Social Concerns

Some 40 faith leaders from across Washington, D.C., join Aug. 22 in leading a prayer vigil in the city’s ethnically diverse Columbia Heights neighborhood. The group aimed to present a vision of unity and hope in the face of Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in the nation’s capital. At center in the green and white stole is the Rev. Donna Claycomb Sokol, pastor of Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, who spoke at the event. Photo by Sharon Groves, the Festival Center.

Churches push back on armed troops in US cities

United Methodists are prayerfully helping to mobilize nonviolent resistance and taking action to protect people targeted by President Trump’s show of military force in D.C. and other U.S. cities.

Violence

Nurse Franck Onamemba shows broken windows at United Methodist Irambo Health Center in Bukavu, Congo. The church hospital was ransacked by armed men during the weekend of Feb. 14-16 as fighting between M23 rebels and the Congolese armed forces continues in eastern Congo. Photo by Philippe Kituka Lolonga, UM News.

Violence, vandalism strike church in Congo

Fighting in eastern Congo has affected United Methodist families and ministries, including an attack at United Methodist Irambo Health Center in Bukavu.

Human Rights

Amal Nassar shows a visiting delegation of U.S. church activists a trailer that has been moved onto land beside her family farm near Bethlehem. Known as the Tent of Nations, the farm is an educational and environmental center that sits on the last remaining Palestinian hilltop in the middle of the Gush Etzion settlement block near Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank. The Christian Palestinian family remains under constant threat from settlers and the Israeli military. The trailer was moved there in May 2024, in what Nassar believes is an attempt to establish justification for expelling the Christian family. Photo by Paul Jeffrey, UM News.

Embattled Christian farmers in Holy Land refuse to hate

Amid increased harassment from Israeli settlers, a Lutheran Palestinian family continues its nonviolent struggle to keep the “Tent of Nations” farm.

Human Rights

The Rev. Calvin Hill, a Navajo holy man and pastor at First United Methodist Church in Newcastle, Wyo., puts cedar ashes on Doug Tzan, assistant dean at Wesley Theological Seminary, in a calling your name ceremony Sept. 11 during the 10th Historical Convocation at Bozeman United Methodist Church in Bozeman, Mont. The convocation featured a detailed report on The United Methodist Church’s involvement with U.S. boarding schools for Native American children. Photo by the Rev. Jeremy Smith.

Spotlighting UMC’s role in Indigenous boarding schools

A report on The United Methodist Church’s involvement with U.S. boarding schools for Native American children was presented at the 10th Historical Convocation. Remembrance and reconciliation is the goal of the initial research, but more work is planned.

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