Glimpse into life these days

Oh how time always flies…and oh how I always dream of writing more…but here we are!

We are now in our last month here in Central America as a CASP cohort. What a beautiful gift to journey here and alongside these students. It is such a joy and honor to watch them in the journey of learning to practice/embody proximity and learn from/alongside various communities here.

Aside from a full schedule with CASP, things in my own life this last month have been quite crazy. At the very end of February I heard back from Duke Divinity about being accepted to the MDiv program and receiving one of the Latinx Studies Program Fellowships/scholarships. Receiving this news came as a great surprise and right in the midst of sensing this pull, from a place deep within me, to take steps toward our brothers and sisters who are migrating. This last month I’ve been discerning through such an internal sense of conflict about deciding to go to seminary this fall or continue in Central America, but through many conversations with the many voices and sources of wisdom that surround me, I was able to ask Duke to consider deferment to spend the next year here in Central America, which they have so graciously honored. Both the gift of another year before seminary and granted time to continue here in Central America is an immense gift that has been extended that I am deeply grateful for.

God is the most creative and inspiring writer of stories, no? I’m sitting here this morning reflecting on the abounding goodness of God. And yet I also find myself deeply wrestling and lamenting all of the spaces of immense suffering and oppression and war and violence in the world. Shalom has been fractured in so many ways — between us and God, within ourselves, with our neighbors, with the land. Our world cries out for restoration. So we cry out in solidarity, restore us, O Lord.

These are some of the gifts to me, that remind me of the invitation extended to us as followers of Christ to actively participate in the Kingdom of Shalom and the work of restoration, while also yearning and crying out for the final restoration of all things. These spaces give me hope.

Casa Adobe: my host community — we practice morning devotionals together, we cook and clean together/for one another, we help each other with homework and projects, we welcome in visitors, we try in various ways to care for the land — we seek to practice all rhythms of life together as a form of discipleship. Jesus walked, slept, ate, danced at weddings, laughed, taught, preached, performed miracles, and confronted systems of injustice all with his disciples. The invitation to live in a community such as this is an invitation to walk in the way of discipleship that reflects the way of Jesus. We learn things like patience and sacrifice and gentleness and self-control time and time again through our consistent proximity to one another.

Casa Esperanza: this is one of Casa Adobe’s newest projects, in Los Chiles, Costa Rica. This town is right at the northern border with Costa Rica and daily sees around 1,000 people who are migrating from South America with the hope of making it to the US. We have 2 of our CASP students working there, and I’ve been so touched in my brief visits to see the movement of the Spirit there, while also feeling so utterly heartbroken and disturbed to see the reality that so many people are facing. One of these days, I was working with another group of university students as an interpreter for a foot washing clinic. The image of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples takes on a whole new meaning when you sit in front of someone and see their blisters, cuts, bruised toe nails, and extremely swollen feet, ankles, and legs from making the dangerous trek through the Darién Gap — about a 100km stretch of jungle that connects South and Central America. Even more striking and gut-wrenching are the stories that people begin to share as they sit there — trekking through rivers and the jungle that not only exposes them to natural dangers, but also the exposure to gangs and other groups that are violently assaulting and exploiting people as they try to cross through. These brothers and sisters in transit tell me that if they had known how dangerous the journey was going to be to cross through the Darién, they never would have done it. It’s young people — they’re my same age. And it’s also families with very young children, carrying nothing but their backpack with the essentials and sometimes with a tent and rolled up sleeping pad. They are largely from Venezuela, Ecuador, and Colombia; forced to migrate out of necessity. And I just have to keep clinging to the truth that Jesus is with the most vulnerable. He took on flesh. He himself was a refugee. He knows.

APAC Restorative Justice Program: once a week, I spend the day at the men’s restorative justice program in one of Alajuela’s prisons, where I had one of my internships two years ago. I’m facilitating a workshop on restorative justice, peace circles, and theology with a group of about 15 guys. What a gift it is to learn alongside them, they are so eager to learn and discuss and wrestle. It opens my imagination to how we as Christians might talk about all of the narratives and systems that divide us (like the dehumanizing label of “criminal” and the dehumanization of carceral systems), but also to reflect on God’s original vision of shalom — a vision of interconnection, unity, well being, and mutual flourishing. We are all from the same dust. And to dust we shall return.

I would love to invite you to join me in prayer for guidance as I now begin to create a plan for this next year in Central America (July 2024 - July 2025) in which I am hoping to be focusing on the theme of migration before entering into seminary. I'm so thankful for this last month and the various spaces of conversation with people that has confirmed a sense/desire/calling to seminary, but also to focus specifically on what it means to be rooted with el pueblo and to always do theology alongside communities at the margins. And please pray for our current CASP cohort as they finish their last month of CASP — pray that they would be present to the spaces, people, conversations, and communities that they are part of!

In peace,

Elena