What the Mission Pledge makes possible
The short answer: every mission and ministry of Presbyterian Women.
But the long answer is relationships, personal transformations, spiritual development, and life-changing programs. Unlike the Birthday or Thank Offerings that have specific amounts channeled toward particular projects, the Mission Pledge works at a structural level. A Mission Pledge gift made in your circle funds the work of PW in your congregation, presbytery and synod, as well as PW churchwide. Your gift helps fund presbytery and synod Gatherings and the Churchwide Gathering. Your gift helps finance programs and resources, like the Global Exchange and Horizons magazine and Bible study.
That's the broad answer. Here's the answer as told through a few stories.
Global Exchange
The Global Exchange is a triennial trip that takes U.S. women to another part of the world to learn about that area’s history, culture and biblical witness. The following year, women from that part of the world attend PW’s Churchwide Gathering. Although participants pay for their own trip (often with help from their presbytery or synod), the Mission Pledge makes possible the long-term relationships at the root of the Global Exchange, as well as the resources to promote and interpret the trip throughout the U.S. Put another way, the Mission Pledge provides the seed money that’s tended by the Global Exchange participants and the PW groups who hear about the trip.
Presbyterian Women’s witness is compounded through engagement. That’s why itineration after an exchange is crucial. Twenty-seven Presbyterian women participated in the 2011 Global Exchange to India. While in India, they identified two projects doing particularly good work to improve the lives of women, children and India’s other vulnerable people. When these faithful women returned home, they talked with hundreds of other Presbyterian Women. Thanks in large part to the Mission Pledge, the joys and challenges of life for Christians in India came alive for sisters in Christ who never set foot on Indian soil. Read more.
Mission Partnerships, Water and Bible study
Pop quiz! Name three things that the Mission Pledge makes possible.
If you answered “Bible studies, mission and Presbyterian Women’s events,” you must know about PW in the Presbytery of South Louisiana. That presbytery and Cuba’s Presbytery of Matanzas have been partners since 1986, but like many things started in the larger church, dedicated support made possible by Presbyterian Women’s Mission Pledge has expanded the partnership.
In 2007, when members of St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian Church in New Orleans were planning a mission trip to El Fuerte Presbyterian Church in Cuba, Laura St. Clair (a member of PW and the trip leader) suggested they take Spanish-language copies of PW/Horizons Bible studies. They took 30 copies, and have taken at least that many every year since then.
“It’s been a mission of love for us to study the same Bible study as our sisters and brothers at El Fuerte,” says Kathy Randall, a member of PW at St. Charles Avenue PC, who is serving as moderator for the Presbytery of South Louisiana. Read more about how this partnership rooted in Bible study has flourished.
Those are just a few of the life-changing programs made possible by gifts to the Mission Pledge. Give today to ensure this work and these relationships endure!
