Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

Greetings from Guatemala, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. It has been too long since we have written a missionary correspondence letter. At times I have had the impulse to sit down and write, but the opening line always seems to come out in one or another version of "It’s a mess down here." It’s a mess down here doesn’t seem like very inspiring material for a missionary correspondence letter.

The current rector is also moderator of the national Presbyterian church, and that adds his political interests within the church to his personal interests as matters that seem to be more important than the academic program when it comes to making decisions about personnel and use of funds in the seminary. As far as we can see, the personal interests of the moderator and his cohorts also take precedence in the decisions within the national church.

Decisions about the use of funds at the seminary include decisions about the use of funds donated by Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) sources. Sufficient funds have been donated for the academic program, including funds for student scholarships, to support strong improvement and one could even say a movement toward excellence in the academic program. This has not happened. Decisions have been made to spend so much money on things only indirectly related to the academic program that there is not enough left for the things that create and sustain a quality academic program. "Creative accounting" can make this legal, but it cannot make this a wise use of available resources.

In the meantime, talented and/or qualified professors have been pushed to the margins, and some have subsequently left, while political cohorts of the rector have assured incomes that are substantially higher than the normal professor’s salary, even though their ability as professors is not highly regarded among the students or their fellow faculty. To be sure, normal professors’ salaries here are unfairly low, so in one sense one cannot begrudge any professor any salary, but if decisions as to the allocation of scarce resources were made on the basis of teaching ability, the academic program would look very different.

So, things are a mess. Debbie has already left the seminary, and Harry is leaving as of mid-October. The Worldwide Ministries Division, at my request, has decided to withdraw me.

We do not know what we will do next. We are in consultation with WMD about further opportunities to serve in Central America. In the meantime, we want you to know that we have deeply appreciated your letters, your prayers, and all the ways that you have supported us and our Guatemalan sisters and brothers in our eight years at the Seminario Evangélico Presbiteriano in Guatemala. We hope you all will feel, as we do, that a wonderful thing about teaching and learning is that it will never be completely lost. It bears fruit in a thousand different ways. Although the National Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Guatemala may continue to be run in a problematic way, we continue to believe that Jesus is Lord of this church. In the long run, his lordship will be made manifest.

Shalom,

Harry and Debbie Horne

The 2002 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 242