Newsletters

Date: August 24th 2010

From accompaniers Ann Legg and Kaitlin Porter, 24th August 2010.

El Tres is a small town located a half hour from the town of Apartadó and fifteen minutes from the small port city of Turbo, in the region known as Urabá. It was where we would stay for six nights, from Wednesday evening, August 18th until Tuesday morning August 24th. It is a hot place with dirt roads, or rather mud roads as it is the rainy season, and we quickly learned that going places was best done in the early mornings when it was coolest. We were accompanied from Apartadó to El Tres and to the church by the pastor of the El Tres Presbyterian Church, Elías, and a church elder who had been attending the Presbytery meeting in Apartadó. Elías is actually a lay governing elder. He has been licensed and asked to serve as pastor for the church although he did not attend seminary. According to Elías, about 90 people attend church services on Sunday. Seventy-five percent of the congregation, including the pastor, have been displaced and many have lost family members becaus
e of the violence.

We stayed at the pastor's home with his wife, their 8 year-old daughter and his 3 year-old nephew. Their living quarters are directly behind and attached to the church sanctuary. The house includes a front porch, a small living/dining room area, a kitchen, 2 bedrooms, an office for Compassion International and an room under construction to become an indoor bathroom. Three classrooms for Compassion International, also under construction, are attached to the back of the house. There is no running water inside the home and no sink in the kitchen. Water is brought from reservoirs near the river through pipes to the spigot outside, where the water collected is used as needed for washing dishes and clothes, bathing and flushing the toilet. Another huge concrete container holds rainwater to be used for cooking, while water for drinking and for washing vegetables is purchased in 6 liter bags.

The church supports itself, in part, through sales of empanadas, corn, tamales, and cookies. With the money raised, they help families in need by providing sugar, soap and other necessities They also work a small plantain farm, which they call the parcela, and use the money raised there for their construction projects. On our final day, Monday, we had the opportunity to go to the parcela with the family and participate in the harvest of plantains. Bunches of plantains are brought in, cut from the main stem, washed in a special chemical and then rinsed and packed into cartons for shipment. Each carton of premium plantains weighs 25 kilos for which they are paid 5.50 USD. Plantains which are too small to be classified as premium are placed in different cartons. Both of these classifications are for export. Fruit that does not meet the standard for export is separated for sale locally.

Upon arrival the first night, a church service was about to begin, and we were promptly invited to attend. The service felt Pentecostal in nature with enthusiastic singing accompanied only by hand clapping. This was followed by a prayer, scripture readings and a lengthy sermon given by a male elder in the church. At the end of the service there was a time for announcements and requests for prayer. Two people in the congregation asked for prayers for healing for themselves. They then came forward and stood in front as the pastor and elder placed hands on their heads and everyone prayed for them simultaneously aloud. Similar smaller services were held Thursday and Monday evening.

On Saturday night they held a special service which lasted from 7:30 p.m. until just after midnight with a 40 minute recess. It was very flexible in format with those wishing to sing could come forth to present a song or one could read from the Bible. Kaitlin was asked to read 1 Samuel 16:1-13, the anointing of David. The spirit that was maintained throughout the four and a half hours was incredible; even by the end a majority of the church was still standing and clapping. The devotion and desire of the people in El Tres to praise and serve God was much apparent. These are a people poor in things but rich in spirit. Sunday's service was not so long as we had been asked to give the sermon. Ann gave a testimony discussing the path of accompaniment, the shortest "sermon" in the history of the church, and Kaitlin gave a brief introduction.

On Thursday, Kaitlin was invited to help teach the children in the Compassion Project which is a program that takes place on the church's property that promotes the welfare of children including here in El Tres. Children meet three times a week for classes. After a morning crash course on the Compassion Project, Kaitlin assisted the afternoon class first by reading a lesson on how God created the world. The children drew pictures of the world as they saw it, many drew flowers, others drew churches, and all were happy pictures. Despite the number of these children that had health problems, largely malnutrition, they were happy and participative in all the school activities. The children were excited about the presence of two women from the United States in their classroom. Kaitlin spent a large amount of time trying to convince them that she could not keep taking their pictures when they had to finish their drawings and game time consisted of an epic battle for who got t
o hold her hand. It was an amazing feeling of acceptance amongst the children of Colombia.

The concern for the displaced is widespread through this church given the high percentage of displaced persons within the congregation, some of them families of the children that participate in the Compassion Program. After the service on Sunday, everyone drew their chairs into a circle to share their stories of displacement. The situation for the displaced in Colombia is very serious. They discussed with us their four greatest problems: health, education, employment, and a dignified living. The various stories of loss and of current struggles were first brought forth with reluctance, but then as the time went on more and more were willing to contribute their stories.

One church member has no job, no social security (health care) and lives in a small shack far too close to a very steep river bank that has been eroding little by little during rain storms. It is always a concern of whether or not his house will fall into the river.

Another man discussed how his plantain farm was destroyed and he had to leave everything to stay with family in El Tres.

A woman who had been silent the whole meeting finally came forth at the end to tell how her family's farm was destroyed and two of her brothers were killed. She has not seen any money for any of these losses from the government program for displaced persons.

One of the displaced men of the church discussed that one of the things they want most is the return of their land. He asked Kaitlin and Ann what they would be able to do in order to help them regain their land. This was the hardest question to answer because unfortunately all we as accompaniers are able to do is bring their stories back with us and educate people at home about the situation. Hopefully from bringing knowledge, we can also work to try and change the policies of the United States that so affect Colombians, particularly those who have been displaced.

More and more stories were brought forth, each containing loss: loss of homes and property, loss of lives, and loss of dignity. It was hard to hear these stories, and almost as difficult to know that many of the people that weren't speaking were in too much pain to do so.

After lunch we sat around the table with an elder and the pastor. The elder sobbed as he related the loss of his land and the terrible conditions under which the displaced are forced to live. He spoke about the lack of opportunity for children and youth of displaced families. Through the forces of poverty that take away hope for a future, with day-to-day life spent trying to figure out where the next meal will come from, many girls as young as 13 become pregnant and boys are recruited into the paramilitaries, further worsening the situation. The pastor told us that people come to church, but all the time they are thinking about where their next meal will come from, where and when they may find a job, how they will educate their children, and where they might get the medical attention they or their families need.

The pastor then asked us the second most difficult question of the day: If our presbyteries sent us back to El Tres to live, what we would do for the church and the community that comes hand in hand with the church? The problems are so overwhelming it is hard to know where to begin: What is the greatest need, what is needed first? It made us appreciate the dilemma facing pastors of churches in the Urabá as every day they deal with the issues that face their congregations.

Our time here unquestionably worth the excruciating bus ride from Barranquilla to Apartado that we experienced a week ago. We found everyone extremely hospitable and welcoming. They brought us into their church family with open arms through their kindness and gentle greetings of "Dios te bendiga hermana." The greatest difficulty of our time in El Tres came not from bathing from a bucket or the endless meals of rice, but from the idea that when we leave, we leave them in the same situation as when we arrived. We can only hope that through sharing their stories we can make a difference for them.

Ann Legg and Kaitlin Porter


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