Available Reports

1. Emmaus Encounters Puerto Rico 2025-2026 Report eBook

2. Emmaus Encoutners Puerto Rico 2025-2026 Report PDF

Overview

From January 3-10, 2026, Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School (ANS at YDS) journeyed to San Juan, Puerto Rico for Emmaus Encounters Puerto Rico.

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. Site visits included Castillo San Felipe del Morro, Centro Esperanza de Loiza, The Happy Givers, El Yunque National Forest, and Primera Iglesia Bautista de Sabana Llana.

The 2026 cohort represented the fourth installment of the Emmaus Encounters travel seminar, after focusing on Oʻahu, Hawai‘i from 2022 to 2025. Like its predecessor in Hawai‘i, Emmaus Encounters Puerto Rico explored the island’s colonial past, current ecological challenges, and the unique religious and socioeconomic currents that shape the Puerto Rican communities of today.

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 Meléndez-Badillo 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:  The cohort visited Iglesia Bautista de Sábana 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.

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 non-profit 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, where the pedagogy is grounded in agricultural, sociocultural, and musical tenets. Participants learned of the patron Saints, danced La Bamba, tasted local cuisine, and observed the sacred traditions of Afro-Puerto Rican peoples.

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 volunteer through meal preparation and deliveries, shadowing social worker intakes, and harvesting agricultural gifts from the land. For several students, this opportunity proved to be a highlight of the trip.

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.