Ruth Pechauer has been a delegation member on many visits to an ILAG companion congregation in the Petén region. Throughout these visits, members have created relationships with their Guatemalan siblings that support a welcoming space where their gifts are respected and shared. After collaborating with Pastor Karen, members of this recent delegation planned sessions where sharing and conversation could take place as congregational leaders explored a variety of ideas.
During Como Park Lutheran and Lutheran Church of the Resurrection’s visit to their partner congregation in Santa Amelia, Cristo Luz del Mundo in February 2026, two delegates planned a Project Management class for community leaders. Together they worked with Pastora Karen Castillo to ensure appropriateness and relevance of content.
Both Ruth Pechauer from Como Park and her work colleague Graydon Finn have extensive experience in leading cross-functional teams to create something new. While Santa Amelia is making significant improvements, projects lacked clear vision and successful execution. Ruth sensed the community was ready to learn about project management tools to help them better succeed.
To do this, Ruth and Graydon leveraged project management books in Spanish procured before the trip to hand out to leadership. The book, HBR Guide to Project Management / Guías HBR: Gestión de Proyectos, provides strategies for defining goals, managing teams, and tracking progress. These were distributed in Santa Amelia as well as the community center in Dolores. For project management tools, template hand-outs translated to Spanish were provided. The leaders from Santa Amelia engaged in debate and understanding of the new concepts. It was a good start to continued leadership learning.
Ruth Pechauer
Como Park Lutheran Church
