Mennonite
Central
Committee

Canadian reflects on journey to Colombia

Angelika Dawson
October 19, 2006

This is one of two stories about Colombia that MCC News Service is releasing this week. The other, "Finding hope amid violence," tells the story of a displaced woman, one of the 3.5 million people who have been forced to flee their homes since 1985 because of violent armed conflicts.

 

Abbotsford, B.C. — After touring Colombia for three weeks, Kendra Loewen found herself asking some hard questions, knowing the experience had changed her life.

Learning Tour

Loewen was part of a group of 12 Canadians who traveled throughout Colombia with six young adults from that country. The trip was organized by MCC, which supports displaced people in Colombia by providing food, basic supplies, counselling and job training. Together, these young adults explored the historical, political and social realities affecting Colombians, learning from each other along the way.

The trip had many highlights including a visit to an MCC-supported food project in Bogotá, visits with pastors and others working at collaborating on peace projects, meeting with indigenous people to experience their way of life and more. What struck Loewen most was the way that so many people she met struggled to live with the presence of violence in their lives.

Leaving because of threats

One Sunday morning, they visited a Mennonite congregation and part of that service was saying goodbye to a family that was getting ready to immigrate to Winnipeg; leaving because their lives had been threatened.

"It was interesting being on that end of the story," Loewen said, explaining that she has been in churches that have received refugees. "It was unsettling to see this family and realize they were running for their lives, would be leaving this congregation of family and friends, everything familiar, leaving a warm climate and heading for Winnipeg!"

Labour Union meeting

A meeting with a Labour Union leader also left a deep impression on her. Labour Unions fight for the rights of indigenous people and workers who are displaced by international companies — like oil companies — who take over the land. When locals protest, they are killed or simply disappear. Being a Labour Union leader is a dangerous life.

An economist/social activist who has worked with Labour Unions spent most of his life living on the run. He had been caught and tortured in the past. His hands shook, his eyes darted back and forth. The lawyer for his group had disappeared just weeks before and no one had seen or heard from him.

The way he had to live his life made Loewen evaluate some of the basic principles with which she had been raised. Having grown up in a Mennonite church, with its clear peace theology, she had always considered herself a pacifist. Meeting people who put their lives on the line daily for the cause of peace and justice made her feel that she no longer had the right to call herself one.

Financial hardships

Facing the poverty and the financial hardships that most Colombians live with also affected her. The money the Canadians paid to be a part of this trip subsidized their Colombian counterparts so that they could join them. It would be financially impossible for any of the Colombian participants to make the same trip to Canada.

"Even if they could get here, the cost of buying a meal or a cup of coffee would be too much for them," Loewen reflected, adding that this trip has made her realize how her actions here affect people there. It has made her think more consciously of each purchase, of how she uses energy, of what value means.

Real costs

"I grew up with a Mennonite ethic of fiscal responsibility — look for a deal," she says. "That's why it's hard for me to buy a cup of fair trade coffee. But now I know what the real cost of that cup of coffee is. I can make choices: to buy fair trade coffee, to buy a hybrid car, to eat locally grown food. I have the luxury to choose."

"...no one will make them afraid"

The trip has also affected the way she reads her Bible and how that makes her look at her world. A familiar passage in Micah 4, a call for peace and justice that includes the vision "each one will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid."

"That image became so powerful to me, because I met people for whom this wish is all they want, to live with a little land, to live without fear," she says.

It is the people that she traveled and lived with who have made the deepest impression on her and it is these connections that she wants to maintain. They have become her friends and because of this she can now name people whose lives are affected by her choices here.

What next?

As they neared the end of their journey together, Loewen and her Canadian counterparts asked the Colombians what they wanted the Canadians to do when they returned home.

"'Tell our stories,' they said. 'Yes,' I answered, 'but what do you want me to do?" she says with a laugh.

It feels frustrating that there isn't something immediately tangible that she can be doing for her friends in Colombia. And yet, she realizes she is in a unique position to honour the request of her friends. Loewen works for MCC in British Columbia and so has direct contact with churches and other groups. She has several speaking engagements lined up and is planning on doing some writing for Globaleyes, a web-based forum for young adults focusing on the impact of globalization. These are her gifts and she is happy to be able to use them to do what her friends have asked.

To invite Loewen to speak to your congregation or small group, you can reach her at

 

Angelika Dawson is a writer for MCC in British Columbia.