The PC(USA)’s Peace & Global Witness Offering supports ministries that bring Christ’s peace to situations involving conflict and injustice.
When Laura Mitchell receives a nudge from God, she sees it through. “Sunrise of Hope,” a one-day mental health summit hosted by La Jolla Presbyterian Church in California this past spring, was one of those nudges.
When the Rev. Dr. Scott Weimer tried to come back to North Avenue Presbyterian Church in Atlanta six weeks after his 22-year-old son died by suicide, he could barely function.
호세 구즈만Jose Guzman이 1992년에 군대에서 제대했을 때 그는 자신의 삶을 진지하게 고려했다. 그는 외상 후 고민 증후군(PTSD)으로 고통받고 있었다. 전쟁 중 고통과 외상으로 마약과 술을 마시며 그를 거의 궁핍하게 만들었다. 재향군인회로부터 필요한 도움을 받기까지는 18년이란 세월이 걸리었다.
미국 재향군인 관련부서에 따르면 20여명의 참전 용사가 매일 자신의 목숨을 끊고 있으며 문제는 더욱 악화되고 있다. 샌프란시스코 페어필드에 있는 록빌 장로교회에서 신앙 지도자들과 군목들이 목요일에 모여 점점 늘어나는 문제를 다루었다. 그들은 장로교, 로마 카톨릭, 연합 그리스도 교회 및 다른 교단들을 대표했다. 그들은 공군, 육군, 해군, 민간 항공 순찰대등을 대표하는 현역 봉사자들이다.
Why are 20 veterans a day taking their own lives? That’s the question the Rev. Tom Davis has been asking since August 2015, when a magazine cover on veterans’ suicides grabbed his attention. After all, he thought, aren’t these the same men and women who fought so hard to stay alive during active duty, as Davis did during his combat service in Vietnam?
When Jose Guzman got out of the army in 1992, he seriously considered taking his own life. He was suffering from Post-Traumatic Distress Syndrome (PTSD). The pain and trauma of being in war drove him to drugs and alcohol and nearly cost him his marriage and ultimately his life. It would take eighteen years before he got the help he needed from the Veterans Administration.
As many as twenty veterans take their own lives each day according to the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, and the problem is getting worse. A group of faith leaders and chaplains gathered at the Rockville Presbyterian Fellowship in Fairfield, California, on Thursday to address the growing problem. They represented Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, United Church of Christ, and other denominations. The Air Force, Army, Navy, and Civil Air Patrol were among the branches of service represented.
The holidays have been difficult for Christine Caton ever since her mother died — three days after Christmas. As an only child, with her father already gone, Caton experienced profound grief in losing her mom. The Christmas season only accentuated that grief.
The Rev. Frank Page, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, was getting ready to work in the yard in the fall of 2009 when the phone rang. His daughter was on the line.
Daddy, I love you, she said. Tell Mama and the girls I love them, too.
Then she was gone.
Melissa Page Strange, 32, took her own life just after hanging up the phone with her dad.
In the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, a Christian network is joining with Buddhists to provide bereavement services to prevent suicides, according to a Japanese interdenominational network.