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December 2000
Dear Friends,
We thank God for your friendship, support, and prayers for us.
We received your postcards, some of them from Sunday school classes,
others from prayer groups, women’s circles, and friends.
This has been a very good year. The UBL (Latin American Biblical
University) has improved many services: the facilities are good
and beautiful, and we’re building offices and classrooms
and another residence building for foreign students, with capacity
for 40 people. This year, many groups—Methodists, Presbyterians,
Episcopalians and the United Church of Christ—have come to
help with offerings and work to build and repair the buildings.
The building work is finished and the campaign "A Million
Women Building a Dream" is over, but new opportunities have
sprung up. For example, it is possible to have a group study-trip
to Costa Rica during which you’ll attend classes on Latin
American theology for a week, visit ecological reserves, and be
involved with poor communities. Also, it is possible to visit
one of the UBL’s 11 centers all over Latin America, from
Guatemala to Bolivia.
Sara will continue teaching and writing in the pastoral field.
She asked her students to share with people in the church their
new counseling skills. That church is related to FIEC (Fraternity
of Evangelical Churches in Costa Rica), which has a partnership
relationship with the PC(USA). Guido keeps on teaching New Testament
courses and coordinates part of the work of the RUDs (training
centers of the UBL outside of Costa Rica). It is a wonderful experience
to visit these centers and know how many of our students are working
in their own countries to support their families and to pay the
fees for the courses. Then, when their training is advanced, they
come to Costa Rica for a short time to finish the courses and
do the research for a final paper or dissertation. These 11 centers
have many important needs—books for their libraries, scholarships
for those who are finishing, air tickets to Costa Rica, and some
economic help for the professors in charge of the centers. If
you are interested in helping, contact Ruth Ann Gill at the Office
of Global Education and International Leadership Development at
(888) 728-7228 x5641. She’ll give you good instructions on
how to contribute. We are happy to know that we are teaching the
future leaders of Latin America’s churches. They are usually
older than 30 and tend to be from groups that do not have many
opportunities: women, blacks, indigenous people, and poor people.
Again, we thank you for your interest, support, prayers, and
commitment to God’s mission in Latin America. Sometimes we
feel a touch of despair, and we dream of better years, better
management of resources, more care for the poor and for the earth,
more justice. Sometimes it looks like the situation is getting
worse. There are more poor people now than there were ten years
ago, and the promise of the future is not better. It means we
must commit to work harder because we know that, with Jesus, we
will be on the winning side.
God bless you all. And have a merry Christmas, and a wonderful
new year 2001.
Sara and Guido Mahecha
The 2000 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 231
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