The Hispanic House of Studies, also known as La Casa, at Duke Divinity School celebrated its 15th anniversary October 12, 2023. Founded in collaboration with the North Carolina and Western North Carolina Annual Conferences of The United Methodist Church and The Duke Endowment, the Hispanic House of Studies started as a resource center for students, pastors and congregations. This milestone marks years of sowing, excitement for future harvest and serves as a beacon of hope for ministry within The United Methodist Church.
Related Article:
"This October, Duke Divinity School celebrated the 15th anniversary, the quinceañera, of the founding of the Hispanic House of Studies with a series of events on Oct. 12, including a panel discussion, worship, lecture, and a documentary and art exhibit featuring renowned artist Enrique Chiu..."
— Read the full article at Stories@DukeDivinity.
Transcript:
Rev. Dr. Alma Tinoco Ruiz: We are celebrating la quinceañera de La Casa. And la quinceañera for the comunidad Latina is when a girl turns 15. It’s that change into womanhood. So, she's not anymore that little girl she's a señorita.
The Hispanic House of Studies has been on a journey for 15 years now. It started as a resource center for United Methodist pastors from both conferences in North Carolina. It is that now and also an hogar, a home, for our Latinx students at Duke Divinity School.
Rev. Dr. Edgardo Colón-Emeric: The partnership that started the Hispanic House of Studies was very strongly a Methodist parentship, involving the Duke Endowment and the North Carolina Annual Conferences North and West of The United Methodist Church.
We want to be training leadership for the United Methodist Church especially right now in this season of transitions, of new beginnings, to offer possibilities of new churches, new communities, a new found sense of mission that I think it very, very needed in the Church today.
Tinoco Ruiz: I hope that La Casa becomes a formation for everyone who is doing ministry in a diverse context and I hope that our future church leaders and our future leaders out there are prepared to respond to diverse communities and support and do ministry in whatever form and shape you can imagine within diverse communities.
We are sowing but it is a continuous a work that continues.
15 years! We’ll have to celebrate 30 years with another fiesta.
This video was produced by United Methodist Communications and originally published October 30th, 2023. Contact: adelgado@umcom.