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Colombia

Walking with Mosaic: A Historic Encounter

March 13, 2025 by Cindy Angela

by Javier Márquez

Between February 5 and 12, 2025, Medellín was the scene of a historic meeting that marked a new chapter in this process of transformation and movement that we are experiencing in the Mosaic Conference. A team of seven people from different countries—the United States, Brazil, Puerto Rico, and Colombia—traveled to the Colombian city to meet with pastors and leaders of Christian communities in Colombia, especially from the Anabaptist Community of Medellín, Resplandece Mennonite Church (Pembroke Pines, FL, Barranquilla, Colombia, and hybrid)—ministries that are part of the Conference—and the Shalom Anabaptist Christian Church of Cartagena. The purpose of the meeting was twofold: to strengthen ties between the communities and to witness the pastoral licensing of Manuel García and Carlos Sánchez as new pastors within Mosaic Conference. 

The visiting Mosaic board and staff members at the home of a sister of the Anabaptist Community of Medellín. Photo by Javier Márquez.

“The Colombian churches and leaders have been involved in God’s mission for a long time, Mosaic Conference noticed it, called them, and is walking with them,” reflected Leadership Minister Marco Güete. “The meeting in Medellín was an awakening guided by the Spirit of God.” From the beginning, the atmosphere was marked by fellowship, reflection, and the desire to share. 

“I discovered that God has a plan for each of these leaders and that they are ready to walk with Mosaic,” reflected Sandra Guëte. This feeling of walking together with mutual support was reflected throughout the visit. 

Pastors Carlos Sánchez (left) and Manuel García after receiving their credentials and mugs from Mosaic Conference. Photo by Javier Márquez.

The culminating moment was the pastoral licensing ceremony. Manuel García, pastor of Resplandece Mennonite, shared his emotion upon receiving his acceptance into Mosaic Conference: “The day I received the message that I was accepted to be licensed was unforgettable. I hugged my wife and cried with happiness. My mind traveled through the memories, the processes and the experiences that God allowed me to live until that moment.”

Likewise, Carlos Sánchez, pastor of the Anabaptist Community of Medellín, expressed, “Being part of Mosaico as a credentialed pastor and baptizing a small group of new brothers and sisters in the faith is an achievement for my life. It is one more step that God has affirmed in his mercy.”

In addition to these moments of joy and emotion, there was a space for community reflection led first by Ismael Conchacala Gil, a Wiwa indigenous Christian leader from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, and then by Nidia Montoya, leader of the Anabaptist Community of Medellín. First, Conchacala shared a message about Luke 18 and, later, Montoya guided us in an exercise of expressing our feelings about these relationships that were emerging. In this context, the group “Walking with Mosaico” was born, which brings together Colombian pastors and leaders.

Working meeting with all the attendees. Photo by Jennifer Svetlik.

The cultural exchange was one of the most significant riches of this meeting. “The trip gave us the opportunity to connect and learn from each other while we traveled to different places in Colombia. We enjoyed delicious meals, drank good coffee, and had meaningful conversations and moments of communion. We got to know each other better,” said Mosaic Conference Leadership Minister for Mission Noel Santiago. The visits to the homes of the members of the Medellín community, the touristic activities, and the fellowship further enriched the meeting.

Sister Keila Barrero, who was accompanied by her husband Santiago Góngora, also shared about the experience lived during this meeting: “The opportunity to share with the pastors and leaders of Mosaico in various settings made this a valuable and enriching time. In addition, the welcome and attention provided made this experience a significant memory for us as a family.” These words reflect the sense of community and human warmth that characterized this historic meeting.

Santiago Góngotra and Keila Barrero. Photo by Javier Márquez.

For many, this trip was unforgettable, not only for the cultural and spiritual context, but for the human connection that was established. “I will never forget these two and a half days together,” shared Malka Blanco.

(from left) Marco Güete, Eliécer Virola, Malka Blanco, and Haroldo Nunes. Photo by Javier Márquez.

Pastor Eliécer Virola also expressed with enthusiasm: “My experience of this meeting with Mosaic was spectacular. What God is preparing in the spiritual sphere, what God is going to do in the church, is great.” His testimony reflects the vision and hope that the group shared during their meeting in Medellin.

