Like the biblical Esther, Latino InterVarsity students who attended the first national LaFe conference wrestled with their ethnic identity. And like Esther, they came to the conclusion that God has created them and called them “for such a time as this.”
“God used this event to mature us, to develop us,” says LaFe National Director Orlando Crespo of the conference that drew about 150 students to San Diego, California, from December 27-31, 2004.
“Before we were just a ministry trying to survive,” he says. “Now there’s a level of confidence and maturity that says we have gifts that God wants to use to make InterVarsity stronger and a more fully multi-ethnic ministry.”
“It was a milestone,” says Diana Zuleta, a campus staff member at Montclair State University in New Jersey, “two years of labor but 25 years in coming.” Students were inspired to return to campus with a new and deeper understanding of being a Latino Christian in contemporary culture.
To understand the challenges of mounting a national Latino conference, one has to understand the complexities of being a Latino in the U.S. today.
“An Argentine, racially white Latino who grew up in Iowa is going to have different needs in embracing their identity as a Latino Christian student, and what that means for their mission in the world, than a black Dominican student in New York,” says Sandra Van Opstal, a campus staff member at Northwestern University. And that will be different from southern Californians. “They always knew to be Latino is to be Chicano,” she adds. “They say, ‘Who is this suburban white girl?’”
Sandra addressed the complexities head-on in her opening plenary talk, “Are you Latino enough?” She talked about her own childhood, living two lives, one at home and one in school and in public. It wasn’t until she was out of college, and on staff with InterVarsity, that she finally asked herself what it meant to embrace her ethnic identity and how God could use it for her future.
“The thing that I loved is that they heard each other’s stories,” says Diana. “That developed trust.”
“The students tasted something, and they want more,” says Javier Tarango, a campus staff member at the University of California-Berkeley. “There was a sense of spiritual breakthrough at the conference.”
“We all find our commonality in Christ,” says Melissa Contreras, a campus staff member at the University of Texas-El Paso.
