Finding a moment of peace

At supper today Peter Stucky, the pastor of the church that we were at on Sunday sat down to talk to us about our day. Our day started with Peter as we sat in on their regular Wednesday morning meeting with the church’s peace and justice committee. The committee works with IDPs who come from the rural area. As we learned yesterday, many IDPs from the rural areas eventually end up in Bogotá where they can hide out. Most of the time they are not followed, and as long as they don’t try to go back to their land and reclaim it, they are safe. Their issue is instead finding the skills and the means to survive in the city after a life in the rural area. Some of these people find their way to this Mennonite church and this committee, which includes a social worker and a psychologist, help them think about what their options are. Their goal is primarily to find a supportive community for them in the city, and the church can be that for them.

Occasionally however, they hear of a story of someone who cannot find safety anywhere in Colombia, and so they help them apply at the Canadian visa office to go to Canada as a “refugee.” Technically they are not refugees because they are still in their home country, but Canada has made an exception for Colombia. The church has been doing this for nearly ten years now, and they are getting pretty good at figuring out which cases the Canadian government will accept and which they will not. When we in Canada hear about these cases we look for sponsors for them.

The committee wanted to make it clear that they don’t want to be seen as a fast track to Canada, because most people’s lives are not threatened once they get to Bogotá. In fact, it seemed to me that their important work was working with the people who stay.

We heard about their work at 12:30 today. At that time each Wednesday, the church has something called “Pause for Peace.” After a time of prayer, three people told their stories of being displaced. One woman talked about how most of the men her age from her village had been killed. Another man talked about how he was caught between the guerrillas and the paramilitary and had to leave his land and come to the city. He talked about how he wasn’t a religious man, but found comfort in this church that has helped him and they have taught him the way of people.

It struck me that I have heard discussion about the way of peace and non-violence like this in churches in the US and Canada, but this was different. These people actually had lived through the violence of seeing family members killed and being told leave their homes. However, one man said, “I find it difficult to follow this way of peace. How do we do this?” He asked Peter, the pastor to respond, but he said, “I don’t have the answer for that, I can only turn to the people in this room who have suffered from the violence.” One man in response quoted Dietrich Bonheoffer, another woman talked about how we must learn that we must not feed violence with revenge, because it will only grow.

At the end of the time we were all invited to a meal of soup. People were encouraged to donate the equivalent of 20 cents, but if they didn’t have that, they didn’t need to pay.

After lunch we met with the Executive Director of Justapaz. Justapaz (which means “a just peace”) has been involved in a number of things including working with conscientious objectors in Colombia who want to avoid military service for religious regions, and support churches that work as “sanctuaries of peace.”

One of the most significant activities that Justapaz has been involved in recently has been to document reports of violence in the country and publish a report outlining the violence and making recommendations to address the humanitarian crisis that they see. This work is so significant that shortly before last year’s report was due to be published, the computers with all the data they had collected were stolen from their office. It seemed clear that this was a politically motivated theft and not one with economic motives. The third report is due to be published next month.

These are the things I thought about as Peter asked us about our day. Then he told us a bit about his afternoon. The four or so hours since our lunch at the church, he had been meeting with people who had come to the “Moment for Peace” meeting. The woman that he had just finished talking to had just arrived in Bogota. Last week, some armed men came to their house took her husband and her children and told her she had two hours to leave her house. Displacement is still happening, despite what the Colombian government would have us and our government believe. The Peace and Justice Committee at the Mennonite Church, the workers at Medicoles and at Justapaz see it every week. It is important for us to make sure that we do not let those in power in Colombia and in Canada deny this.

Tomorrow afternoon we leave Bogota and fly to Monteria north of Bogota to see a few places where Mennonites churches are working with IDPs in a more rural setting. We may not have internet acess there, so I may not be able to post new entries for the next few days. We are are back in Bogota next Wednesday.