Extra Commitment Opportunities

There is a channel through which gifts can be designated for specific items that support the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s work around the world. These are called Extra Commitment Opportunities (ECOs). You can give directly to an ECO account online or by mailing your check designating the name and account number of the particular item you have chosen to:

PC(USA) Individual Remittance Processing
P.O. Box 643700
Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3700

Your gift will go directly into the ECO Account designated, and you will receive a letter indicating that your gift has been received and will be used for the purpose intended.

Below are some ECOs related to Colombia. For a complete listing visit Mission Funding's Web site and type Colombia into the search box.

Agriculture and Hunger

Displaced Communities

Massive displacement due to violence in Colombia has left nearly 1 million people fleeing their homes. The Presbyterian Church in Colombia is working with the displaced in various projects related to development, which will provide income generation and support to the people. Projects range in size from $3,000 to $10,000. A specific listing is available upon request.

Camps and Conference Centers

Presbyterian Home, Central and Uraba Presbyteries

These presbyteries request financial assistance for their ministry of health care and short-term housing for the poor and needy. An ecumenical medical team offers surgery, and the home provides convalescent care. It also serves college students from rural areas, victims of violence who need to relocate, and people attending meetings who seek low-cost housing in a Christian atmosphere.

Disaster Response

Disaster Response —Colombia

This account supplements the One Great Hour of Sharing (OGHS) offering to enable a significant response for relief and disasters in Colombia.  

Education

Colegio Americano

For the ongoing work of Colegio Americano, especially in the areas of scholarship and building needs.

Colombia Reformed University Leadership Training in Uraba

One of the university's regional centers is in Apartado, in the region known as Uraba, one of the centers of the violence that continues to tear Colombia apart. The church is growing rapidly, and men and women of many denominations are feeling God's call to ministry. The program here is a special one because the area is on the edge of the jungle and few people have had a chance to study beyond basic elementary education. The PC(USA) work in Uraba includes a high school equivalence program for the pastor and church leaders as well as a university-level program of theological education.

Colombia Reformed University Library

The Library has a new librarian with creative ideas for making the library a service to the community. She is working to bring the collection of books up to date and computerizing the old-fashioned card files for looking up books. We have also joined a network of theological libraries across Latin America working together through the Internet.

Colombia Reformed University School of Music

This program, founded and still directed by retired missionary Pauline Schutmaat, was set up originally for younger children and continues to serve this need, but it also has adult divisions and is part of the university project. Gifts help buy instruments and sheet music and subsidize tuition so that children from poor families can attend.

Colombia Reformed University School of Theology

This is the basic fund for theological education in Colombia. From this fund such expenses as faculty and staff salaries are paid, electricity and telephone bills, and the costs of publishing textbooks produced by the professors, student activities, and special programs.

Colombia Reformed University School of Theology-Scholarships

Even though official recognition of the university’s graduates as professionals in theology improves their options, students do not choose a career in the ministry for money. Most come from poor communities and need scholarship assistance to complete their studies.

Presbyterian Theological Seminary Building Program

The Seminary has a beautiful campus in the heart of Barranquilla, on Colombia's Caribbean coast, used for the residential program and for many special seminars and study groups each year. The grounds require constant maintenance, and the buildings need frequent improvements, remodeling and new furnishings.

Reformed University of Colombia

The Reformed University of Colombia (CUR) is a creative and prophetic project of the Presbyterian Church of Colombia. It is the first Reformed university in the country and seeks to use the principles and spirit of the Reformed tradition to offer an alternative formation and train a new generation of Christian leaders for the country.

Evangelism

Evangelism on the Northern Coast of Colombia

The Presbytery of the Northern Coast of Colombia gives priority to evangelism by training evangelism enablers, who assist Christian communities to work within their own neighborhoods. This work in at least six northern cities has borne fruit in 15 new churches. The School for Evangelists anticipates starting 41 new churches. Resources are needed for continued expansion of a dynamic church.

Human Rights, Justice and Peacemaking

Colombia Accompaniment Program

Responding to the request of the Presbyterian Church of Colombia (IPC) to accompany it as the situation of repression escalates, teams of short-term mission volunteers are being sent to support church workers engaged in the social ministry of the IPC with the displaced and in defense of human rights. Funds are needed for travel and insurance.

Mission Personnel

John and Paula Ewers serve as pastoral accompaniers for human rights workers and displaced people. The need for this kind of ministry has arisen as paramilitary groups have targeted for assassination those serving displaced people. John and Paula work closely with the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, which recruits and trains short-term accompaniers. “It is so exciting and disheartening to see the realities of what is going on in Colombia. We must do whatever we can to change this situation,” they write. “We thank God for all of you and for your love and prayers as we all work to make this a better world for all of God’s people.”

Alice Winters, an ordained PC(USA) minister and a mission worker for almost 30 years, teaches Bible and biblical languages in the School of Theology of the Reformed University of Colombia in Barranquilla. The university provides leadership training—for ministerial candidates and for laypersons—for a number of denominations along the Caribbean coast of Colombia. Alice has translated several Old and New Testament textbooks into Spanish and has many publications in Spanish and English in the areas of biblical studies and mission.

Other Support

Gifts to this ECO will be used to defray the direct and indirect costs of travel and operating expenses for the work of the regional liaison in helping implement agreed upon programs with partner churches and institutions, supporting PC(USA) congregations and presbyteries in mission involvement with partners, and supporting PC(USA) mission personnel serving in the region. This region includes Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The regional liaison also visits Presbyterian theological institutions and gatherings of Latin American seminaries, and assists International Mission in Partnership in developing and implementing a theological education strategy with the PC(USA)'s partners in the region.