Incarnational Living

Once again two weeks have passed since I wrote, and a lot has happened! I wanted to share about some other parts of Colombia that I have gotten to visit, and mostly about the people there and the incredible ways they are living out their faith.

Part of what MCC does in Colombia is host learning tours, helping people from other parts of the world understand, learn more about, and support the people in Colombia, their joys and their struggles. I was blessed to accompany a learning tour of MB pastors and leaders from Canada who came here to connect with Colombian MB pastors.

This is the walk some people have to their house in Cazucá

My first day with them we went to Cazucá, a neighbourhood in the municipality of Soacha, just south of Bogotá. We visited an MB church there, which is also running a school. It was amazing to hear the testimony of the pastoral couple working there. This is a neighbourhood, where 90% of the people there have been displaced from other parts of the country. (Colombia has the highest number of internally displaced people in the world.) For those who can’t afford to live in Bogotá, they’ve gone to the outskirts of the city. This is a neighbourhood of houses built on the side of the hill, which was empty land before. Walking through the neighbourhood, we saw where a landslide had destroyed many homes before, and where other homes where slowly falling. The people of Cazucá face many challenges; including living the midst of a violent context, yet still there is hope. The MB church has grown in 10 years, and the pastoral couple and the 2 MCCers living with them, are the only Mennonites working in Cazucá who also live there. What a testimony, what incarnational living.

Hearing about the Chocó region by the Atrato river.

I also got to visit Anabaptists in the Chocó region of Colombia. There are 10 MB churches there and the first was started by North American missionaries. However, these churches have not received visitors from MB churches in the North America in over 20 years. So it was a big deal for this delegation of MB pastors and leaders from Canada to visit. And the Mennonites of Chocó welcomed us with open arms. Their hospitality was tremendous.

The Chocó region is one of the poorest in Colombia. They have poor infrastructure and no water system.  It’s one of the wettest places on earth, lots of rivers, and lots of humidity, which makes it super-hot. The people there are primarily Afro-Colombian, and the music and church services were lively and full of energy! There is a lot mining going on here, and also continued violence and threats of violence from armed groups. Guerilla groups, para-military, and the Colombian army are all present. On the drive to the city where we stayed we went through territory controlled by each of these groups.

Yet in the midst of these challenges and struggles the churches enthusiastically welcomed us, with many smiles, hugs, and kisses on the cheek (the typical Colombian greeting). They were excited to share with us their ministries and how they were living out a holistic gospel in their communities. Every church we heard of was striving to minister to the needs of the people around them, spiritual and physical. They asked for our prayers, and shared their joy to have relationship with us, to know that they are not alone. It was very powerful to hear of how these churches are living out their faith in the midst of this difficult context.

Pastors and church leaders from Chocó

We were in Chocó for 5 days, and 4 nights, and a lot happened! There were some adventures, and a lot of amazing people. I’ll some more about this soon, as this post is already long enough!

This is Life

Wow, I haven’t blogged in over 2 weeks, and I wanted to be blogging more, because there’s so much I could share.

Yum!

I could write about the adjustments of getting used to life here, like the constant traffic sounds in my room, lukewarm showers, living at a higher altitude, amazing fruit available all the time, and dressing for the warm, then cool, then cold weather every day.

Or I could write about my experiments with stove-top cooking here (no oven to use), some turning out great and delicious (chicken soup, omelets), some not so great but still edible (as in under cooked rice).

Wall of Prayers

I was planning to write more on what my job is actually like, at least so far, and some of the different things I’ve been doing as part of my orientation here, some trips I’ve gone on, and some things I’ve seen that reminded me of home (a wall of prayers in a church made me think of the prayer tree in our youth room!)

Or sharing a bit about the different churches I’ve been able to visit (so far 3 different ones: a Mennonite church, a Brethren in Christ church, and a Mennonite Brethren church).

It snowed a tiny bit my last morning in Akron

And I wanted to write about orientation in Akron (a lot of fun and learning more about MCC), back in January, and a bit more about why I’m here, why I decided to come and serve in Colombia.

I have lots of thoughts about all of these things. But the thing is, so far I’ve been pretty busy doing them. And there’s more stuff coming up. This weekend I’m joining a learning tour to visit MCC projects in the Chocó region of Colombia (a plane ride and then some away). In 3 weeks I’m going on an MCC retreat on the Atlantic coast. Oh yeah, and I’m also working too ;)

Cazucá, south of Bogotá

And this is life, things happening, making adjustments, looking for God in what’s going on around you. In the past 48 hours, I returned to my comfortable room in Bogota from a neighbourhood outside of Bogota that was full of people and many struggles and challenges. I joined in celebrating with friends who shared the news of a coming child, and in sorrow with another who lost a family member.

This is life, joy and sorrow, abundance and need, and looking for how God is already here.