time about everything? Really? Don’t you think it is childish of you, too?

A daily devotion is a discipline to honor our Lord God that every believer should do. Including prayers to give thanks to the good Lord for another day, presenting your requests, and also interceding for others. A daily devotion should include reflecting on a passage of the scripture.

Today, I want to encourage you to add something to your daily devotion. I want you to start singing to God every day. There is power when you are worshiping God with music. The Lord God doesn’t pay too much attention to your singing abilities. He is listening to your heart more than anything. There are people that they can sing professionally to God, but their hearts are far away from Him. What’s the point? The Lord God is always searching for hearts, people that love Him, people that need Him, people that know they are nothing without the good Lord.

Singing to the good Lord is powerful in the spiritual world. Giving praises to the good Lord. Honoring Him by keeping a melody that exalts the name of Jesus. Humming in your heart because you know the Holy Spirit is dwelling inside of you, and you love that feeling.

Singing to the good Lord should be part of your daily devotion and also your daily life. You don’t need to be in church on Sunday to lift up your hands and sing hallelujah. You don’t need a band of musicians around you or a choir. Actually, you don’t even need anybody singing in the background ...

• Read the rest of this OA report ...

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

On Sin

[The demon Screwtape writes:] Even of his sins the Enemy does not want him to think too much: once they are repented, the sooner the man turns his attention outward, the better the Enemy is pleased.

• From The Screwtape Letters
• Compiled in Words to Live By

Today in the PC-USA Mission Yearbook

The Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study is a daily devotional with 365 inspiring mission stories that come from next door and all across the globe. It inspires thousands of Presbyterians daily as they uphold the mission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in intercessory prayer.

Contributed Photo

Today in the Mission Yearbook: June 30, 2023

"ALL GOD'S CREATURES" ANIMAL SHELTER - Henry County, the home of First Presbyterian Church in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, lacks an animal shelter — but not for long ...

• CLICK HERE to read more.

In the News ... "Council slashes funding to Meals on Wheels, food bank"

• The two programs that fared the worst

Kim Smith, Reporter
• Odessa American

ODESSA, TEXAS - The Odessa City Council awarded roughly $4.5 million in Community Development Block Grants, hotel-motel tax money and general fund money Tuesday night during a lengthy meeting where various causes pleaded their cases.

The city had received CDBG requests totaling nearly $1.3 million from such organizations as the West Texas Food Bank, Permian Basin Mission Center, Meals on Wheels, Hollingsworth Head Start, Family Promise and the Elderly and Disabled Lawn Mowing Program ...

• Read the rest of this OA report ...

In the News ... "A Ride with Backyard Midland ... Karl Boroski turns homeless past into inspiring nonprofit"

Courtesy Photo

• Karl Boroski lays the foundation on how to solve Midland's homeless crisis

By Morgan-Taylor Thomas
• Midland Reporter-Telegram

MIDLAND, TEXAS - No one comprehends the level of compassion, understanding and “tough love” the Midland homeless population demands the way Karl Boroski does ...

 • Read the rest of this MRT report ...

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

The human spirit will not even begin to try and surrender self-will as long as all seem to be well with it. Now error and sin both have this property, that the deeper they are the less their victim suspects their existence; they are masked evil. Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil; every man knows that something is wrong when he is being hurt…And pain is not only immediately recognizable evil, but evil impossible to ignore. We can rest contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities; and anyone who has watched gluttons shoveling down the most exquisite foods as if they did not know what they were eating, will admit that we can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

• From The Problem of Pain
• Compiled in The Business of Heaven

Today in the PC-USA Mission Yearbook

The Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study is a daily devotional with 365 inspiring mission stories that come from next door and all across the globe. It inspires thousands of Presbyterians daily as they uphold the mission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in intercessory prayer.

Photo by Beth Waltemath

Today in the Mission Yearbook: June 29, 2023

SECRET SAUCE CONFERENCE "COOKBOOK" - “We all have accents, and really, an accent is nothing to be ashamed of but to be proud of because accents are beautiful,” the Rev. Rafael Viana said during his plenary presentation for the recent “What’s the Secret Sauce?” conference in Atlanta.

The conference focused on the wisdom and experiences of new immigrant worshiping communities and those who partner with them ...

• CLICK HERE to read more.

