San Pablo Presbyterian Theological Seminary trains theology students from 20 Mexican states, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Chile, and Columbia. Many students are fluent in Mayan which is a predominant language in southern Mexico and Guatemala.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, San Pablo continues training leaders and pastors to fulfill the Great Commission, Rev. Amós Cahuich Yam, rector, recently sent highlights from the August 2021 to June 2022 school year:
Read MoreDespite the COVID-19, pandemic, we continue training leaders and pastors to fulfill the Great Commission.
We Were Impacted as a Seminary by COVID-19
· Although just three members of our personnel were affected by the coronavirus and are now well, some friends and pastors around us died.
· We had to change some things about the way we train our students. The most important change was to establish online courses. We will continue providing courses online until the COVID situation improves.
· In the midst of this situation, in October 2020, we suffered the onslaught of a tropical storm. There was extensive damage to our facilities. So far, we have repaired six classrooms and two bedrooms. Unfortunately, we have not been able to repaint the buildings of our facility due to high humidity levels.
Read MoreDear brothers and sisters,
At this time of year, we would typically be completing another cycle of seminary activities. But COVID-19 changed those plans. We started our semester the first week of February but sent students and employees home on March 17 following the government's mandates.
We are waiting for instruction from the government on when we will be able to reopen. Before resuming classes, we will have to disinfect everything, including all classrooms, and public spaces. We will also need to expand the classrooms to ensure that everyone is at least six feet apart. All students and teachers will have to wash their hands with antibacterial gel and wear face masks, and we will have to take everyone's temperature each time they enter the seminary. We will create a single entrance for everyone and use a sanitary filter with chlorine to clean everyone’s shoes. If anyone shows symptoms of fever, we will need to isolate them and notify the authorities.
Read MoreDear friends and companions in the ministry,
Warm greetings from Mérida, Yucatán. What follows is a brief overview of the recent activities and new initiatives that San Pablo Presbyterian Theological Seminary is undertaking. With your help, the witness of the church in Mexico and other Latin American countries is being strengthened.
Conferences
From June 2 to 4 we held our Continuing Education conference for pastors and leaders. There were 122 pastors and leaders of 10 different Presbyteries of the states of Yucatán, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Chiapas, Oaxaca and Mexico City in attendance. The theme was "The Theology of the Covenant" by Dr. Jonathan Gerstner, president of Yucatán International Academy.
Graduation
On Friday, June 7 we celebrated our graduation service and the end of the academic cycle that started in August 2018. We had thirty-six graduates:
Over its 36 years of ministry San Pablo Presbyterian Theological Seminary has trained almost eight hundred students from twenty-one of the thirty Mexican states. The Yucatán Peninsula is known in the U.S. for the splendid beaches of the Cancun area, a 700-mile shoreline, and its astonishing Mayan ruins. Not as common is to find people who see the region as a place that has experienced a remarkable multiplication of Presbyterian congregations over the last decades.
The initial classes of the San Pablo Seminary were held on September 19, 1982 in the facilities of Divine Savior Presbyterian Church with Rev. Lucio Ek Canul as the first full- time instructor and Rev. David Brainerd Legters as the first president. The son of a missionary couple that coordinated the translation of the New Testament, Legters’ first language was Mayan, his second was English, and his third was Spanish.
Read MoreGreetings in the name of the Lord Jesus, Savior and Redeemer of God’s elect,
We have had some very busy months here. I have been teaching at both San Pablo and the Mints program. Mints is a non-residence program that has become popular in many countries. Here in Mérida, I had nine students (four pastors and five lay folks) for Soteriology (the doctrine of salvation) and now with the same group I have just started Patristics (theologians from the first seven or eight centuries of church history). The picture here is a few of the students at Gethsemane.
I was officially installed in the Seguidores de Cristo (Followers of Christ) mission church as pastor for a period of up to three years. In the Mexican Presbyterian church, pastors are installed for one year (pastor oficiante), for three years (pastor comisionado) and up to five years (pastor instalado).
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