global

by Marla Pierson Lester

BOGOTÃ, Colombia – As a coordinator for a project documenting how a long-running armed conflict continues to impact Colombia’s Protestant churches, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) worker Janna Hunter-Bowman spent hours poring through horrific details of deaths and threats and exploring how Christians are boldly living out their faith in the midst of pervasive violence.

Now, she hopes that Christians in the United States and Canada will take to heart the resulting human rights report and that it will move them to action.

“More than anything we hope readers of the report will allow themselves to be troubled and challenged by the testimonies provided and join the witness,” Hunter-Bowman said. “We hope readers will share the suffering and the hope wherever they have the opportunity to speak, from the local congregation to Congress.”

The resulting document, “A Prophetic Call: Colombian Protestant Churches Document Their Suffering and Their Hope,” is built from testimonies gathered by grassroots church members or leaders. The first report, released this fall, documents details of 29 assassinations of men, women and children linked to congregations, 84 cases of people forced to flee their homes, 21 civilian combat-related injuries, four arbitrary detentions and other human rights violations. It also chronicles how churches are living out their faith with hope and perseverance.

“Despite fear, Christians claim the gospel mandate of being good news and sow seeds of peace,” she said. “In the midst of the threats, forced displacements, forced recruitments, even where pastors’ children are being forcibly recruited, people are continuing to live out their faith. And they’re doing so in courageous and innovative ways.”

Hunter-Bowman and a coworker on the project, Pedro Acosta Fernandez, trained five regional coordinators and more than 30 church members to do interviews to document murders and threats. This can be risky work, and church members know they are taking a chance by getting involved in documenting violence, but they tell Hunter-Bowman it’s worth it. One pastor, she said, called it a “revelation from God.”

He told Hunter-Bowman, “We’re acquiring the skills to lift the veil of silence and injustice the whole population and church population in Colombia is living under. We have been silenced all of our lives. Now we’re acquiring skills to break the silence and you’re telling us people are going to listen.”

Hunter-Bowman wants to make sure that people in the United States and Canada do listen. She calls on U.S. and Canadian Christians to educate themselves about the suffering that churches are living under and to witness on their behalf.

Colombian Mennonites are asking that Christians in the United States and Canada speak out, she said, and they want to know why Christians in these countries don’t say more to their governments.

“We need you to listen to these voices above those that tell you military solutions will work and that governments know best. Listen to your brothers and sisters on the ground rather than governments that promote their interests over the interests of everyday people.”

Some 2,500 to 3,000 people a year are killed in the armed conflict in Colombia. More than 3.5 million have been forced to flee their home, including more than 2 million in the last six years. Church members are not immune, and pastors in rural areas began flooding Justapaz, a Colombian Mennonite peace and justice organization in Bogota, with horrific tales. Then-director Ricardo Esquivia compiled his notes into a report in 2003, which was still being quoted by human rights advocates as late as last summer.

Justapaz, which recently received an international nonviolence award from the Swedish Fellowship of Reconciliation, and Esquivia, who continues as director of the Commission for Restoration, Life and Peace of the Evangelical Council of Colombia (CEDECOL), collaborated in this project to provide updated documentation on the conflict’s impact on Protestant churches.

Hunter-Bowman, who works for Justapaz, noted that while official government statements say the security situation in Colombia is dramatically improving, “church people in the regions are living something different. Through this report, they are telling us this much,” she said.

Fernandez, who represents CEDECOL, noted that each case strikes him hard even though he grew up in the context of this conflict. “Each story carries its own power. I think a struggle all of us have that are involved in this work is how do you continue on … not being battered by these stories but not losing sensitivity to them,” he said. “We are surprised with each case. And that affirms our humanity.”

“When I read over these stories,” said a grassroots coordinator who did not want to be named, “the only thing that gives me rest is that these acts and crimes against humanity will not have the last word. We rest in the hope that the Scripture will be fulfilled — that justice and truth will one day reign.”

That hope and determination are gifts that Hunter-Bowman has found in Colombia.

Hopelessness, she said, is a luxury. “Here many people cannot afford to lose hope. It’s what sustains and empowers war victims and the destitute when all else has been taken from them. The invitation is to be a church body that embraces and responds to those members who have no choice but to struggle on. … We have to believe much can grow from a small brown seed.”

She acknowledges that in the United States, it is sometimes easy for people to feel as if they do not have power, as if their voice is small before the enormous structure of the U.S. government.

“Yet caring constituents who educate their elected officials based on stories change hearts and votes,” Hunter-Bowman says. “In Colombia, church leaders tell us that U.S. military assistance inflames the conflict, making their ministry more difficult and dangerous. You can help make sure your representatives in Congress understand that dynamic. Witness through sharing the personal costs and the hope that churches are experiencing.” (See below for specific suggestions on how Christians can respond to the conflict in Colombia.)

Report No. 1 was released in August and covers cases from January 2004 to July 2006. A follow-up report is scheduled to be released in late March.

Marla Pierson Lester is a writer for MCC.

Responding to the call of churches in Colombia

Pray for the victims, the perpetrators and the peacemakers in Colombia.

Read the report, “A Prophetic Call: Colombian Protestant Churches Document Their Suffering and Hope,” available at mcc.org/us/washington.

Share the stories of suffering and hope in your community and beyond.

Advocate. Speak to government officials on behalf of those brave souls who, despite the risk of death, continue to give life to seeds of peace.

Take part in the Days of Prayer and Action for peace in Colombia, May 20-21, an invitation from Colombian churches to their North American sisters and brothers.

