Emmaus Encounters Puerto Rico 2025-2026

EMMAUS ENCOUNTERS 2025-2026 BUILDING COMMUNITY ON THE ROAD IN PUERTO RICO

Greetings!

Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School (ANS) equips faith leaders with tools embraced in the sacred conversation embodied in the Emmaus gospel. By tracing the trajectories of ministerial leadership, spiritual formation, and theological education, the Emmaus Encounters Puerto Rico seminar invites participants on a journey to identify communitycentered interventions, theologies of hope, and ethics of care for faith leadership of the future.

From January 3-10, 2026, the Emmaus Encounters Puerto Rico cohort convened in San Juan to engage in meaningful dialogue, theological reflection, and embodied experiential learning on what that future can be. The expectation was that students would use the experience to constructively learn the art of building community within and among groups: in the classroom, across New Haven, and the wider world.

This publication provides a glimpse of not only how the Emmaus Encounters Puerto Rico seminar was developed, but also what things (Luke 24:19) were encountered and experienced by the 2026 cohort. May these materials (images, “At-A-Glance" itinerary, and participants’ reflections) provide perspective on how Andover Newton Seminary remains radically open, attuning our hearts, minds, and bodies to what God is doing now.

Paz y Solidaridad,

JaQuan

Rev. JaQuan Beachem, (MDiv ’21) Associate Dean

Background Andover Newton Seminary has a deep history of travel seminars and border-crossing immersion trips to places like India, Israel, Ecuador, and Kenya. After joining Yale Divinity School, ANS sought to reimagine the educational experience afforded through travel through Emmaus Encounters.

From 2022-2025, Emmaus Encounters traveled to Oʻahu, Hawai‘i, and explored the legacy of ANS Hall of Fame honoree, HenryʻŌpūkahaʻia (1792-1818). ʻŌpūkahaʻia (pictured top right), was a Native Hawaiian scholar and Christian convert whose life helped catalyze the 19thcentury Protestant missionary movement to Hawai‘I and today inspires Emmaus Encounters.

Emmaus Encounters Hawai‘i had a profoundly positive impact on ANS and demonstrated that there is incomparable value to learning how to cultivate and sustain community in a physical environment where there is a both a complicated institutional history and a vibrant coalition of educational, cultural, and faith partners.

In 2026, while continuing to nurture and cultivate its partnerships in Hawai‘i, Andover Newton Seminary and Emmaus Encounters welcomes the first of a three-year journey to Puerto Rico to deepen its impact and understanding of Latin America.

Deeply Rooted in Puerto Rico Building upon the lessons and relationships established in Hawai‘i, Andover Newton Seminary expanded Emmaus Encounters to include other communities, like Puerto Rico, that have played in an integral role in its institutional history.

Puerto Rico has been and continues to be an important part of Andover Newton Seminary‘s impact in Latinx and faith communities, as a direct result of the pioneering Puerto Rican theologian and scholar, Rev. Orlando Costas (1942–1987).

In 1984, Costas was appointed Academic Dean of Andover Newton Theological School (ANTS), where he championed access for minority students, led the creation of a Latinx theological studies program, and provided a vision of contextual and liberative theological education that remains influential across denominational lines.

Costas’ work carries on at Andover Newton Seminary through the Orlando and Rose Costas Lecture. In 2018, Costas was honored as inaugural member of the Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School Hall of Fame. At the 2023 American Baptist Churches Summit in Puerto Rico, Andover Newton produced a tribute series in his honor called “Reading Costas in San Juan.”

A New Generation Rev. Orlando Costas’ work continues to inspire a new generation of Puerto Rican theologians and faith leaders, and both in memory and practice, Emmaus Encounters Puerto Rico is a true tribute to his legacy.

Rev. Abner Cotto-Bonilla, (MDiv ’18) Rev. Edwin Perez, Jr., (MDiv ’24) Director of Latino Ministries ABHMS

Senior Minister Immanuel Congregational Church

Maritza Bond, (MDiv ’25)

Rev. Antonio Vargas, Jr., (MDiv ’25)

Director of Health City of New Haven

Senior Term Pastor First Church New Britain

2026 Cohort Overview The 2026 23-member cohort was comprised of 16 seminary students, three co-leaders, and four representatives from American Baptist Home Mission Societies (ABHMS), a collaborating partner serving Puerto Rico for the last 125 years.