Thus, in this historic meeting, Walking with Mosaic was born, both as a group of leaders united by faith, and as a tangible expression of the work that God is doing in Colombia and throughout the region. As Mosaic Conference continues to grow, “Let us be attentive to the voice of the Lord, wherever He calls us to get up and go,” encouraged Noel Santiago.


Javier Márquez

Javier Márquez is Writer & Communication Coordinator for Mosaico Colombia. He is an Anabaptist Colombian pacifist and poet. He is based in Bogota, Colombia.

Filed Under: Articles, Mosaic News En Español Tagged With: Colombia, Comunidad Anabautista de Medellín, Javier Marquez, Mosaic News en Español, Resplandece Mennonite Church

Long Haul Hope: Ash Wednesday Thoughts

February 22, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

Ash Wednesday thoughts on wilderness, identifying with Jesus, and the tenacity of a few Colombian human rights workers

by Samantha E. Lioi

(This blog has been edited for length.  Download the full article here.)

Driven by the Holy Spirit, Jesus is in the wilderness with a lot of people these days.  It’s crowded, and the scarcity of resources keenly felt.  Even so, it is a place of surprising and dogged hope.

Last July I traveled to Colombia for two weeks on a Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation.  A truly international group of us – from Massachusetts, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ethiopia, India, and Illinois – became a team who would learn from, accompany, and support the CPT Colombia team and their partners, especially leaders of peasant-farmer or campesino organizations struggling to remain on their land or return to it.

Jesus was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness.

More than 5 million Colombians have been driven from their homes by armed men paid by international companies who will strip the land of resources until it is barren, then move on to take more.  Colombians who have done small-scale mining on their ancestral land for generations have been driven into a wilderness of displacement, into life as refugees in their own country.  They have organized to advocate for themselves, their communities and their livelihoods, continuing day after day, month after month into years to call for what is right, to demand that their land, their dignity, and their lives be respected.

Since July, I haven’t found very many words to speak about my time in Colombia.  But when I remembered Lent was coming, one of the Ash Wednesday texts from the second letter to the Corinthians reminded me of the Colombian human rights workers.  And it’s also talking to us.

Now is the time to be reconciled, it says – to God, yes, and to each other.  Now is the day of salvation, that is, holistic well-being and abundant life, peace between parent and child and man and woman and paramilitary and campesino, and peace between peoples and nations.  This is the hope of our faith.

So about hope.

Here in the U.S., especially among Anglos, despair is a very different choice than it is in Colombia.  If we give up hope, if we are no longer able or willing to care, if we become paralyzed by the horror and injustice of the truth of so many people’s lives, and if we become overwhelmed by the weight of evil in the world, nothing happens to our homes or our livelihoods.  Something happens to the kind of people we are – our character, our integrity – but we do not, in choosing apathy or hopelessness, immediately put our lives at risk.

It’s not that I never experienced fear while I was in Colombia. But my experience of being vulnerable to violence felt so minor compared to the fear of our Colombian partners that it mainly served to help me understand my U.S. passport-privilege more deeply.  Unlike some of our partners, I have no idea what it feels like to receive threats to my life and the lives of my family members, season after season, because I am telling the truth and calling for justice. Recently, the high-profile community of Las Pavas, whose people have returned to their land, has been accused of never having lived there to begin with, and are being prosecuted for invading and occupying private land – victims and survivors turned into criminals.  No wonder one finds Jesus among them.

When I came back home and resumed my day to day U.S. life, I asked myself a lot of questions: Why do this work explicitly as a Christian, when Christians are failing to act like Jesus left and right?  Do I really believe the kingdom of God is coming?  It seems far away.  The wolf lying down with the lamb and not eating it?  Really?  Every tear wiped away from our eyes, and no more death? Really?  The end of death?

The end of death?

But as these next 40 days of Lent stretch out in front of us, I still come back, hauling my doubt and cynicism, desiring to follow Jesus into the desert again.  I must believe this craziness.  The Bible itself–crazy and beautiful and comforting and deeply challenging to status-quos everywhere.  A God who brings life out of death.  A God who receives our most disordered, dysfunctional parts and gets them singing.

