I´m going to cheat a little bit with this blog post by using our Accomanier Report from our time in El Tres. If you´d like to subscribe to the reports, go to www.presbypeacefellowship.org and click on the tab to the right.
In El Tres, no such thing as "minding your own business".
From Urabá-based accompaniers Becca Weaver and Kelsey White, received 11th August, 2011.
"It is tempting to say that what you do with [the] time you save is your own business. Briefly stated, however, the Christian position is that there´s no such thing as your own business." -Frederick Buechner
At the Presbyterian church in El Tres, Colombia, there really is no such thing as one´s own business. This fact became apparent as we were led by the pastor into the swept-dirt yard of the church. Behind the sanctuary, he gestured toward a series of rooms with concrete floors and cinderblock walls. "The pastoral residence!" he announced. A few more steps, another broad gesture with his arms. "And our project for children, sponsored by Compassion International." Two open-air classrooms bustled with dark-headed children as young staff members taught lessons and pored over paperwork.
For the past several days, we have been staying with the pastor and his family in this small town north of the city of Apartadó. They have been amazingly hospitable--especially considering that they themselves are displaced persons and do not own their own home. Despite the lack of material resources, we have been welcomed with open arms, invited like sisters into their home and made a part of their family. The church members here are mostly (at least 80%) people who have been displaced from their homes and land, most for a decade or more, due to violence perpetrated by guerrilla forces, paramilitaries, and/or the national army. They work together here in true community, caring for one another and especially for the children of El Tres and surrounding areas. Here in rural Colombia, as the pastor told us today, "Your life is not your own," in any number of ways.
Yesterday we had the opportunity to visit the small parcel of land where the men of the church (and some of the women, too) grow plantains for export as a way to support the activities of the church, including the children's project. Plantains and bananas are the crops here--the way that most people make their living is by working on the bananeros or plataneros. The church members rotate responsibilities on the parcela to ensure that someone is always working to maintain the plantain crop. Yesterday we helped the pastor put together cardboard boxes provided by the export company--folding, labeling, and stacking them in preparation for this week´s harvest, which was packed and shipped early this morning. Today we visited a working banana farm and saw the process of harvesting and packing bananas for export. Please remember, the next time you eat a banana, that it most likely came from the sweat of these humble, hard-working Colombians.
Our brothers and sisters in Colombia share more than resources. They share a collective experience of violence and displacement that continues to affect their daily lives in ways both obvious and subtle. They share a frustration that comes from feeling that their voices go continually unheard by those in power. They share a level of material need that surpasses any we have ever experienced. When asked what he would want church members and elected officials in the United States to know about Colombia, one hermano responded, "Tell them that there is an entire church in Colombia where we are all desplazados, and that we need some kind of help." Let us also tell of a church strong in faith, determination, and love for one another, where there´s no such thing as your own business because your survival depends on community.
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