Liaisons Rev. JaQuan Beachem, (MDiv ’21)

Associate Dean of Community Development and Spiritual Formation, Course Lead

Prof. Adrián Emmanuel Hernández-Acosta Assistant Professor of Religion and Literature

Rev. Antonio Vargas, Jr., (MDiv ’25), Course Assistant

ABHMS Collaborators Rev. Abner Cotto-Bonilla, (MDiv ’18) National Coordinator for Latino Ministries

Rev. Abigaíl Medina Betancourt

National Coordinator for Intercultural Engagement and Associate Director of Creciendo Juntos

Min. Matthew Rivera, (MDiv ’25)

National Coordinator for Healing & Transforming Communities

Alexzandria Sanchez

Director of Scholarships, Ministerial Grants, and Emerging Leaders Initiatives

Students Susan Alker Eliana Canas Parra Clifford Chambliss, III Jonathan Dean Sarah Golemon-Mercer ArDonna Hamilton Nicqueva Haughton Caroline Kirk Brianna Laboy Blake Long Peter Miles Tasharah Person Sophia Spiegel Benji Suprice Antonio Vargas, Jr. Maia Williams

Partner Sites Castillo San Felipe del Morro Centro Esperanza de Loiza The Happy Givers El Yunque National Forest Primera Iglesia Bautista de Sabana Llana

Staff Anna-Liisa Lubbert ANS Administrator

Immersive Discussions The primary goal for the Emmaus Encounters travel seminar is to equip inspiring student leaders at Andover Newton Seminary with a toolkit for the art of building community personally, spiritually, and institutionally with God’s help.

Prior to the immersive trip to Puerto Rico in January, the cohort of students and instructors began in the classroom during the fall semester. The course focused on themes of ecclesiology, education, and the environment.

Puerto Rico’s historical and cultural contexts, along with innovative ministry engagements and activism in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria that devastated the island in 2018, provided the class with the prerequisite content to reflect theologically on Puerto Rico in community with one another.

The scholarly works of Orlando Costas, Yara González-Justiniano, and Jorell MeléndezBadillo informed classroom dialogues. Spiritual practices brought students and instructors into deep meaning making, community-centered decision making, and mechanisms to foster hospitality across backgrounds and situations.

Site Visits: January 4-6

January 4: The cohort visited Primera Iglesia Bautista de Sabana Llana and met with clergy and seminarians supported by ABHMS. Collaborators Rev. Abigaíl Medina Betancourt, National Coordinator for Intercultural Engagement and Associate Director of Creciendo Juntos, and Rev. Abner Cotto-Bonilla (MDiv ’18), National Coordinator for Latino Ministries and ANS Advisory Council Member, preached and led worship.

January 5: On the second day of site visits, participants explored El Yunque National Rainforest through a guided tour, practicing eco-spirituality as well as engaging in theological reflection.

January 6: The group enjoyed a more urban experience, by not only celebrating Día de los Reyes Magos (“Three Kings Day) and bearing witness to local traditions in Epiphany but also taking a historical tour of the 16th century Castillo San Felipe del Morro in Old San Juan.

Outcomes The history and current realities of the island of Puerto Rico provided a container for meaningful conversations about life’s meaning and purpose and the role community plays in the human experience. The pedagogical structure of the course granted space for sharing stories, unpacking fraught histories, and wrestling with the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Against such complexities, students were challenged to apply lived experiences and theological perspectives to the current sociopolitical landscapes.

While on the road, and even in the weeks leading up to travel, Andover Newton’s relationships deepened within and across the student cohort. Faith leaders from American Baptist Home Missions Societies shared firsthand insights from the organization’s long history of serving Puerto Rican communities and helped uplift the roles of 21st century ministers today.

