Rev. Mía Umaña, Peacemaker from Costa Rica

Subscribe to my co-worker letters

Dear friends,

Mía Umaña is nearing the end of her degree at the Latin American Biblical University (UBL) in Costa Rica. After years of working as a counselor, Mia turned to theological studies as her sense of faith and call to pastoral ministry grew. When the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program asked the UBL to recommend an activist motivated by their faith to participate as a Peacemaker, we thought immediately of Mía. She had to wait a whole year to get an appointment at the U.S. Embassy for a visa. Finally, on September 9 of this year, Mía flew to Louisville to begin her service as a Peacemaker in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). I was able to accompany her as an interpreter.

Over the course of a month, Mía and I visited the presbyteries of Tampa Bay (Florida), New Hope (North Carolina), Pueblo (Colorado) and the Grand Canyon (Arizona). Each presbytery offered Mía several opportunities to share with congregations and other groups about the ministry that she carries out in various indigenous communities in Costa Rica. Her training in trauma is particularly important as she works with women and children in China Kichá, a territory the Cabecar people recently recovered from outsiders who had illegally taken over their land. Outsiders continually attack the community, burning their crops and at times even their homes. Mía also provides counseling through Casa Adobe for migrants who are passing through Costa Rica on their way north.

[ngg src="galleries" ids="1268" display="pro_horizontal_filmstrip" show_captions="1"]The folks who had the opportunity to hear Mía learned about the impact contextualized theological education in an intercultural setting can have on women and men in ministry. In each presentation, Mía spoke about how her studies at the UBL have given her an understanding of how God is present in the midst of communities who are defending lives. She has learned to lead groups to read the Bible in conversation with their contexts to discern how to live out God’s justice. In addition to her studies, Mia shares her gifts in many aspects of our university life. She serves on the gender justice team, our green team, and on the team that provides pastoral care to students. I have the immense privilege of working with students like Mía each and every day at the UBL.

Our hosts also included space in our schedule for Mía to experience wonder on her first trip to the United States. In Florida, we saw the manatees at Crystal River and watched the sun set over Tampa Bay. Our time in North Carolina included a retreat on Ocean Isle. Mía got to see snow on the tip of Pike’s Peak, the mountain that overlooks my birthplace of Colorado Springs. During our visit to the Gila Crossing School, teachers and students from the Akimel O’otdam and Pee-Posh tribes shared how regaining their rights to the water of the Gila River in 2004 allowed them to resume their agricultural practices and grow their traditional food.

And, of course, food abounded along the way. Among the many meals in church fellowship halls, the intercultural festival in Phoenix stood out. There we feasted on fry bread and fare from South Sudan. Mía and I also glimpsed the food insecurity that many experience in the United States. In Florida, we greeted people who came to pick up food at the Bethel Farmworker Ministry. In Durham, we packed bags of food to be distributed the following day by a food pantry. On Sunday morning before worship in Pueblo, Colorado, we helped to serve breakfast to a couple hundred folks in a bank parking lot. In Phoenix, we spoke with a pastor while he prepared large quantities of spaghetti for people who had come to the church seeking respite from the intense heat outside.

Mía and I said goodbye to the other eight Peacemakers and returned to Costa Rica on October 9. Since then, we learned that the work of the Peacemaking Program would be reconfigured as the national offices of the PC(USA) align the mission and ministry of two General Assembly agencies into a unified agency to respond to the needs of today’s church, society and our denomination. 

Changes are also coming to World Mission. I ask that you pray for mission co-workers who serve around the world and the international mission partners we accompany as the restructuring of our global engagement moves forward. Thank you so much for your generous prayers and gifts that make our work around the world possible.

As Advent comes this year in times of great uncertainty for many in our church and in our world, I will be listening hard for the whisper of angels’ wings and the cry of an infant, signs of God among us. I look for the coming of the One who, in a land occupied by the empire of the day, drew together a community of children, women and men to dream of a world in which the last would be first and the hungry would be filled with good things. And I remember the One who offered us his peace and promised to be with us throughout all the ages, even this age.

Blessings,

Karla