Opening Letter, October 2008

Dear Friends, Family, and Colleagues,

Greetings to you as we make our final preparations to leave for Mexico! We hope that this letter finds each of you well. We’re writing to share a little bit about how we came to find ourselves moving to Mexico’s capital city, and how we will be serving the church while there. We hope you see this letter as an invitation to join with us on this journey.

As some of you may know, we’ve both felt called to serve the church in an international capacity at some point during our lives. Neither one of us, however, expected to receive an invitation to do so at the very beginning of our ministry careers! Regardless, here we are, making final preparations to serve in Mexico for four years, beginning in November. We will be serving under the care and auspices of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Global Mission unit.

Our responsibilities in Mexico are with two distinct programs. Andrea will be working as the Mexico Country Coordinator for the Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) program. She’ll work primarily out of Cuernavaca – about 55 miles south of Mexico City – where we’ll also be living. Andrea will be responsible for accompanying the young adults through their year-long term of service, which includes securing work placements and housing, planning in-country orientation and periodic retreats, and general troubleshooting, as well as program administration.

Luke’s responsibilities will be in Mexico City at the Lutheran Center, an ecumenical educational retreat center. Luke will be the Program Associate for the ELCA Immersion Program. He’ll help prepare for delegations from the U.S. and accompany them – through hospitality, translation, and group reflection – during their time in Mexico.

While we both anticipated serving through Global Mission at some point, we never imagined having positions that seemed so tailor-made to our own experiences, skills, and interests. We actually met serving through the YAGM program, Andrea through the ELCA in London and Luke through the Presbyterian counterpart in Guatemala. Andrea worked for ELCA Global Mission for an additional year, recruiting young adults to serve through the YAGM program. Luke served an additional year of domestic service through the Presbyterian Church on the Arizona/Mexico border, providing humanitarian aid and working for more just border policies. We look forward to being able to draw on these past experiences as we explore our new mission roles in Mexico.

Our first two months in Mexico will be filled with orientation, preparation and language studies. Just as we leave our friends, families, and communities in the U.S., so we look forward to forming new relationships and becoming a part of new communities. We anticipate meeting the risen Christ, who both sends us and goes before us. We ask that you keep us in your thoughts and prayers, especially during this time of transition.

In God’s Grace,

Luke & Andrea Roske-Metcalfe