For more information, contact Rebecca Bartel, policyanalyst.mcc@gmail.com, or Theo Sitther at the MCC Washington Office, (202) 544-6564, tsitther@mcc.org.

By Tim Shenk

AKRON, Pa. — While a devastating armed conflict continues in western Sudan’s Darfur region, the people of southern Sudan are beginning to recover from a 21-year civil war, according to Rob Haarsager, a Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) country representative.

In southern Sudan, a grueling conflict between rebels and government forces claimed an estimated 2 million lives and displaced about 4 million people by the time a peace agreement was signed in January of 2005.

Today, however, the southern Sudanese city of Juba has become a boomtown as the seat of southern Sudan’s new parliament and the base for aid organizations working in the region. In January, Rob and Mary Haarsager, MCC’s Sudan country representatives, will move to Juba after living since 2004 in Nairobi, Kenya.

Rob Haarsager says the changes in Juba are striking when compared to his memories of the city. The Haarsagers lived in Juba as MCC workers from 1985 to ’87 in the early years of the civil war.

During the war, Haarsager says that Juba was a garrison town in a war zone. Government forces controlled Juba while rebels controlled the countryside. The city was rife with wartime fears, suspicions and human rights abuses.

Now, however, people can come and go freely and the local economy is growing rapidly, Haarsager says.

“It’s an exciting time for the local person and other people like us who are moving in and living there,” he says.

From Juba, the Haarsagers will continue to manage MCC’s work with Sudanese organizations to help communities recover from the trauma of displacement and war, such as by providing seeds and tools to displaced farmers who are returning.

In Darfur, news reports suggest that the four-year-old conflict is widening into areas of neighboring Chad and Central African Republic. The U.S. Congress has declared the conflict to be a genocide of Darfur’s population, and the United Nations reports that hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than 2 million have been displaced.

MCC is currently supporting a peacemaking project in southern Darfur through a Sudanese partner organization, Darfur Emergency Response Organization. The goal is to support dialogue between ethnic groups that have been divided by the Darfur conflict and address local conflicts over land and water rights, Haarsager says.

“We’re hoping that even those kinds of efforts will help bring security to certain specific areas and allow people to return to their homes,” he says.

MCC is also providing food to war-affected communities throughout Sudan in partnership with the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. Currently, a shipment of 4,000 metric tons of wheat is being distributed to Sudanese schoolchildren, mostly in camps for displaced people in Darfur.

Tim Shenk is a writer for Mennonite Central Committee.

Mennonite World Conference has released the Mennonite, Brethren in Christ and Related Churches World Directory 2006. New numbers show membership in the 217 churches now listed in 75 countries around the world is just under 1.5 million (1,478,540). Africa, with 529,703 members, continues to have the largest and fastest growing membership among the five continental regions. The Meserete Kristos Church (MKC) in Ethiopia is the largest national conference globally, with 130,727 members. All continental regions except Europe have shown increased membership.

The 2003 World Directory listed 200 bodies in 65 countries with a total membership of 1,297,716.

According to 2006 numbers, Africa has stretched its membership lead over North America by some 30,000, a 17.2 percent increase since 2003. Africa surged ahead of North America for the first time in 2003 with 451,959 baptized members compared to 451,180 in North America.

Membership in North America in 2006 has grown to just under half a million (499,664), an apparent increase of 10.7 percent. However, the increase is partly due to changes in reporting since the new number includes more independent groups. Another factor in the larger number is the rapid growth among Old Order groups due to large families and a 90 percent retention rate among their youth.

Until 2005, Mennonite Church USA was the largest national conference. It now numbers 110,696 members, more than 20,000 fewer members than the MKC in Ethiopia.

Other national churches with 100,000 members or more include the Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches in India (103,488) and the Comunauté Mennonite au Congo (100,000).

The six countries with the most baptized members are the same as in 2003, but India and Canada have switched places in the list. The six countries in order of rank are: USA (368,280); Congo (216,268); India (146,095); Canada (131,384); Ethiopia (130,731); and Indonesia (72,624).

Second to Africa in the rate of growth among continental regions is the Caribbean, Central and South America (16.8 percent), with 155,531 members in 2006 compared to 133,150 in 2003. Close behind is Asia and the Pacific (15.9 percent) with 241,420 members in 2006, up from 208,155 in 2003. Numbers for North America, in fourth place in terms of growth, are noted above. Europe showed a slight decline of 1.9 percent with 52,222 members in 2006 compared to 53,272 in 2003.

The shifts, up in Asia and down in Europe, are due in part to a change in recording the 500 members in the independent countries of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, now listed in Asia but formerly counted with Europe as part of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Inclusion in the World Directory does not mean membership in Mennonite World Conference. Churches and conferences are included in the directory if they are rooted in the Anabaptist-Mennonite stream of church history or have direct fellowship with churches that are so rooted.

New listings in the 2006 directory, some of which are independent groups, include churches in Botswana, Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), The Gambia, Thailand, Bahamas, Romania, Ukraine and a new conference in Haiti.

National churches and conferences submit membership numbers to MWC. Methods of counting and reporting vary widely, but MWC attempts to treat reports as consistently as possible and to get reliable figures. Totals may indicate greater accuracy in reporting as well as changes in church membership.

Copies of the new directory will be mailed to all member conference offices for the presiding officers and to General Council delegates. Others may request copies from Kitchener, Ontario (Canada), Fresno, California (USA) or Strasbourg, France, MWC offices. MWC welcomes donations ($5 US is suggested) to cover the costs of producing and distributing the directory.

Ferne Burkhardt, Mennonite World Conference news editor

photos by Alex Miler