By Samuel Cueva, PhD.
22/04/25

I wish to extend my warmest greetings for the tremendous effort put into planning and
organizing the Fifth COMIBAM Congress. More than 1,600 participants from all over Ibero
America will gather in Panama City from April 22 to 25, 2025. Currently, COMIBAM has
more than 30,000 workers working in more than 200 countries.
I had the privilege of participating in the First COMIBAM Congress in São Paulo in 1987
and in Granada in 2006. These congresses renew our missionary vision and help us better
understand the reality of the field and the sending of missionaries, how to better establish
reciprocal collaboration, and provide us with opportunities to connect with leaders from
other countries and learn together.
Probably the greatest challenge for the church in Ibero-America is how to involve the new
generations in the global mission. This requires systematic teaching in the local church,
and at the same time, a great enthusiasm through missionary practice. I believe this Fifth
COMIBAM Congress must play a fundamental role in analyzing and seeking solutions to
this priority need in the new mission strategies for the present millennium.
We pray for a great renewal through the plenary sessions and workshops that will take
place during these days, along with the Strategic Working Groups (GET), which are
spaces to build, contribute, and collaborate in the different mission projects to be
developed in each country. May the Holy Spirit revitalize each participant with “the same
mission for a church in movement,” and may they have the joy of practicing a relational
theology, from which new projects of reciprocal collaboration can emerge for the
fulfilment of the mission from Ibero-America.

May God bless all the participants powerfully.