A letter from Karla Koll in Costa Rica
August/September 2014 - Global Institute of Theology
Dear companions in mission,
Greetings from Costa Rica.
You may be wondering what has happened to me, given that you haven’t heard from me for a couple of months. The Global Institute of Theology (GIT) of the World Communion of Reformed Churches is what happened. During the month of July the Latin American Biblical University (UBL) hosted almost 50 people from 15 countries. Students, faculty and staff came to our campus to study and reflect on transforming mission, church and community in today’s world. It was a wonderful experience. I’ll share more about GIT in my forthcoming newsletter.
My duties as local coordinator for the GIT started many months before the first participant arrived, but GIT became a full-time job for me as soon as I returned from the United States at the end of May. The Costa Rican government didn’t make the process of getting visas easy, but in the end all 14 participants who needed visas received them. We were saddened when the 2 Nigerian students couldn’t travel to Costa Rica because they were denied transit visas through Amsterdam. All of the other details fell into place in wonderful ways. One of the joys of GIT was working with Zaida Calderon as my assistant for logistical details. Zaida accepted the temporary job we offered with the UBL and she carried it off with great style, using her excellent language skills. Now that GIT is over I ask your prayers for Zaida as she seeks new employment opportunities.
Now that GIT is over, all of my other work that I didn’t do for two months is claiming my attention. We are currently preparing materials for teaching our bachelor’s courses online. All of the courses, with all of their materials, need to be approved by the government before we can start offering courses online. I am preparing four courses. I also need additional training to be certified for teaching online. That class starts on August 13.
Of course classes have continued here at the UBL. In June and July I taught a course on mission to a group of four students. Two are from Peru. One is a Bolivian who has lived in Costa Rica for many years. The fourth student is a Costa Rican who became a Christian a few months ago and decided to give up his studies in anthropology and study theology. They each brought their own experience of the church and their own perspectives on mission. They left class understanding that all followers of Christ everywhere are sent into the world in mission. Danitza, one of the Peruvians, is planning to write her bachelor’s thesis for me on mission.
New classes start here on Monday, August 11. I’ll have three of the same students from my last class plus two more Costa Rican students. I’ll be teaching the history of world Christianity since 1500 as well as the life and thought of the church in Latin America. It will be a lot of work for both my students and me to do the two courses together, but I am excited about the possibilities for intercontextual reflection. For example, while we remember Luther and his 95 theses we also need to remember that the Spanish conquest of the Americas was going on at the same time. The bimester will end on October 3, so we only have eight weeks to explore the last five centuries and the increasing diversity of the world Christian movement.
My husband, Javier Torrez, has been here in Costa Rica since the beginning of July. While I was busy with GIT, he participated in a workshop on community reading of the Bible at one of our sister institutions here, the Ecumenical Department for Research (DEI). He enjoyed the opportunity to study the Bible together with people from Mexico, El Salvador, Chile, Colombia, Bolivia and Panama.
Javier and I both have just received our residency papers here in Costa Rica. We started the process back in November. This means that Javier can travel back and forth between here and Nicaragua without any problems. He will probably be going back to Nicaragua soon because we are worried about how our farm is doing in the current drought.
Though rainfall has been near to normal here in the Central Valley of Costa Rica this rainy season, much of the rest of Central America is experiencing a serious lack of rain. This may be due to El Niño, a periodic warming of the surface waters in the eastern Pacific that provokes changes in weather patterns across the world. Though scientists seem to be debating about how strong the El Niño phenomenon is likely to be this year, crops and cattle are already dying across the region. Nicaragua is experiencing the worst drought in more than 40 years. Farmers with small landholdings and little infrastructure, the ones who produce the majority of the beans and corn in the region, are being hit hard. Food prices are likely to climb in the coming months. On our farm the waterwheel with piston pumps that Javier installed on the river earlier this year is keeping a small area of pasture green for our cattle. We are hoping for rain in the coming months. Meanwhile, please pray for those who are being affected and for the organizations working with small farmers in Central America.
Our daughter, Tamara, has spent the summer in North Carolina with her boyfriend and his family. They will be flying back to Portland in the middle of August to begin their final year at Reed College. It’s hard to believe that she is this close to finishing college. She and her parents appreciate your prayers as she faces decisions about the future.
I also want to ask for prayers for my father, John Koll, who is hospitalized in Colorado Springs as I write. It is hard to be so far away, but I am grateful for the ways that Skype, e-mail and Facebook help me keep in touch.
Reading corner
In the Global Institute of Theology I had the opportunity to teach a class on Christian mission and Latin America to a group of 11 students from different parts of the world. I searched for a text that would introduce GIT students to the missiological issues in the region without overwhelming them with historical information. I was glad when I discovered Samuel Escobar’s Changing Tides: Latin America and World Mission Today (Orbis, 2002). Several of the brief essays gathered in this collection were published earlier either in Spanish or English. Escobar, a Baptist from Peru, examines the contributions made to missiological thought and practice by Roman Catholics, Protestants and Pentecostals in an evenhanded way, asking what the different traditions can learn from each other. He also locates what is happening in Latin America within the shifts in world Christianity. Today Latin America not only receives mission workers from elsewhere, but the churches of the region are also sending mission workers to serve in many places. I recommend this text to anyone who wants to learn more about mission in Latin America today.
UBL Profile
This month I want to introduce you to one of the newest members of the UBL team, Priscila Barredo, our director of communications. Priscila grew up in the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico, the denomination in which her father is a pastor. She holds a licentiate degree in communications and a master’s degree in Biblical studies from a seminary in Costa Rica. She decided to come back to Costa Rica in March of 2013 to fulfill her sense of calling to work for Christian organizations that work in Latin America and the Caribbean. In May she began working half-time for the UBL. In addition to developing a communications strategy for our university, she is working to strengthen our relationships with other Christian institutions in Latin America. Priscila also serves as the regional secretary for the Latin American Theological Fraternity. She edits Viva, a journal published by a regional network of Christian organizations that advocate for children and adolescents. Priscila participates in Comunidad El Camino, an independent church in San Jose. She is active in their Nexus Ministry, an outreach program to people in prostitution. Priscila asks that you pray for her and her ministry. She is also looking for new opportunities for study that will allow her to combine her passion for communication and her love of theology.
Closing thoughts
As I close, I acknowledge there are many situations in the world right now that demand our prayers and actions as followers of Jesus Christ. The conflict in Palestine-Israel continues, with over 1,900 deaths in Gaza to date. Over a million people, including many Christians, have been displaced as ISIS forces move through northern Iraq. Thousands of Central American children who are trying to escape the violence in their home countries are in detention at the U.S. border. I thank each one of you for all that you are doing and for walking with me in mission. Though sometimes an academic institution can seem a bit removed from current struggles, at the UBL we believe that training religious leaders with a liberating vision of God’s love for the world is an important part of working for a more just and peaceful world. Your gifts and your prayers help make what we do possible.
Blessings,
Karla
The 2014 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 47
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