Sheryl Johnson and Kelly Colwell were United Church overseas personnel in the Philippines. Here is an excerpt from a letter they wrote in 2012.

For the past week, we have been hosted by the Human Rights program of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines. There are hundreds of people in the country imprisoned on false charges to silence their political activity. We were able to visit 11 detainees in a maximum security detention facility, some of whom have been imprisoned for up to two years without any court hearing or trial.

They have no idea how long their imprisonment will last. Will the charges (often completely false) be dropped or prosecuted? Because they are being held far away from the area of their arrest, they often cannot arrange to be present for their court hearings, if they occur.

We debriefed our experiences with the staff team from the Human Rights program. They shared with us their gratitude for the faithfulness of the United Church as a partner. They shared how most of their global partners had retreated during the ecumenical crisis of the late 1980s and 1990s as [the National Council of Churches] persevered in its prophetic witness by critiquing the government, corporations, and globalization….

Hearing this made us feel proud to be representatives of the United Church, but also challenged to continue to live into this mutuality in light of changing circumstances in the Canadian context. We are aware of the declining funds available to support global partners, but feel called to share the words of our partners and the realities we observed.

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[matched with a companion video.

View at www.youtube.com/unitedchurchofcanada, or download at www.UCRDstore.ca after searching for “minutes for mission 2013.”]