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Note #8051 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Good news from the Caribbean
03544
December 18, 2003

Good news from the Caribbean

Mission camp for young adults draws raves in Cuba meeting

by Evan Silverstein

MATANZAS, Cuba - Given the dwindling number of young people involved in
religious life these days, a thriving partnership linking young adults in
North American churches with those in the Caribbean is great news.

Last month, during its annual meeting here, the Caribbean and North America
Council for Mission (CANACOM), an ecumenical group founded in part by the
Presbyterian Church (USA), learned that its fourth Young Adults in Mission
(YAM) work camp was a big success.

The camp, held last July on the Caribbean island of Curagao, attracted more
than 30 young people from 14 countries who devoted three weeks to working,
living, studying and worshipping together.

The camp is held once every three years, hosted each time by a different
member church. It gives young men and women aged 18 to 30 a hands-on
experience of partnership in mission.

This year's group "came to a deeper understanding of what it means to live
out God's mission in our own context and in the world today," said the Rev.
Karen Herbst-Kim, a PC(USA) minister from DeKalb, IL, a member of the
planning committee for YAM 2003.

The participants were from CANACOM churches in the United States, Guyana,
Grenada, Trinidad, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. The Council for World
Mission (CWM) was represented by five "global" delegates from India, the
Netherlands, Zambia, Malaysia and Samoa.

The young people collaborated with the Curagao church community on a variety
of projects, learned about one another's cultures, and worshipped together.
Each participant spent one week living with a family from the host church.

"We truly experienced the joys of serving, and were reminded that we are
called to be servants of God," said Ceema Guyadeen, who represented the
Presbyterian Church in Trinidad and Tobago (PCTT) at YAM 2003 and reported on
it during the CANACOM meeting in Cuba.

The first YAM took place in 1994, in Guyana. The next will be in 2006, in
Grenada.

Also represented at the six-day CANACOM meeting at the Evangelical
Theological Seminary here were the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman
Islands (UCJCI), and the Presbyterian Reformed Church in Cuba (IPRC). The
meeting site is high on a bluff overlooking this picturesque coastal city and
a crystalline bay.

The council visited a Presbyterian Reformed church in the resort town of
Varadero and recognized its long-time treasurer, for superlative service.

"I just serve God and Jesus," said Thames, a UCJCI member. "It's all for
God."

The PC(USA)'s report was delivered by the Rev. Tricia Lloyd-Sidle, a mission
co-worker in Cuba, with assistance from Herbst-Kim. Lloyd-Sidle also was
elected as a vice chair of CANACOM.

In her report, she told the group about the church's views on the U.S.
economic embargo on Cuba and on human rights. She also spoke about the
failure at this year's General Assembly of a proposal to lift the PC(USA) ban
on the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians; and about the
policies-in-the-making contained in a draft document on the changing nature
of families.

Herbst-Kim and Lloyd-Sidle also sang "America the Beautiful" during a pageant
featuring members' national anthems and traditional songs.

CANACOM is a 17-year-old network in which 12 churches share ideas and
resources. Nine of the member denominations are Caribbean and three are from
North America: the PC(USA) and two from Canada.

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