In the midst of ongoing demonstrations of support for Guatemala’s recently elected leader, the former college professor Bernardo Arévalo, CEDEPCA, World Mission’s partner in Central America’s most populous country, held an informative webinar Thursday to discuss the support being offered to the demonstrators, who are under the leadership of indigenous Guatemalans.
Good partnerships are good for all the partners. At their best, partnerships blossom into healthier communities beyond the partners. This is true for marriages, friendships, working relationships and the missional work of the church. A good partnership makes us good for the world.
When individuals and small groups are ready once again to travel to places like Guatemala to learn about and walk alongside that nation’s welcoming people, CEDEPCA, the Protestant Center for Pastoral Studies in Central America, is ready to handle all the details and deepen visitors’ experience.
While Guatemala has been struggling with the global pandemic, mission co-workers Eric and Betsey Moe have been working remotely from Spokane, Washington.
In late January 2020, New Castle Presbytery sent a delegation to Guatemala for its annual visit with mission partners: the Association of Mam Christian Women for Development and the Protestant Center for Pastoral Studies in Central America (CEDEPCA). Delegates look forward to the yearly trip as a great way to reconnect and see God’s work in action. The presbytery has been sending a team to Guatemala for more than 30 years, as it believes building collaborative relationships are of utmost importance in addressing the root causes of poverty.
The mission to build a more just world is a clear one for longtime Presbyterian Mission Agency (PMA) global partner CEDEPCA (the Protestant Center for Pastoral Studies in Central America). The building blocks CEDEPCA uses include biblical and theological formation, women’s ministry, disaster assistance and intercultural encounters.
As in the U.S., COVID-19 has caused a huge disruption in the lives of families in Guatemala, resulting in lives lost, jobs vanished and plans put on hold. The Western Highlands, where the Association of Mam Christian Women for Development is headquartered, has been hit especially hard because of widespread poverty and nearly nonexistent health systems. As a result, high levels of chronic malnutrition and food insecurity in rural Guatemala persist.
Up against some appalling facts — 119 Guatemalan women each day report a violent attack against them and nearly 62,000 women and girls 19 and under became pregnant during the first six months of 2018, many of them the result of rape — CEDEPCA, a longtime partner of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), was determined to empower girls in a new way.