Site partners, The Happy Givers and Centro Esperanza de Loíza, provided direct experiences that reinforced seminar’s themes of education, ecclesiology, and the environment in Puerto Rico. Collectively, they shared personal accounts, conveyed rich diasporic histories, and invited students to help with meal preparation and deliveries, shadowing social worker intakes, and harvesting agricultural gifts from the land.

In sum, the Emmaus Encounters Puerto Rico 2026 seminar succeeded in teaching students the art and practice of building community as embodied person to person, organization to organization, institution to institution, and Spirit to spirit.

Site Visits: January 7-8

January 7: Students rolled up their collective sleeves for a day of volunteering with Happy Givers NPO, a social kitchen, community farm, and solidarity market in Vega Baja. The nonprofit organization founded after Hurricane Maria to ensure the dignity of the community remains intact, and the volunteers harvested crops, prepared meals, delivered appliances to residents, and shadowed social workers.

January 8: Seeking more cultural enrichment, the cohort traveled to Loíza to experience the African-rich heritage of this geography of the island. Students engaged in the educational models of Centro Esperanza de Loíza, where the pedagogy is grounded in agricultural, sociocultural, and musical tenets.

Participants learned of the patron Saints, danced La Bomba, tasted local cuisine, and observed the sacred traditions of the Afro-Puerto Rican peoples.

Additionally, the group attended mofongo cooking classes, took salsa lesson, and connected with the recently revived Yale’s Bulldogs Boricuas affinity group.

B Laboy, ‘26 Chicago, IL

When I say I am a product of the Emmaus Encounter: Puerto Rico, I am saying I am a part of something bigger than myself. I am saying I am a diaspora Puerto Rican, a journeyer, a student. I am saying I am the delayed flights, I am 3am wake up calls, I am an elevator stalled for 2 hours.

When I say I am a product of the Emmaus Encounter, I am saying that I am a product of “take what you need,” “can I use the restroom while you shower,” and “I get carsick too” When I say I am a product of the Emmaus Encounter, I am saying I am winding roads and rainforest sounds. I am cemetery walls and the waves that lap unto them. I am saying I am chopping papayas, a happy giver.

When I say I am a product of the Emmaus Encounter, I am saying I am bomba beats and fresh coconut juice. I am saying I am nightlife filled with laughter and salsa dancing. Emmaus Encounter, on the road together. This is not to say that I know all things Puerto Rico. It is to say that I have witnessed and I am changed.

When I say I am a product of the Emmaus Encounter, I am saying thank you to my fellow travelers, to my trip leaders and to the donors who got us here. I am saying thank you to the island of Puerto Rico, the people, the land, the food, the essence, and more not named.

When I say I am a product of the Emmaus Encounter, I am saying I am me, and you are you, and we are each other.

Caroline Kirk, ’27

Benji Suprice, ’27

It was a gift to develop community alongside my Andover Newton classmates--while we have opportunities to live into a ministry of presence for one another in our day-to-day academic lives, it is an entirely different experience to travel together.

One day at Happy Givers, a few of my peers and I went to deliver stoves to the homes of elderly community members. I was struck by their willingness to invite us into their space and the moments of hospitality we enjoyed because of this.

The opportunities to lean on one another, grow in dialogue and connection, and encounter joy across community partners in Puerto Rico was unmatched. This trip brought up questions for me around the community development initiatives we visited with in Puerto Rico: how can being in proximity be a faithful and hopeful practice for sustainable justice-seeking ministry?

I began reflecting on the story of Jesus and Zaccheaus—the unexpecting tax collector who opened his home after Jesus’ request. Home, like our faiths, are sacred and deeply personal places for many. Being invited into these spaces was an honor.

Tallahassee, FL

New London, CT

Nicqueva Haughton, ’27 Hamden, CT

Participating in Emmaus Encounters Puerto Rico was important to me because it integrated theological education with cultural immersion and community engagement.

It allowed me to encounter faith as something lived and practiced within a specific cultural and historical context, rather than studied only through texts.

