A letter from Elisabeth Cook serving in Costa Rica
Summer 2015
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“You left and I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye.” This was the subject line on my email to Beauvais after I realized he left Costa Rica for Haiti early that morning. I had been out of the office during his round of farewells the previous day and felt strangely bereft at not having had the chance to see him. The feeling surprised me. Students come and go all the time. It is hard not to get emotionally involved, and inevitably their time at UBL leaves its mark on our lives and hearts. Unlike most students who combine distance and residence studies, Beauvais was with us for more than four years. Being from Haiti, he could not leave and be ensured of a reentry visa. So he stayed. And finished two degrees. He is now back in Haiti, in his words “getting accustomed to life in Port au Prince again” and finding his place in the ministry of grassroots reading of the Bible in Catholic communities.
Travel has become such a commonplace feature in our lives here at the Latin American Biblical University (UBL), and I think in much of the world today, that departures and arrivals are no longer the traumatic events they used to be. When my grandparents left Houston in the early 1920s to travel by ship to Argentina, where they served as missionaries for over 50 years, their goodbye was pretty definite. Who knew when they would be able to return, or indeed if they would arrive in Argentina safely at all? When my father traveled to the U.S. for college, eight long years went by before he saw his parents again. But then, not much later, air travel became a continual part of his life, and safely guarded family postcards testify to the relatively swift possibilities for communication (two-three weeks?).
Graduation and good-bye at UBL: Left to right Beauvais from Haiti; Ana Lucía from Costa Rica; Gustavo from Colombia; Elisabeth Cook
Today we expect immediate responses, immediate information. We have up-to-date news from around the world, and people living outside their home countries can keep up with the latest events. Our students at UBL rely on email and skype to communicate with their families while in Costa Rica—and Internet outages are stressful occasions. And at UBL we rely on the Internet and skype to keep in contact with students, graduates and partners.
I am teaching a course this term on exile and diaspora in the Old Testament. One of the students, Gustavo, is a Colombian immigrant who has lived in Costa Rica for several decades. His reflections on life in a home away from home, his relationship to the Colombian community in Costa Rica, and his yearning for return to Colombia have contributed to our “imagining” the complexity of exile and diaspora for the Judeans and other exiles as reflected in the Bible. News of violence and conflict in Colombia brings feelings of frustration, anguish and, at the same time, the relief that his children and grandchildren are in a safer place. But diaspora is not only about life outside one’s home, it is also about internal displacement, economic marginalization, discrimination, and living like a stranger in one’s own country. Jeremiah chapter 29 urges the exiles to build houses and live in them, to plant vineyards and enjoy the fruit of their labor. In sum, to seek the well-being and welfare of the place in which they are to live, for whatever time. This is their call, their ministry. To work for life, to take on the challenge of new contexts, new cultures and their socially resituated status, and work for peace.
Increasing migration throughout the world brings us into continual contact with exiles, migrants and diasporic communities in our own countries. Costa Rica hosts some 500,000 Nicaraguan immigrants who come looking for relief from 60 percent unemployment rates in their own country. These contexts are opportunities for building peace and well-being. The Judean exiles wanted to return immediately to Judah, but conditions did not make that possible. Their life was to be built in Babylon. Nicaraguans, Colombians and other immigrants in Costa Rica yearn for home, but for many survival and the well-being of their families decrees that they remain. The challenge of living as multicultural communities, within and across borders, is ever more present. It is precisely borders—artificial walls erected between peoples, genders, races and religions—that we must question, challenge and redraw as we seek peace (well-being for all) in the places in which we are called to live.
Service as a PC(USA) mission co-worker includes time in the United States every three years, a time in which we are called to share the ministry and mission of our church as it partners with local churches and institutions in Latin America and the world. I am pleased to have this opportunity this Fall (September – December 2015). I will be based in the California Bay Area and have travel plans to different parts of the U.S. I would be thrilled to include your congregation in my schedule. I’m happy to share in Sunday school, special events, young adult groups, worship services, men or women’s groups, potlucks, breakfasts, classrooms, mission committee meetings, presbytery meetings, or any other activity in which that would suit the life of your congregations.
A note on expenses: My salary is covered during my time in the U.S. for Interpretation Assignment, so honorariums are not expected. Food, lodging and travel to visit congregations are not covered, however, and your support will be needed for these. Combining visits to more than one congregation or presbytery can help reduce costs. I am also available to share via Skype or other Web service.
As you may be aware, the current funding gap faced by the Presbyterian Mission Agency may require the recall of some 40 mission co-workers (out of 162 currently in service) by 2017. Your engagement through prayer and giving is vital to the continued ministry of our church in service throughout the world. Our church has been involved in theological education throughout the world for over 175 years. In Latin America today theological education is undergoing critical transformation. Our accompaniment and solidarity as a global church is vital at this time.
Thank you for your faithfulness, commitment, prayers and financial support. You are the heart of PC(USA) Mission around the world, and without you my work at UBL would not be possible. I look forward to meeting with many of you in the Fall.
God bless you as you share God’s love, working for peace and justice in your church, family, community, country and the world.
Together in Christ,
Elisabeth Cook
The 2015 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 66, 67
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