What Hunter Farrell Has Meant for the Long-Term Mission Vision of the PC(USA)

On Tuesday, September 6^th Hunter Farrell, Director of Presbyterian World Mission, announced that he would be leaving his position for the purpose of discerning his next call to ministry. We can well imagine that this was a difficult, and prayerful decision and the Israel Palestine Mission Network of the PC(USA) wishes Hunter well as we lift up prayers for the next part of Hunter and Ruth’s journey in ministry.

Our network, however, cannot let him get away too easily… that is, without words of thanks and love, and without publicly proclaiming: 

Well done, good and faithful servant!

Hunter began his tenure in a time when mission networks were becoming a major part of how the PC(USA) did mission. I remember well when I was ordained in 1981 by the UPCUSA how our churches sent their mission money to 475 Riverside Drive in New York City and basically trusted that the Mission Agency would take our money and do…

The Back Story

It has been said that home is where the heart is. Home is remembered as the place where one flourished and is remembered with joy; when one has lost their home, that joy is mixed with an ever-present sadness and longing.  In 1915, a ten-year-old Osanna Panian left home and escaped what is now known as The Armenian Genocide; she survived and walked over the mountains into Iran and life as a refugee. Was she just lucky that she survived what Winston Churchill later called the first holocaust of the twentieth century? Or was it Providence? 

Osanna is the Latin version of the Greek word hosanna. It’s a popular girls’ name in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, but it is also a liturgical word with Hebrew and Aramaic roots meaning “Save me!” or “Help me!” When sung in the liturgy on Palm Sunday, this beseeching cry has the feel of a profound prayer for deliverance.  Osanna Panian was given this liturgical name because she was born on Palm Sunday in 1905. Little did anyone know…