San Jose, Costa Rica
November 2006

Dear Partners in mission,

Thanks for your support for overseas mission, and particularly for your commitment to participate in mission with us, Sara, Guido, and our grown children. From 1990 to 1994, we were in Bolivia working with a presbytery and a university. We still keep up good relationships with many people there. From 1995 to 1999 we were in Fortaleza (in northeast Brazil) working with the Independent Presbyterian Church as professors in the seminary and participating with elders planting a new church. Since 1999 we have been working with the Latin American Biblical University (UBL) as professors here in Costa Rica.

We know that some of our supporting churches have gone through difficult times, but they have kept contributing to mission. Thanks to your support, which enables hundreds of Presbyterian missionaries continue to the good news of Jesus through teaching the gospel, health care, advocating for human rights, improving agriculture, caring for street children, and so on.

Here at the UBL, we teach students from all over Latin America—those who do not have the opportunity to study in their own countries, women, and poor people. All are very welcome. Sara teaches pastoral care and counseling, and Guido teaches New Testament. In November, Sara taught a course in Honduras to Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Methodists.

In October, Guido went to Guatemala City to teach New Testament to 20 men and women from CEDEPCA, the Central American Evangelical Center for Pastoral Studies. Some of the students were from the Presbyterian Church in Guatemala. The two ministers, Jenner and Alvaro, were from Presbyterian Central Church. They invited both of us to participate in the celebration of their anniversary, from November 24 to 26, at a gathering with the theme “The Identity of the Christian Family.”

We have been teaching for more than 30 years in different churches, seminaries, and universities. It always amazes us that there are people everywhere ready to learn from the Bible and from Jesus Christ. Many people are ready to change and be converted to new ways of understanding the role of the Kingdom of God. I came to the Presbyterian Church almost 50 years ago through evening classes, when I was 13 years. First I was converted to Jesus, and later we were converted to favor the poor and the needy. After that, we have been through some other conversions, including a gender conversion, because women are discriminated against in most of the Latin American continent, and in some of our Presbyterian churches. Some of our churches have never had the opportunity and the invitation to change. We enjoy working in order to keep the church and our own lives ready to be converted again.

We are very pleased to be working in the Latinamerican Biblical University, where the changing situation of the continent is present, and new liturgy, new biblical approaches, and new theological emphases respond to the changing world. A former missionary, Irene Foulkes, who worked at the UBL for more than 40 years, said that she hasn’t felt like she has been working 40 years in the same institution because the University changes frequently. Please do not be afraid to change when needed. Paul changed. He was apocalyptic in 1 Thessalonians, a pastor in 1 Corinthians, a teacher in Romans, a defender in Galatians, and a believer of the cosmic Jesus in Ephesians.

The UBL has decentralized programs, with teaching staff in 12 countries. Among our PC(USA) missionary colleagues are Elisabeth Cook here in Costa Rica, Karla Koll in Guatemala, and Harry and Debbie Horne in Peru. Thanks to them and other colleagues, the UBL gives theological training to hundred of men and women. The UBL’s Indigenous Project, which is guided by a Mayan professor, Antonio Otzoy, is developing a training program for indigenous church leaders.

Here in San Jose, we participate in a small Presbyterian congregation made up of Costa Ricans, Colombians, and Nicaraguans. The last two groups are immigrants. Our pastor is Ledis Ruiz, a Colombian woman who graduated from the Presbyterian Seminary of Mexico City.

We invite all of you to sponsor missionaries. Through their work you participate in changing the lives of human beings around the world.

Sincerely,

Sara and Guido Mahecha

The 2005 Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study, p. 240