Central American Deaconesses meet in Costa Rica

Participants in the 2019 “Life Together” deaconesses conference in Costa Rica.

COSTA RICA – The months of January to June, 2019 were packed full of exciting preparations for a new deaconess experience in Central America: Vida en Comunidad (Life Together). This time, the Encuentro (retreat) was to be held in Cartago, Costa Rica, where participants would spend a week together as sisters in Christ. As the emails went back and forth, the excitement continued to grow.

When the day of departure finally came, many hours of bus travel and flights brought everyone safe and sound to Cartago, where brothers and sisters in the faith welcomed them into their midst.

The Encuentro de Hermanas en la Fe (Sisters in Faith Retreat) hosted by the Iglesia Comunidad Luterana Confesional in Costa Rica was held June 24-29, 2019, planned through the initiative of Lutheran Church–Canada (LCC) missions and supported by a generous grant from Lutheran Women’s Missionary League-Canada. The event, locally organized by Rev. Edmundo Retana and Betty Solórzano, managed through the LCC Mission office in Chinandega (Lic. Zepeda), and led by LCC’s Committee for Missions and Social Ministry Services (CMSMS) Diaconal Coordinator, Dcn. Olga Preisz Groh, brought together deaconess leaders from the ILSN, the mission in Honduras, and sisters of the congregation in Cartago.

Fifteen deaconesses from Central America gathered in the Encuentro:

• From Costa Rica: Betty, Yolanda, María Luz (Cucky), Evelia, Vicky, AnaJancy, Priscilla, Jessica, and Jamie
• From Honduras: Rosita and Claudia
• From Nicaragua: Maricela, Odily, Cristina and Jeryll

The experience provided the women with an opportunity to get to know each other (in most cases for the first time), and to begin to establish a closer relationship and mutual support as sisters in Christ. The Nicaraguan and Honduran sisters had an opportunity to gain experience in how to organize Life Together Retreats that could be replicated in their own communities.

A smaller version of the “Vida en Comunidad Seminar-Retreats” in Nicaragua, the “Encuentro” encompassed everyday life together in prayer and worship, Bible, hymnal, and catechetical studies combined with discussion and artistic expressions around the theme of the blessings of Holy Communion. Participants also enjoyed many moments of friendship and fellowship celebrating their sisterhood, serving each other and the local community, and cooking meals, eating, and cleaning together, all which was done with joy and excitement, and as a team.

This was a critical step for raising up and strengthening deaconess leaders within the church in Central America. It was also a blessed way to continue forming deeper relationships between the ladies around the life together that is founded on the rock of Christ’s Word and Sacraments.

Please keep these women in your heart and in your prayers, along with all the deaconesses of Central America. As the body of Christ, we are all blessed by seeing them grow.

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Dcn. Olga Preisz Groh is LCC’s Diaconal Coordinator for Central America.

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