A letter from Elisabeth Cook in Costa Rica
May 2013
Dear Friends:
Elisabeth visiting retired Long-term mission workers Ross and Gloria Kinsler in Pasadena, Calif.
I have thought a lot about what home means during the past few months. Having grown up in many different countries, I have become used to being a “foreigner” almost everywhere I go. But the months I recently spent on Interpretation Assignment in the U.S. made me realize that belonging and home have to do with people, relationships, and the sharing of hearts and spirits. To travel to such very different congregations and share with people from many different walks of life, some very interested in the mission of our church and some barely aware of it, I have felt welcome, challenged and, above all, part of a family.
As a “missionary kid” I have no home in the U.S., but the place I am starting to call home, the Bay Area of California, came to be so thanks to PC(USA) mission. For several years groups came to the Latin American Biblical University (Universidad Bíblica Latinoamericana, UBL) from First Presbyterian Church of Oakland and Montclair Presbyterian Church. As I shared with them in Costa Rica, they opened their hearts and homes to me in the U.S. Little by little, I have carved out a place, not a geographical place, but a people place!
Faith United Methodist Church, Orland Park sharing with students at UBL
Among many other things, I was privileged to be a part of the Month of Mission at Detroit Presbytery, where mission enthusiast and energetic organizer Fran Anderson scheduled some 30 mission worker engagements throughout the presbytery. Not only is this amazing in itself, it is even more so when you consider that Fran is over 80 years old! I wish I had her energy! Fran’s home is a place where mission is lived and breathed and put into action. My time at Duluth Presbytery with Robyn and Lon Weaver and Glen Avon Presbyterian Church was special in so many ways. In spite of having spent so little time there, it was a homecoming!
At UBL our students come from countries where home is a precarious thing, easily threatened or lost. Poverty, violence, forced migration, natural and unnatural disasters quickly transform home into a place of sorrow, need and absence. It is in these contexts of homelessness, of the yearning for home—for justice, true Shalom, and a place for all, independent of age, sex, race, and religion—that our students carry out their ministries.
Also at UBL we are struggling to remodel our “house”—our educational model and the programs we offer students throughout Latin America. Changes in the policies of the Ministry of Education in Costa Rica have led us to this place where we need to find new ways of being a house of theological education. We explore creative ways of responding to the challenges the Latin American context presents us and our students both current and future. As part of this remodeling, we were blessed to have the help of Ana Claudia Figueroa, a Brazilian specialist in education technologies and strategies. In two short weeks she helped us identify key areas that need to change, opportunities for new ways of offering theological education in Latin America.
UBL students from El Salvador, Perú, Brasil, Haiti, Argentina and the Dominican Republic
We are facing unsure times at UBL, as are many institutions of theological education in Latin America. Funding is tight and wisdom is needed for the road ahead. We are grateful for the many groups from congregations and seminaries, as well as volunteers, who have come to share with us, to walk with us on this journey. Thank you for your prayers and your giving.
One of my personal goals this year is to present my Ph.D. dissertation for examination. I am studying chapters 9 and 10 of the book of Ezra and focusing on the way in which religion—and the Bible—can be and has been used to justify processes of social exclusion. I was fortunate to locate an excellent distance Ph.D. program in Biblical Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom and have been doing my research and writing from Costa Rica.
This year I am responding to the request UBL has made that I contribute to the university’s academic programs as Academic Dean. We are a small faculty at this time, and all of us have taken on administrative work along with our teaching responsibilities. And of course I continue to teach—I love to teach!—and I continue to work on developing materials for our students and our graduates who are involved in pastoral and teaching ministries among the poor and excluded throughout Latin America.
Last but not least, as a mission worker I am being challenged by the PC(USA) to significantly increase designated giving for my support and the ministry in which I am involved in Latin America through our church. Please let me know if you would like to contribute in this way. Goals are set high, in order for our church and its workers (all of us together) to continue in ministry throughout the world. This is the work of our church, the work and ministry of each and every one of us.
Blessings to you as together we build our world into a home,
Elisabeth
The 2013 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 23
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