Mission Corner: Honoring Rev. Shelvis Smith-Mather

Please join Adult Ed and Mission and Outreach as we present a Mission-focused Faith Conversation on Nov. 9 in the sanctuary.  For over a decade Mission and Outreach monies have supported the peace-building work of Presbyterian ministers Revs. Nancy and Shelvis Smith-Mather. And now we get to hear Rev. Shelvis!

The Smith-Mathers served alongside faith-based organizations in East Africa, equipping grassroots leaders with conflict resolution, trauma healing, and community development skills. Working with courageous South Sudanese colleagues, they remained present through a brutal civil war (2013), the world’s fastest-growing refugee crisis (2016–2018), and a decade marked by the highest global aid worker death toll (2011–2022).

Rev. Nancy managed the South Sudan Education and Peacebuilding Project, championing girls’ education and teacher training in a country with one of the highest illiteracy rates. Rev. Shelvis, a graduate of the University of Oxford, helped build a nationally recognized peace institute—hailed by CNN as “enriching the world”—that trains leaders from across South Sudan and refugee settlements.

In 2016, violence disrupted progress when military forces torched 10,000 homes, displacing 70% of their town’s population. The Smith-Mathers relocated to neighboring Uganda with the most vulnerable. Inside refugee camps, they facilitated peacebuilding and trauma recovery programs; outside, they trained South Sudanese seminarians in counseling war survivors. Nancy continued traveling into remote areas of South Sudan to promote education development.

Their advocacy has led to collaborations with two Nobel Peace Prize laureates, a United Peace Prize recipient, two African presidents, senior diplomats, and institutions such as Oxford, Yale, Princeton Seminary, and UNHCR—all in efforts to foster deeper collaboration between grassroots actors, international intervenors, and academic communities.

They have worked with UN officials, embassies, NGOs, local communities, and faith organizations in pursuit of sustainable peace. With the University of Cambridge, Shelvis researches the unique peacebuilding role of locally faith-based organizations, while also working to bring these actors into deeper dialogue with scholars to co-develop more innovative peacebuilding practices.

PCUSA and our own WPC Mission funds have supported the Shelvis-Mathers for many years. The Reformed Church in America is now providing the opportunity to continue their work.   They are accompanied in this journey with their four children: Jordan (12), Adalyn (11), Nicole (8), and Alice (4) who are pictured below.

 For more information regarding the Faith Conversation or Mission Sunday at WPC, click here.