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A negotiator by nature, Esquivia is among the few clergy in conversation with both Left and Right. In 1988, threats drove Esquivia, his wife, and his four children off their farm, losing everything but their lives. Nine years later, he moved to Bogotá and created a faith-based human-rights group called Justapaz (Just Peace), which is today a respected religious voice in Colombian political debate.

In 1993, he spent four months in exile in the United States and Canada. Death threats started again in 2004, when paramilitaries accused Esquivia of having direct ties to leftist guerrillas, a charge he has since refuted.

Colombian pastors have brought international attention to their situation. In U.S. congressional hearings, Esquivia and Presbyterian leader Mejia urged the U.S. government to redirect billions of federal dollars from military aid to development work, in order to help farmers switch from coca production to growing legitimate crops. Since 2000, the United States has granted $4.7 billion to assist in the war on drug trafficking. Experts say the funds have done little to alter the situation in Colombia.

Pastors believe that building new roads and bridges would help farmers ship produce from rural areas to urban markets. That view has gained credibility. "Uribe's second term needs to provide new rural investment and infrastructure that reaches the poor," an International Crisis Group briefing paper concluded in October. Also, outreach to rural areas receives support from the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, which the Presbyterian Church USA supports. It regularly sends Americans to visit and encourage mission leaders and displaced farm workers.

The chronic stress on church congregations and pastors' families poses a real threat to those who advocate for human rights.

Magdalena, the wife of pastor Goez, says she often is gripped by fear just walking along a public sidewalk. She watches for signs of being followed and pauses before turning corners. She is jumpy in the vicinity of motorcycles—a favorite vehicle of assassins who shoot and speed away.

Goez has pondered leaving the pastorate. He worries about the long-term effects of trauma on his family. To survive, he has tempered his methods, adopting more of a social-service strategy and meeting the everyday needs of his congregation and its neighborhood.

Outside his front door, scores of tipsy sheds line the roadways. These dwellings are full of squatter families afraid to return home, where the armed groups who forced them off their land are now in control.

Goez recites Paul's words from 2 Corinthians 4 when fear grips him: "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed … and so we do not lose heart."

As the room darkens one evening and night settles in, Goez pauses in his conversation. He walks to the kitchen to remove the light bulb from the receptacle in the ceiling; he returns to the living room and screws it into an empty socket there. Light bulbs are scarce in his neighborhood.

Goez sits down and resumes his thoughts. "I've faced a lot of difficult times [and] understand the magnitude of the problems facing the Colombian people. I've been able to see the mercy of God in the deepest crises. When there is darkness, we have to believe in light."

"And the proof of God's mercy," says Goez, "is that I am alive to tell this story."

Alexa Smith is a journalist from Louisville, Kentucky, who has reported on Latin America for the last four years.

Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Other stories on Colombia can be found on our website.

The BBC and the U.S. State Department have country profiles of Colombia.

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February 2007, Vol. 51, No. 2