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The World Mission Institute (WMI) at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (PTS) is celebrating the graduation of 47 participants from its inaugural Certificate in Migrant Ministries program.
The program was envisioned in March 2024 at a gathering in San Salvador, El Salvador, that brought together the seminary’s partners, including the Interim Unified Agency, Frontera de Cristo, the Protestant Center for Pastoral Studies in Central America (CEDEPCA) in Guatemala, the Reformed Calvinist Church in El Salvador (IRCES) and the Presbyterian Church of Honduras. In his June newsletter for the World Mission Initiative, the Rev. Hunter Farrell, senior researcher for WMI, said the stakeholders “dreamed of creating a virtual classroom where faith-based activists committed to loving their migrant neighbors could equip a cohort of activist learners to accompany migrants in their communities.”
By the end of that March gathering, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary was commissioned to create the Certificate in Migrant Ministries. A six-person formation composed of one representative from each of the collaborating partner organizations designed the curriculum. The result was an 18-session online course, with each 90-minute section shaped by the diverse experiences of the partners and their understanding of the challenges surrounding migration in different contexts.
Pastor David Bonilla, representing Frontera de Cristo, served on the intercultural curriculum formation team. Frontera de Cristo, a longtime PTS partner based in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, has 40 years of experience helping U.S. and Mexican Christians view borders as points of connection instead of separation. Frontera has hosted two WMI groups of PTS students in the past five years.
Today, Frontera and Christian partners in Central America — the Presbyterian Church of Honduras, CEDEPCA and IRCES — are seeing increased numbers of migrants from Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Venezuela and other nations. Countries are shifting from solely being sources of U.S.-bound migrants to becoming transit countries for other migrants.
“In the face of the complex and interrelated crises that face the Church today, many of us can feel alone and helpless,” said Farrell, who emphasized the hope found in “the power of connection.” He praised both the collaborative effort behind the Certificate in Migrant Ministries program and Frontera de Cristo’s long-standing ethic of connection. Over the past five years, Frontera de Cristo received two World Mission Initiative groups of PTS students. “It was these insightful Mexican and Central American partners who asked the PC(USA) to help them accompany migrant families and advocate with them for their human rights,” Farrell said, describing the momentum that led to the March 2024 gathering.
To foster a truly intercultural curriculum and classroom, the formation team included representatives from Frontera de Cristo (Sonora, Mexico), CEDEPCA (Guatemala), IRCES (El Salvador), the youth of the Presbyterian Church of Honduras and Beth-El Farmworker Ministries (Florida). The formation team created three modules that met over six weeks each to cover intercultural studies, migration and the theology of migration, as well as accompaniment and advocacy.
Farrell called the gathered circle of program participants “impressive in its diversity.”
“Participants represented six nationalities, eight native languages, and educational backgrounds ranging from secondary school graduates to Ph.D.-holders,” wrote Farrell. “Eighteen-year-old students discussed their perspectives with 80-year-olds. There is widespread agreement on what they seek: acquiring tools to lead their congregations to love migrant neighbors across lines of difference.”
“God’s commandments teach us to love our neighbor as ourselves,” said Bridich Saragos, a member of the Frontera de Cristo team. “My hope is not just to learn about this commandment, but to learn how to do it. I’m planning to share the tools I acquire in the program with my colleagues at the Migrant Resource Center in Agua Prieta, Mexico.”
Participants also included leaders from U.S. congregations. Laura VanDale, associate for justice ministries for the Presbytery of the Western Reserve, attended the first cohort while balancing professional and family commitments. She said she hopes to “translate what I am learning into tangible ways to work with our congregations, that we might feel called to challenge assumptions and stereotypes, build intentional intercultural relationships, and commit to grounding our efforts in our belief that we are all created in the image of God and deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.”
“The [Certificate in Migrant Ministries] is important for responding to urgent issues of the day and for bringing together people in new models of intercultural mission,” said Joseph Russ, global ecumenical liaison of the Interim United Agency. “The way we related to one another in this program was through mutual learning from one another and building an intercultural community of hermandad and resistance,” said Russ, who has connected people throughout Central and North America to collaborate as a community of faith on migration issues as a mission co-worker and now as a global ecumenical liaison. “Migration is such an important part of our human history, something that separates us from our homes while it brings us together with new people and communities. By working with migrants and communities that support migrants throughout the region, we can support people in vulnerable situations and learn from one another how to better live into our call as people of faith,” he said.
According to Russ, some Certificate in Migrant Ministries graduates have already begun to explore legal accompaniment programs at their churches, several have led adult Sunday school lessons for their congregations, and two from Central America participated in a regional migration forum in Honduras during the month of May. “It’s inspiring to see so many people already putting these skills into practice, and the ways people are continuing to connect with one another,” said Russ, who described how the cohort continues to communicate through a WhatsApp group sharing experience on how to involve congregations in legal accompaniment or organize for the rights of migrants.
“Now, when one of us thinks of something we’d like to explore or something we don’t know much about, we know who to ask,” Russ said.
By Beth Waltemath, Presbyterian News Service