In the News ... "Cooling center at MLK Center to remain open until Saturday"

Batuhan Toker/Getty Images/iStockphoto

• Triple-digit temperatures are still in the forecast

By Mercedes Cordero
• Midland Reporter-Telegram

MIDLAND, TEXAS - The City of Midland will be keeping the MLK Jr. Community Center auditorium open as a cooling center through Saturday.

The MLK Center, 2300 Butternut Lane, will open for those looking for a cool place to rest during the triple-digit weather ...

 • Read the rest of this MRT report ...

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

On self-sufficiency

They [Adam and Eve] wanted, as we say, to “call their souls their own.” But that means to live a lie, for our souls are not, in fact, our own. They wanted some corner in the universe of which they could say to God, “This is our business, not yours.” But there is no such corner. They wanted to be nouns, but they were, and eternally must be, mere adjectives.

• From The Problem of Pain
• Compiled in Words to Live By

Today in the PC-USA Mission Yearbook

The Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study is a daily devotional with 365 inspiring mission stories that come from next door and all across the globe. It inspires thousands of Presbyterians daily as they uphold the mission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in intercessory prayer.

Photo by Rich Copley/Presbyterian Mission Agency

Today in the Mission Yearbook: June 28, 2023

"IowaWINS," FIRST PPRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, MOUNT PLEASANT, IOWA - A day ahead of celebrating the varied facets of its Matthew 25 work, First Presbyterian Church of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, recently shared some of the key people in both the congregation and the community to discuss their work and future plans with Presbyterian News Service ...

• CLICK HERE to read more.

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

Screwtape offers more techniques for confusing the Patient:

I have been writing hitherto on the assumption that the people in the next pew afford no rational ground for disappointment. Of course if they do—if the patient knows that the woman with the absurd hat is a fanatical bridge-player or the man with squeaky boots a miser and an extortioner—then your task is so much the easier. All you then have to do is to keep out of his mind the question ‘If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?’ You may ask whether it is possible to keep such an obvious thought from occurring even to a human mind. It is, Wormwood, it is! Handle him properly and it simply won’t come into his head. He has not been anything like long enough with the Enemy to have any real humility yet. What he says, even on his knees, about his own sinfulness is all parrot talk. At bottom, he still believes he has run up a very favourable credit-balance in the Enemy’s ledger by allowing himself to be converted, and thinks that he is showing great humility and condescension in going to church with these ‘smug’, commonplace neighbours at all. Keep him in that state of mind as long as you can.

• From The Screwtape Letters
• Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

I do not believe in the Renaissance as generally described by historians. The more I look into the evidence the less trace I find of that vernal rapture which is supposed to have swept Europe in the fifteenth century. I half suspect that the glow in the historians’ pages has a different source, that each is remembering, and projecting, his own personal Renaissance.

• From Surprised by Joy

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

The idea of reaching “a good life” without Christ is based on a double error. Firstly, we cannot do it; and secondly, in setting up “a good life” as our final goal, we have missed the very point of our existence. Morality is a mountain which we cannot climb by our own efforts; and if we could we should only perish in the ice and unbreathable air of the summit, lacking those wings with which the rest of the journey has to be accomplished. For it is from there that the real ascent begins. The ropes and axes are “done away” and the rest is a matter of flying.

• From God in the Dock
• Compiled in A Mind Awake

Today in the PC-USA Mission Yearbook

The Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study is a daily devotional with 365 inspiring mission stories that come from next door and all across the globe. It inspires thousands of Presbyterians daily as they uphold the mission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in intercessory prayer.

Photo by South Korean Defense Ministry/Sipa USA

Today in the Mission Yearbook: June 25, 2023

SEASON OF PRAYER AND REFLECTION IN THE KOREAN PENINSULA BEGINSE - Today, June 25, marks 72 years since the Korean War broke out. Throughout that June, skirmishes along the division border led to North Korean forces crossing the border en masse on the 25th. Most U.S. Americans believe the war then ended in 1953; however, only an armistice agreement was signed at that time. This means outright fighting in the war has paused, but the state-of-war itself has continued for 72 years ...

• CLICK HERE to read more.

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

On Self

A rejection, or in Scripture’s strong language, a crucifixion of the natural self is the passport to everlasting life. Nothing that has not died will be resurrected.

• From The Weight of Glory
• Compiled in Words to Live By