Page 14 - May Spire 2013

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Prayer Focus
Please keep all our mission partners in your prayers that they will bring light to the world,
will be strengthened, protected and upheld by the power of the Holy Spirit and that their
work will bear much fruit. Especially pray for the following needs that they have shared
with us:
• Peace in Lahore and protection for Forman Christian College and staff and students.
• John and Marilyn Parker as they leave on May 2nd, to spend the summer in Africa serving the people there.
• Hanna Massad as he travels between Gaza and Jordan, for safety and God speed through the many check-
points and strength as he ministers the poor and needy Syrian and Iraqi refugees and the Palestinians. The
loan of a car during Hanna’s summer visit to Connecticut (July 4/29).
Mission Ministry continued...
A Christian Scholarship program has
been approved and established as
part of our Foundations for the Future
Mission Grant awards. Education has
been an important focus of NPC’s
mission giving for many years, begin-
ning decades ago with mission dol-
lars sent to the PCUSA to support
missionary teachers in Third World
countries. Presently, education is
one of the three primary focus areas
governing our mission giving, and the
Mission team maintains direct relation-
ships with its mission partners – much
of our foreign support continues to be
directed to educational needs, such as
scholarships at Presbyterian University
of East Africa, and Forman Christian
College, and support for Nambale
Magnet School.
With this background, the team
believes that supporting scholarships
for Christian students in developing
countries is a worthy use of a portion
of our Foundations tithe.
Mareena Tarazi
The Scholarship Committee of the
Foundations for the Future Mission
Grant Team has approved the first of
these annual scholarship which will go
to Mareena Tarazi. Mareena lives in
Gaza City, Gaza and began studying
dentistry and oral medicine in
November 2012 at Al-Azhar Univer-
sity in Gaza. The university is well
regarded academically and known as a
moderate Islamic institution. Mareena
finished high school with a GPA of
94% and her first college semester
GPA was 86%. She is enrolled in a
five year program that costs $4,000
(U.S.) per year and plans to graduate
in June 2017.
She is the only child of Essa and Issa
Tarazi. Essa Tarazi works for the
Palestinian Authority in Gaza City
but struggles financially because the
Authority pays erratically. Mareena’s
parents are both Christian and wor-
ship at the Baptist Church in Gaza.
We learned about Mareena from
Hanna Massad, a Christian missionary
in Aman, Jordan, who is supported,
in part, by NPC. Hanna regularly
travels to Gaza where he ministers
to the Christian minority by leading
worship services, teaching and bringing
supplies. Both of Mareena’s parents
study with Hanna Massad. Hanna and
his family will be in Darien for a few
weeks starting in July.
Mareena’s scholarship application was
well received by the Scholarship Com-
mittee and we are pleased to be able
to support her as part of Foundations
for the Future. She stated that her goal
is to “serve her community as a Chris-
tian dentist in an Islamic society.”
John Marr
Foundations for the Future Mission
Grant Scholarship Committee
Foundations for the Future Mission Grant -
Christian Scholarship Program