Letters from Patricia Lloyd-Sidle
December 2, 2009
September 22, 2009
April 13, 2009
October 28, 2008
June 16, 2008
December 14, 2007
Tricia Lloyd-Sidle
Tricia completed her service as the area liaison for the Caribbean in February 2010. She is available to speak when her schedule permits. Email her to extend an invitation to visit your congregation or organization.
After working for more than a decade on the staff of the Worldwide Ministries Division (now World Mission) the Rev. Patricia Lloyd-Sidle felt a call to return to the mission field. In January 2002 she was appointed by the General Assembly Council to serve in the United States and in Cuba as a mission co-worker. She serves as the Regional Liaison for the Caribbean, with special attention to Cuba and the Caribbean-North American Council for Mission.
Tricia also works closely with a number of PC(USA) congregations involved in mission in the Dominican Republic and Jamaica, where our partner churches are the Dominican Evangelical Church and the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.
“My interest in Latin America began during seminary (1976-1980),” writes Tricia. “One of my classmates was an exile from Argentina. Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutierrez was a visiting professor. Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated in El Salvador. Clearly something was happening in the church in Latin America!
“Throughout much the 1980s, my husband Phil and I served as pastors with the Methodist Church in Uruguay. When living in the United States, we were involved in Central America advocacy.
“During the 1990s I directed Mission to the U.S.A. and other General Assembly programs designed to bring the gifts and insights of the world (embodied in Christian colleagues from Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East, and Europe) to bear on the church in the United States.
“God continues to use me as a bridge between Christians in the United States and elsewhere, now as a mission co-worker.
“The PC(USA) works together in mission with Caribbean churches through the Caribbean-North American Council for Mission (CANACOM). Several exciting CANACOM ‘programmes’ develop leaders in the region, accompany small churches, provide cross-cultural exchanges, and support small-scale mission projects in the member churches.
“Our stronger mission partnership in the Caribbean is with the Presbyterian-Reformed Church in Cuba.
“The ‘ties that bind’ Presbyterians in the United States and Presbyterians in Cuba began in 1890. 116 years later those ties are stronger than ever. The two churches work together in mission in many ways, including:
- Presbytery and congregational partnerships
- International peacemaking program
- Seminary exchanges
- Mission to the U.S.A. Program
- Cuba travel-study seminars
- Caribbean and North American Council for Mission
- Seeking normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations
- Prayer, study, and dialogue.
“Partnerships between PC(USA) presbyteries and presbyteries of the Presbyterian Reformed Church of Cuba began to be formed in the 1980s. Congregational and seminary partnerships followed in the 1990s, as did travel-study trips to Cuba. Now there are large numbers of Presbyterians in the two countries who know each other as friends and colleagues in mission.”
From 1993 to 2001, Tricia was the coordinator of the Global Awareness and Involvement unit of the Worldwide Ministries Division. Among her many contributions to the church’s mission education, she was the principal organizer of the series of global mission conferences held in 1997, 1999 and 2001.
From 1991 to 1993 she was associate for the Mission to the U.S.A. program, which brings church leaders from overseas to minister in PC(USA) congregations for periods of four to six weeks.
Tricia holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Maryville College in Maryville, Tennessee, and a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in New York, New York. A clergy member of the Mid-Kentucky Presbytery, she was ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament in July 1980 by the Presbytery of Union (now East Tennessee).
She is the mother of Elena and Sam. Her husband, the Rev. Philip Lloyd-Sidle, is pastor of James Lees Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky.
Birthday: July 7