Almost as unbelievably, our partners in Colombia keep going.  With a faith and hope I wonder at and don’t quite understand, they keep struggling.  They keep imagining a time of justice, living their belief that people are created with the capacity to treat each other with dignity.  How can I quit if they haven’t quit?  What keeps me from being as bold and persistent as they are?

Somehow underneath my temptations to despair and give up, I do believe that all creatures, all that was made, all the universe, was created from love and for love.  That this love is underneath everything, that there is plenty of it.  That there is a pull, a wind, the Spirit of Jesus whispering among us, and perhaps shouting above the din, “Come with me and be awake to your hope and your fear.”  Beneath the sounds of killing and anxious constant motion, and in the spaces of clarity and quiet within us, the voice of a poor Nazarene teacher pulling us into the new things that are coming.

Now is the day of salvation – wholesale healing.  Now is the time to choose life, to choose a practice, something simple that will enable us, at the very least, to be aware of our own resistance to following Jesus.  To return to our God, or at least to admit we don’t know how, for that is a step toward a wilderness that could teach us something.  God, with a great sense of humor, trusts us.

Remarkable.

Hope for the duration, for the long haul – modeled for us by people who could have given up long ago.


Read a more detailed update on the Las Pavas community

Download a pdf of the full article.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Ash Wednesday, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Colombia, formational, intercultural, missional, Samantha Lioi

César García to become General Secretary of Mennonite World Conference

May 6, 2011 by Conference Office

(reposted from Mennonite World Conference )
Wednesday, 04 May 2011
First appointee from the global South

Taipei, Taiwan – For the first time, a leader from the global South will become the General Secretary of the Mennonite World Conference (MWC). On May 4, the MWC Executive Committee formally appointed César García of Bogotá , Colombia, as General Secretary-elect, to succeed Larry Miller on January 1, 2012.
“I am excited about the possibility of serving in the leadership of MWC with the purpose of praying, thinking and acting as part of Christ’s global church,” García said, following his acceptance of the call. “God is glorified when the multicultural interdependency of his church is evidenced in our way of doing theology, practicing ecclesiology and bearing Christian witness in the world.”

The appointment was one of the first actions taken at MWC Executive Committee’s annual meeting, held this year in Taipei, Taiwan, May 4 to 11. “The affirmation of Cesar’s candidacy is a historical moment for us,” said MWC President, Danisa Ndlovu. “It is a recognition of our positive integration as a community of faith as we see the global South offering its richness to the global North.”

Also included in the Executive Committee action was the plan to move the location of the MWC head office from Strasbourg, France, to Bogotá . García will join MWC staff in August for a period of transition with Miller.

García, who was chair of the Iglesias Hermanos Menonitas de Colombia (Mennonite Brethren Churches of Colombia) from 2002 to 2008, is currently completing masters studies at Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary in Fresno, California.

He also serves as secretary of the MWC Mission Commission and as a member of MWC’s task force on the creation of a new network of service ministries. In addition, he has been active in inter-Anabaptist and ecumenical endeavours in Colombia.

According to García, 39, the Colombian church and his local congregation, Iglesia HM Torre Fuerte (Strong Tower MB Church) in Bogotá , had sent him to California for studies in order to return and serve in Colombia, where he has been a church planter, pastor and professor of Bible and Theology.

When the MWC leadership nominated him as a candidate in January 2010, García submitted the matter to an intense process of discernment with Colombian church leaders and with close church friends in Fresno. The process ended in unanimous and enthusiastic support.

“The fact that many people were involved in different interviews,” said García, “encouraged us to trust God’s leadership and gave us the courage to accept this calling.” He added that his commitment to the Colombian church continues, but in the context of this broader appointment. The location of the office in Colombia will allow him to maintain regular contact with the church there.

García is married to Sandra Bá ez, who is also completing studies in Fresno. They have two teenage daughters, María and Paula.

– Byron Rempel-Burkholder, MWC editor

Photo by Byron Rempel-Burkholder

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Cesar Garcia, Colombia, Future, global, intercultural, Mennonite World Conference, missional

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