Peace River Presbytery Cuba Partnership

Founded over thirty years ago by member congregations, the Cuba Partners Network has a long and rich history of encouraging and supporting vital partnerships between Presbyterian Reformed denominations, primarily the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) and the Presbyterian-Reformed Church of Cuba (IPRC). As a partner congregation, we engage in thoughtful conversation, prayer, and reflection on the relationships between our churches, our governments and our peoples. PC(USA) in the United States and IPRC in Cuba continue to teach each other what it means to encourage each other to follow Christ in our homes and where we live, work and play. You can learn more here.

View our 2023 Mission Partnership presentation here.

In early 2023 several members and our Pastor went to visit Juan G Hall church in Cuba and Pastor Alison and his wife will be here with us in the fall of 2023. Our goal is to share our faith and support one another in Gods work.

Plant With Purpose

Of the world’s poorest people—those scraping by on less than $1.25 a day— 70 percent live in rural areas. Most depend on the land for survival through small-scale farming. But due to environmental damage, the land isn’t producing enough. Parents struggle to put food on the table, pay for basic needs, and send their kids to school.

Yet in the midst of this cycle of poverty, there is hope. Plant With Purpose, a Christian nonprofit organization, reverses deforestation and poverty around the world by transforming the lives of the rural poor. Rather than focusing on one problem or solution, Plant With Purpose uses an integrated three-part approach of environmental restoration, economic empowerment, and spiritual renewal. Since 1984 the organization has grown to partner with 355 communities across the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, Tanzania, Burundi, and Thailand.

The impact:

  • 12 million trees planted to restore land
  • 646 savings-and-loan groups established to help rural families save money
  • 258 local churches equipped to care for their communities
  • 114,000 children and adults experiencing transformation

Plant With Purpose grows hope by equipping families to improve their lives and land. Through partnership with Plant With Purpose, farming families are empowered to change their circumstances, provide for their children, and live with God-given hope and dignity.

Nicaragua (CEPAD)

Members from First Presbyterian Church of Sarasota, along with some members of First Presbyterian Church Bradenton, have worked with CEPAD, an organization of evangelical churches in Nicaragua. We have gone to aid with construction of homes, to assist with harvesting crops and to create a fish pond to raise Tilapia. These are spiritually powerful experiences for all who help and are helped.

The love of Christ is felt by all.

Beth-El

Beth-El Farmworker Ministry began in 1976 when a small group of Cumberland Presbyterians rented a tiny house in Ruskin, Florida and began holding Spanish-language church services for migrant farmworkers. When the families came to worship, their many other needs were obvious: they were usually hungry, often cold in winter, some slept in cars or trucks, many could neither read nor write, and most lived in fear of deportation. In its effort to meet some of those needs, Beth-El grew.
Beth-El Farmworker Ministry, Inc. has a 27 acre site on U.S. Highway 301 about 20 miles south of Tampa. The Ministry serves the nearby rural population. It operates under a covenant among its governing bodies, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the Tampa Bay and Peace River Presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church (USA). http://beth-el.org/

Mision Peniel

Mision Peniel began as a pastoral ministry of charity and service, providing food, clothing, fellowship and emergency supports to farmworkers in Immokalee, Florida in September 2006. At that time it was an extension of Beth-El Farmworker Ministries. When economic constraints made it difficult to continue to support this work through Beth-El Farmworker Ministries, a new covenantal partnership with the Peace River Presbytery of the PCUSA was envisioned and Peace River churches met in the fall of 2013 to determine if sufficient dedicated support was available to continue this work independent of its previous structure but somehow linked to the work and mission of what God is doing in the Peace River Presbytery and the PSUSA. Beginning in 2013 Mission Peniel became a ministry of Peace River Presbytery while continuing to be a vehicle for people of faith to respond to a call for compassionate service to complement the focus on social justice provided so aptly through the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. As spiritual and social advocates Mision Peniel brings together people of faith and compassion to act with farmworkers to achieve fundamental change in their living and working conditions while increasing public awareness of the need for reconciliation and bridge building between sectors. Mission Peniel achieves this mission of change by being a destination for mission outreach of local churches and a learning community for the coastal faith community to communicate regularly with the farmworker community a unifying message that human dignity is not a bargaining chip for change.