Newsletters

Date: May 17th 2008

This reflection was written by Kirk Johnston during his time in Barranquilla in April.
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Hi everyone,

I have to get up early tomorrow but don't feel like I can go to sleep before I share a little about my night. Earlier today I felt like some of the situations in Colombia are much like those in the USA. I have been enjoying my time here and meeting some wonderful people. The churches that we have been to have been bursting with life in both the young children and in the leaders who make the stories in the Bible come to life.

Tonight my fellow accompanier and I cooked dinner in our apartment and invited two young adults that had met Kori during her previous visits to Colombia. We had a wonderful dinner talking about common life experiences and similarities. After dinner we sat around and talked for a while and eventually were joined by a Colombian pastor who is visiting at the Reformed University where we are staying.

Our conversation was interrupted by a phone call to the pastor. When he came back from his conversation on the phone his face looked tired and sad. He had just received news about a small town near his home town was in the middle of a conflict between the paramilitaries and the guerrillas tonight. In that moment a heavy weight began to sink on to my shoulders. I began to imagine being in a town surrounded by armed men who were fighting each other. When I was in Belfast a couple of people shared stories about times that they were afraid during the Troubles or times of violence that they had witnessed. But all of the stories were in the past. They had happened and people lived through them. Though the images and the feelings of those times were still with them... it was in the past.

Tonight I saw the face of a man who has a present reality that is similar to the stories that I had heard in Belfast. He shared other stories from the past ranging from quite a few years back to a couple of days ago. He knows the reality of being a civilian in a war zone. He has seen senseless killings and has seen families massacred. He has seen young men line up to get on the bus to join paramilitary and guerrilla forces.

The stories that he shared were overwhelming. I could tell on his face the sadness that he caries on his shoulders. Quite a few times he would rest between stories and ask how can you stop war. Una guerra loca. He wanted to know how to end the cycle of violence. I do not understand how exactly the main violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland stopped. I say main because there is still rioting from time to time and there is a lot of hatred that still lives in people's hearts. But there is work for peace in those communities. The pastor mentioned that there are children and babies that are a result of the war and that they will grow up in it. So how do you stop the cycle of violence. Though he didn't have an answer of how to stop the war he did tell a story as follows. (I apologize since I didn't get every word but this is what I understood him to say.)

There was a group of animals in the middle of a huge fire. None of them had a plan for how to put it out. One of the animals said that he couldn't carry enough water to put out the fire. Several other animals said similar things. And then came the humming bird, and that humming bird decided that he would fly to the river and get as much water he could and put it on the fire. As the other animals watched this humming bird bring water over and over they asked him why he did that. They told him there was no way that he could put the fire out. His response was that he was going to do what he could, and that if everyone would do what they could then maybe we could put out this fire.

The pastor then shared about the role of the church. He said that they don't have the power to stop a war and the cycle of violence dead in its tracks. But they are going to do their part. They have faith that this is what they should be doing.

So my prayer tonight is for a community that is scared tonight. A community that is stuck in the middle of violence. My prayer if for the followers of Christ who work for peace when there seems to be no hope. My prayer is that there is a better world for all of us on Earth as it is in Heaven. I pray that we each do what we can to bring peace to a world full of war and violence. My prayer is that they will know we are Christians by our love. And my prayer is that God will use us as vehicles for transformative love to bring about peace.


Kirk Johnston
April 16, 2008