The Board of World Mission’s stated purpose is to build relationships through Mission Engagement and Mission Outreach to be faithful to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. Our recent Moravian Resources Conference accomplished many things, but the relationships built over the week we spent together are among the most valuable and lasting results of the gathering. We are already seeing these relationships bear fruit for individual Moravians and the Moravian Unity. Brother Will Cuthbert, a Moravian youth pastor from Costa Rica, and Brother David Sommers, a Spanish, Art History, and Comparative Religions teacher at Moravian Academy in Bethlehem, PA, connected at the conference and, as a result, David recently traveled to Costa Rica to share art workshops in multiple congregations. Other conference participants were present at the art workshops via Zoom, including brothers and sisters from Brazil, Peru, Honduras, Cuba, and from the BWM staff. We give thanks to God for his presence in these relationships, nurturing them to grow and to be a blessing to others.
Below, you will find Will’s description of David’s time in Costa Rica as well as some photos from the workshops.
Dear brothers and sisters,
I wanted to take a moment and say thank you for working out things for the visit of Brother David Sommers to Costa Rica. His visit was a real blessing for the youth in Costa Rica. He blessed us with an extraordinary workshop on December 17th at Iglesia Morava Fuente de Vida (Fountain of Life Moravian Church) in Puerto Limón , We had an attendance of 36 young people during the first part of the workshop and also we had visits from 2 acolytes, 3 local board members, 2 provincial board members, and 2 pastors . The young people enjoyed the workshop. Later that day we had a service open for all, and we also had the blessing of being able to hear from Sister Sylvie Hauser who shared her experience with the young people and adults via Zoom of her work with the Board of World Mission of the Moravian Church. Our young people were very inspired by her and would love to follow her example of being so young and dedicated to serving our Lord Jesus. We also shared the link and had a group of young people and pastors from Cuba, Brazil, Honduras, and Peru. That night the Holy Spirit rained down on the congregation and we had 8 young people that made a step forward to receive Jesus in their hearts, asking him to be the Lord and Savior of their lives, so we give all praise and glory to God for that.
On Sunday the 18th we went over to the Miskito congregation Moravian Church El Refugio (The Refuge Moravian Church) and also had the workshop there with the young people and then at night we had the participation of our Sister Sylvie Hauser who shared with everyone about her experience serving God . We had the participation of pastors, local board members, and provincial board members. Brother David did a wonderful job with the talent of art. At the end of the service we had in attendance over 67 people, and 13 of them came up to the altar of grace and mercy so this was a real blessing. This workshop was really important for us and we celebrated it using a method of teaching that is known to us Moravians, the method of Bishop John Amos Comenius, recognized by UNESCO, father of modern teaching, using audio visual teachings to break through. In this case we used his method to teach the word of God and I must say it was very well received by the young people.
In conclusion, thanks again; this was really nice to share something new with the young people and the adults as well. We have very good comments from the workshop and hope we can do some follow up this coming year and also take the experience and share with others. May God bless you richly and keep giving you vision so that our Moravian youth may grow in spirit .