The program created space to learn alongside communities, honoring their stories, traditions, and resilience. This experience shaped my continued education and ministry by reinforcing the importance of culturally grounded, community-centered learning. It affirmed my commitment to ministry that is attentive to history, identity, and lived experience. The trip strengthened my understanding that effective ministry requires humility, presence, and active participation in the lives of others, particularly those who have been historically marginalized.

I expected academic study paired with cultural exposure. What was realized went far beyond those expectations. The integration of site visits, service-learning, and embodied cultural practices—such as learning bomba and preparing traditional foods—deepened my theological understanding. I gained insight into how faith, resistance, culture, and community are inseparable in Puerto Rico’s history and present reality.

Peter Miles, ’27

Maia Williams, ’26

Participating in the Emmaus Encounter not only gave me the chance to experience a ministry context that was completely new and challenging to me, but the trip also facilitated the growth of profound friendships.

This trip was important to me because it was an opportunity to experience life in another Caribbean island. It was an opportunity to experience the movement of the Holy spirit in a different culture.

The experiences I was able to share with my classmates will continue to shape me in powerful ways as I finish my MDiv. And while I still don't know what I will be doing after graduation, I suspect that the friendships developed during this experience will continue to impact the rest of my life.

This experience encouraged me to continue to pursue my interest in faith and science particularly in the Caribbean context. It also caused me to reconsider how we do ministry in my local context and to consider how to develop theologies that are transformative.

Bainbridge Island, WA

Trinidad and Tobago

Antonio Vargas, Jr. ’25 New London, CT

One day during our seminar, we visited Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, home of The Happy Givers—a nonprofit committed to serving people with dignity. More importantly, it’s the hometown of its founder, Carlos Rodríguez. Carlos is part dad, part pastor, part graphic designer, part administrator, all of it while casually whistling Bad Bunny and Rubén Blades. A man of the people.

When we asked why he came back home, his answer was both spiritual and painfully honest. He spoke about exhaustion with congregational leadership, with unchecked power, and with systems that ask communities to survive instead of flourish. He also grieved what Hurricane María revealed and intensified in Vega Baja — not just destruction, but abandonment.

The Happy Givers has these one-liners that feel tailor-made by a charismatic preacher. “So what’s your favorite?” I asked. Without hesitation, he pointed at: “El Pueblo salva el Pueblo.” The people save the people. That’s not a slogan. That’s theology. That’s survival wisdom.

That’s what happens when institutions fail, governments disappear, and yet the music keeps playing, the food keeps cooking, and neighbors keep showing up.

El pueblo salva el Pueblo. The people save the people. That phrase isn’t just descriptive—it’s defiant. It says: we know who has shown up before.

It says: our survival has always been communal. It says: joy, resistance, and carelive in the same body.

Get Involved!

Andover Newton Seminary (ANS) is a self-funded and permanently embedded institution within Yale Divinity School. In its most recent 2023-2028 Strategic Plan, the institution named three major strategic financial priorities.

The first was the continued pursuit of financial support for students, alleviating from now-and-future graduates the burden of theological educational debt.

The second was to complete funding for the George Washington Williams Endowed Faculty Chair; which ANS successfully did in 2024-2025.

The third strategic priority was to fully endow the Emmaus Encounters travel seminar program, and as of Emmaus Encounters Puerto Rico 2026, ANS has secured approximately 25% of its $1,000,000 goal.

Supporting Emmaus Encounters provides future faith leaders an innovative path towards learning how to build and practice community on the road in places like San Juan, Puerto Rico. To make a gift or learn more, please visit us online at andovernewton.yale.edu/puertorico.

For information about naming opportunities and other questions, please contact David C. Smith, Ph.D., Director of Institutional Advancement at (203) 4369947 or email david.c.smith@yale.edu.

Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School A: 409 Prospect Street; New Haven, CT 06511 P: 203.436.9970 E: andovernewton@yale.edu W: andovernewton.yale.edu/puertorico

Acknowledgments: Report by David C. Smith, Ph.D., Director of Institutional Advancement Photo Credits: Clifford Chambliss, III; Moriah Felder, (MDiv, ’19); Nicqueva Haughton; Caroline Kirk; and Blake Long