Rooted in Faith, Building Belonging: The Witness of Rev. Yolanda Pupo-Ortiz

For Hispanic Heritage Month, GCORR celebrates the decades-long ministry of Rev. Yolanda Pupo-Ortiz, a pioneering Latina clergywoman whose leadership has helped create space for greater representation, shared leadership, and belonging across The United Methodist Church.

Rev. Yolanda Pupo-Ortiz never imagined that her ministry would unfold in the United States. 

Her dreams were rooted in Cuba, where she began her life in ministry alongside her husband. But amid the political upheaval following the Cuban Revolution, the couple made the difficult decision to leave their homeland. 

“I never thought in my mind that I was going to minister in the United States,” she remembers. “My dreams, they were all set in Cuba. But here I was. Here we were.” 

They settled first in Miami, ministering among the growing community of Cuban refugees. Like many immigrants who leave home under difficult circumstances, Pupo-Ortiz initially believed the move would be temporary. 

As the years passed, she realized Cuba would not soon be home again. 

“You begin to accept it, and then you open up to be part of this country, little by little,” she said. 

That process also meant confronting what it meant to be an immigrant, a Spanish speaker and a Latina in the United States. She encountered stereotypes, prejudice and racism. Yet she also encountered people willing to listen, welcome her and share their lives with her. 

Those relationships helped shape an understanding of intercultural community that would become central to her ministry. 

“By sharing your story, my story, we begin to learn that we are all humans,” Pupo-Ortiz said. “We have the same feelings. We are God’s children. And then we become the community. We become a family.” 

Finding Her Place and Helping Change the Church

As Pupo-Ortiz continued her ministry in The United Methodist Church, she encountered another challenge. Although she had already been practicing ministry as a Quaker, she had not been ordained. Now, she needed to go through the denomination’s ordination process. 

She eventually became the first Latina woman ordained in the New England Conference of The United Methodist Church. 

Pupo-Ortiz remembers with gratitude the people who welcomed and supported her through that process. But as her ministry expanded, she also became increasingly aware of the barriers facing People of Color in the Church and the particular challenges she faced at the intersection of race, culture and gender. 

“I had to prove myself twice,” she said. “Not only because I was Hispanic, but also because I was a woman.” 

Her journey eventually brought her to the General Commission on Religion and Race, beginning a relationship with the agency that would span decades. 

Pupo-Ortiz served on GCORR’s staff for 17 years across two periods: first from 1981 to 1988, before returning to the local church as a pastor, and again from 1995 to 2005. During those years, she had the opportunity to serve under three GCORR General Secretaries: Bishop Woodie White, Barbara Thompson and the Rev. Chester Jones. 

Even retirement did not end her work with the Commission. At the invitation of Jones, Pupo-Ortiz returned to assist with the Minority Group Self Determination Fund for more than two years. Following his departure, she served for a summer as Interim General Secretary until Erin Hawkins began her tenure as General Secretary. 

For Pupo-Ortiz, however, her years at GCORR are about much more than positions or dates. 

“The Commission was a blessing to me,” she said. 

At GCORR, Pupo-Ortiz’s understanding of racial justice expanded beyond her own experience as a Cuban immigrant and Latina. Working alongside Black, White, Native American, Asian American, Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino and other leaders exposed her both to the pain caused by racism and to the richness each community brought to the Church. 

“I learned not only about the pain of the different groups,” she said. “They enriched my life.” 

The diversity of GCORR’s staff and the communities the Commission served became an important part of her own formation. The communities shared challenges, she remembers, but they also shared dreams, accomplishments and the joy of discovering connection across difference. 

That experience reflected a principle at the heart of GCORR’s work then—and one Pupo-Ortiz believes remains important today: inclusion should never require people to erase who they are. 

“Inclusivity doesn’t mean sameness,” she said. “We are talking about the diversity together, growing together and sharing their diversity, learning from each other and becoming richer.” 

For Pupo-Ortiz, an inclusive Church isn't a “melting pot” in which differences disappear. It is a community in which people remain rooted in their own cultures while allowing the stories and traditions of others to enrich their own. 

“You don’t have to deny your roots,” she said. “The roots of the other person become yours too, and your roots become theirs. To me, that’s the dream.” 

From Representation to Shared Power

During Pupo-Ortiz’s years at GCORR, the Commission advocated for racial and ethnic caucuses, strengthened ethnic minority local churches, and helped the denomination understand that inclusion required much more than inviting people into existing spaces. 

It required sharing power. 

“It was not just having faces of people,” Pupo-Ortiz said. “You had to share power, decision making.” 

Decades later, that same conviction continues to shape her ministry at Epworth United Methodist Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland, a multicultural congregation where worship takes place in different languages and styles. 

For churches seeking to become multicultural, Pupo-Ortiz cautions that representation alone is not enough. 

“It takes time,” she said. 

Churches must pay attention to the communities around them and be willing to change—from signs and language to worship, leadership and decision-making. At Epworth, that includes maintaining Spanish-language worship because Pupo-Ortiz believes reaching recent immigrants means creating spaces where people can worship and build relationships within their own language and culture. 

Otherwise, she said, people may attend an event or a large worship service, but “they will not feel that they belong.” 

True intercultural ministry, then, begins not simply with who is present in the building, but with whether people can fully belong, participate and help shape the community. 

For Pupo-Ortiz, that ministry has continued well into retirement. She credits Epworth’s lead pastor, the Rev. Jennifer Fenner, with giving her the opportunity to remain active in ministry and to continue living out that vision of an inclusive Church. 

Pupo-Ortiz describes Fenner as someone who “truly believes in the inclusive community of God” and who has welcomed her as both a partner and a sister in ministry. 

That relationship reflects the kind of Church Pupo-Ortiz has spent decades helping to build: one in which leadership is shared, gifts are valued across differences, and ministry is strengthened through relationship. 

Carrying the Work Forward

Pupo-Ortiz has witnessed significant change in The United Methodist Church over the course of her ministry. She believes those changes should be celebrated. 

“We have overcome a lot of barriers,” she said. “We have grown a lot, and we need to celebrate that, because sometimes we want to see only the negative.” 

But celebration does not mean the work is finished. 

The challenges facing the Church today may not look exactly like those she encountered decades ago, but the call to confront racism and build a more equitable Church remains. 

For Pupo-Ortiz, that is why GCORR continues to have an important role: not simply repeating the work of previous generations, but helping the Church recognize and respond faithfully to the racial and intercultural challenges of the present moment. 

“We need to keep working with the issues that are demanding today,” she said. “Not what we did before. Not what we could do in the future, but what we need to do today.” 

And as she considers the Hispanic/Latine leaders who will carry that work forward, Pupo-Ortiz first looks backward with gratitude. 

“I am what I am because of all the people who helped me and did before me,” she said. “The people who taught me, the people who walked with me, the people who just held my hand, and sometimes challenged me.” 

That gratitude comes with responsibility. Each generation, she believes, is called to leave something for the generation that follows. 

Her encouragement to today’s Hispanic/Latine clergy and leaders is to remain attentive to their communities, open to God’s call and willing to speak even when their voices are not readily welcomed. 

“Even if your voice will not be appreciated, even if what you have to say is not what people are expecting or want to hear from you,” Pupo-Ortiz said, “just be yourself, guided by God, by the Holy Spirit of God.” 

It is a calling Pupo-Ortiz has lived for decades: honoring those who made a way before her while helping make the way wider for those who will come next.