Newsletters

Date: December 19th 2008

I have two things to share in this last report: a job opening and a Living Letters visit.

Job opening: Many people know or know of Dr. Alice Winters with whom I had the pleasure to meet here in Barranquilla and who shared a Bible study with me as well as a fine meal. Alice teaches Bible and biblical languages in the School of Theology of the Reformed University and is overdue for a furlough, but there´s a problem. The university is having trouble replacing her. The faculty is small and she can't leave without someone else coming in to teach. If you know anyone who speaks Spanish, has at least a masters degree, and would like to teach Old Testament in Colombia for a semester, please contact Alice for more details. Thank you. Her email address is: wintersalicia@gmail.com

Living Letters visit: On December 6, a small delegation of World Council of Churches representatives came to Colombia as Living Letters, ¨to listen, learn, share approaches and help to confront challenges in order to overcome violence, promote and pray for peace.¨ These Living Letters visits are taking place throughout the world in the context of the WCC´s Decade to Overcome Violence, leading up to a major conference in 2011. On the WCC website about this visit, it was noted:

One of the most violent countries in the world, Colombia has been in the midst of a conflict between the army, two groups of left-wing rebels and right-wing paramilitaries since the 1960s. Drug-related crime adds to a situation that the United Nations has described as one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. During the decades-long conflict tens of thousands of Colombians have been killed while some three million have been forced from their homes.

The Living Letters team was to be made up of five people, but the delegate from Zimbabwe couldn't obtain a visa. That left four, plus a young Colombian woman, Belkys, who accompanied the group and participated in all discussions, as well as the final report. Belkys, a leader in the youth section of CLAI (Latin American Council of Churches) is from Barranquilla. The group visited locations in the western and northwestern regions of the country before making a stop in Barranquilla to meet with Germán (the accompaniers' mentor) and a representative of the group of displaced people.

I then flew to Bogotá with Belkys and the delegation, sat in on their encounters with a few more groups and accompanied them, on December 10, to a large demonstration and march, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and protesting the lack of human rights in Colombia.
I won't try to summarize all that I heard or observed in those few days. It is much better left to the Living Letters team who will be posting their thoughts and observations on the WCC website in the near future.

I would, however, like to share an observation by one of the delegates, Solito Toquero, bishop of the United Methodist Church in the Philippines, who will undoubtedly include this in his part of the report. Rev. Toquero listened to the same testimony in the meetings as the other team members did. In Trujillo, he saw a monument to slain courageous labor union members and community leaders and heard testimony from a young girl who witnessed the murder of her father and mother. He said he couldn't stop crying. In Barranquilla, he listened to a displaced farmer forced to leave his home along with everyone else in his community due to violence. In Bogotá, he met church workers and NGO workers who told of their work, told of the tortures, murders, massacres, forced removals that had occurred and were continuing to occur in Colombia. In all the places he visited, he heard that the government denies that any of these bad things are happening now while acknowledging that they had happened in the past.

Rev. Toquero listened, and knew he had heard, in fact he had seen and had experienced what the Colombians were telling him, what they are going through now. But what he heard, seen, experienced wasn't happening in Colombia, but in his homeland, the Philippines. He shared this with the groups with whom the Living Letters met. He was visibly shaken by the similarities in the two countries.

Each week, I have been sending my report and also a letter to family and friends. A few weeks ago, my brother wrote an email, thanking me for the reports and letters. He continued: ¨I'm struck by how much is going on in the world about which I have no knowledge or understanding.¨ He is not alone. I'm struck by that as well.


Jean McLeod Doughty
Barranquilla, Colombia
December 14, 2008
jeanmcleod@aol.com