Presbyterian Church in Canada - Missions and International Partnerships

Missions and International Partnerships

The Presbyterian Church in Canada has also had an international presence; besides congregations in Newfoundland before that province's entry into Canadian Confederation in 1949, St Andrew's in Hamilton, Bermuda was affiliated with the Maritime churches from 1842 to 1963, when its presbyterial oversight was transferred to the West Toronto Presbytery, and many congregations have people from many other nations and cultures that have come to Canada.

Foreign missionaries, or more recently, international partners, share the church's witness around the world. Before 1875, Atlantic Canada sent John Geddie and the Gordon Brothers (George N. and James D., both martyred) from Prince Edward Island to the New Hebrides, now called Vanuatu in the South Pacific; John Morton to Trinidad; and later, partners into neighbouring Demerara, part of present-day Guyana.

In 1871 the Canada Presbyterian Church sent George Leslie MacKay of Zorra Township, Oxford County, Ontario, to Formosa, which has been maintained to this date in connection with the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan. Fellow Oxford County native Jonathan Goforth initially went to Honan China starting the Canadian Presbyterian Mission there, Dr. John Buchannan into India, James Scarth Gale went to Korea (sponsored by the YMCA), Japan saw Caroline Macdonald, "The White Angel of Tokyo" (YWCA), and after 1927, when Luther Lisgar Young and others partnered with The Korean Christian Church of Japan.

Some changes occurred after Church Union, as Goforth left Honan, to conclude his Asian Ministry in Manchuria, the aforementioned L.L. Young went from Korea into Japan. The later Pacific occupation by Japan, followed by Mao's "cultural revolution" in China, forced temporary and permanent departures from some Asian fields, including Taiwan, Japan, and Manchuria.

Since 1954, Nigeria, where Mary Slessor had pioneered a generation before with a Scottish Church, and whose story was well known in many Canadian congregations, opened the door for PCC service in Africa. Richard Fee, Moderator of the 130th General Assembly, held in Oshawa Ontario in June 2004, spent his early ministry in Nigeria, before assuming his Canadian role (1992–2005), first with Presbyterian World Service and Development, and now as General Secretary, Life and Mission Agency.

Malawi, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Cameroon, Lesotho, and the Indian Ocean Island of Mauritius are other African nations that have also been partnered with the PCC, which also serves in Central America (Guyana is also included here, having been an offshoot of the Mission to Trinidad started by Nova Scotian Rev. John Morton in 1865), and more recently, in Eastern Europe, since the 1990s.