January 31, 2006

Dear Friends,

In the blink of an eye these past six months have come and gone. Six months ago I began my third appointment to mission service with PC(USA)? What an incredibly full six months they have been!

In July, after three weeks of mission orientation, rather than heading directly out to the “mission field” I began my service in Louisville, Kentucky, as a “missionary in residence” with the Ecumenical Partnership office of the Worldwide Ministries Division. After three months of meeting people, learning the structures and gaining insights into the inner workings of the church, I moved back to Managua, Nicaragua. On October 25, 2005, a city that I had said goodbye to just a year and a half earlier became my home again. Though I’ve been here for three months now, I haven’t actually been here much at all. Three days after arriving in Nicaragua, Julia Ann Moffett, my predecessor in this position, arrived to begin traveling with me around the region to introduce me to our partners. In the next six weeks, I visited six countries. It wasn’t until I was able to move into my own place in Managua in late December that I began to soak in this whirlwind tour that my life has become.

One of the countries I visited isn’t part of my region, Peru. I went there to visit CEDEPAS (the Ecumenical Center for Promotion and Social Action) with two colleagues—Carlos Cardenas of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and Betty Carrera of CEDEPCA in Guatemala—to learn about CEDEPAS’s work in the area of trauma recovery. We want to find ways to share CEDEPAS’s experience with groups in Central America so they can more adequately respond to the disasters and ongoing traumas.

In Peru, we were present for the first graduation of 90 pastors and lay leaders who received training to be reconcilers and counselors in their churches and communities. In the opening ceremony of this two-day event, Carlos, Betty and I were given hats. They explained to us that in Quechua tradition, the passing of the hat is symbolic of joining together in work and sharing the load. As a tangible symbol of sharing together in this ministry of healing and reconciliation of CEDEPAS, they placed traditional Huanca hats on our heads. It was a simple act, but moving for me. What I understood them to be saying is that in wearing the hat of the other, you can be in mission together. That may be a perfect image for understanding my role as regional liaison.

As regional liaison, I help improve communication between offices in the Worldwide Ministries Division, partner churches and organizations, and PC(USA) entities in the United States that are involved in Central America. Believing that as Presbyterians we do mission in partnership, I see my role as vital role to doing healthy mission. Every partner and every situation is unique. In order to be in partnership we need to know one another, understand how we relate, know our histories, our theology, and one another’s context. By joining together to do God’s mission, we need to “pass the hat,” to work together and share the load.

In that ceremony in Huancayo, it was an honor to have that hat placed on my head. As I have traveled through Central America getting to know our partners, they too have placed a variety of hats on my head. Now my challenge is to understand what all these hats mean in the context of working for God’s kingdom and how we can best work in partnership to share in the roles and responsibilities that participating in God’s mission means for us.

I look forward to sharing with you as I continue this journey with the people of Central America. On the eve of the retirement of Julia Ann, who spent 23 years accompanying and serving the people of Central America, I want to start by passing the hat to you and ask for your prayers of thanksgiving for this opportunity God has provided me, as well as prayers for continued faithfulness in discerning how God is calling us to be in mission here in Central America.

Blessings and peace,

Tracey

The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 38