Death-Defying Ministry
Protestant leaders practice grassroots justice--and keep a low profile.
Alexa Smith | posted 2/05/2007 09:08AM
Jesús Goez is hiding in plain sight.
He preaches every Sunday.
Runs a feeding program for 600 kids.
Supervises a job-training program.
Operates a recycling program and a bakery.
He does all this to keep his tiny church with its big vision moving forward—while living miles away from right-wing paramilitary squads that have tried to assassinate him.
Goez is not unlike countless pastors, union leaders, and journalists. Each group has become mired in Colombia's fierce ideological war. Leftist guerrillas, private armies, and right-wing paramilitaries—backed by factions within the Colombian army—have torn the country asunder since the 1960s.
The church in Colombia has paid a staggering price in this conflict. In 2004, armed groups murdered 40 Protestant leaders, according to the Council of Evangelical Churches of Colombia. More than 50 congregations closed due to violence. (Nearly 10 percent of Colombia's 47 million people are Protestant.)
"All those funerals. So much death. In this war, the violence, the threats, the death, it penetrates your soul," says Mennonite pastor Ricardo Esquivia, one of Colombia's leading Protestants and peace activists. "So you pray, asking God for strength so that your soul does not become as sad as all the things happening around you."
In 2005, New York's Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding praised Esquivia's efforts, honoring him with the prestigious 2005 Peacemaker in Action award.
Since the 1980s, more than 200,000 Colombians have died in the violence, and up to 3.4 million have fled their homes. Community leaders have been hit especially hard. More than 4,000 union leaders have been killed. The death toll includes 62 Roman Catholic priests, nuns, and missionaries. Four bishops have been kidnapped and one has been murdered. The Catholic archbishop of Cali was assassinated.
"What has happened to me is typical of the things that happen in Colombia," says Goez, sitting in an austere apartment in a town that he asked not be identified. No one in this community knew him until he was transferred here to fill the empty pulpit of a congregation of the Presbyterian Church of Colombia.
"I'm not the only one who has faced this situation," Goez says. "Many others have faced the same. When you do a job that helps people, others don't always like that."
Social Sin and Misery
A long time ago, Goez and other church leaders realized that charity alone would not provide a comprehensive solution for the 49 percent of Colombians living in chronic poverty.
Many complex factors contribute to poverty. Private armies have terrorized poor farmers off their land. The oil industry and agribusiness take possession of strategic land to explore for oil or to grow coffee, bananas, or flowers for the florist industry. As a result, millions more Colombians today live in urban areas, working in low-wage textile or food-processing jobs.
Many churches care for the poor through traditional outreach and human-rights advocacy. But there has been a backlash. According to reliable reports from displaced farmers and others, the government's military intelligence has kept the Presbyterian Church of Colombia under surveillance for documenting human-rights abuses.
According to church leaders who asked not to be named, video surveillance tapes of the Presbyterian headquarters in Barranquilla were used during interrogations after a church worker, Mauricio Avilez, was arrested on suspicion of guerrilla activities. Allegations against him were later dropped.
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john lovelace
Having been a missionary to Colombia for 11 years with two of those years being l983-1985 reading this article brought back memories of living in fear. In 1984 four drug lords were to be extradited to the USA to face charges dealing with drugs. These and other drug lords did all they could to keep this form happening. The last ploy was putting full page ads in all the country's newspapers saying that for each one extradited five north americans living in Colombia would be killed. As I read the Medellin newspaper where I lived on January first, 1985 where all four had been sent to the USA. I went about my ministry as usual but with new fear of being one of those 20 who might be killed. Over 10,000 North Americans fled Colombia those first two weeks of 1985, but no missionaries left. I knew that many Colombian pastors were suffering so much for their faith then. This article was so true and will make me pray ever more for our Colombian Christians.
Father Rick
Thank you for this wonderful article. He is an inspiration to all of us. We will be adding him to our prayer list to pray for his continued safety and outreach in the Name of Christ. May God richly bless him. We need more information on pastors like him. He is inspiring to all of us.
Lisa Wallerstein
Don't miss the National Geographic's extraordinary look at how Colombia's few remaining Indians are experiencing this war, "Colombia's Guardians of the Earth," in the October 2004 issue. (Spanish-America on the whole, however, is home to 65,000,000 Indians - a miracle of indigenous survival in starkest possible contrast with Anglo-America!) In this present article I found it especially sad that people believe that God would or could micro-manage their lives. But the last thing anyone needs is more roads - anywhere! In Mexico, road-building has only brought liquor stores and alcoholism. It's time to rethink our whole "progress and development" regime, one that has been so damaging to the family and the environment here and abroad, and to our relationship with "the third world." But thank you for the beautifully written report!