An Urgent Call from Colombia to the Churches in the North

Week One - Planting the Seed

Week Two - Life-giving Water

Week Three - Light and Darkness

Week Four - Life from the Spirit

Colombia: Seeds of Peace

An Urgent Call from Colombia to the Churches in the North
Bogotá, Colombia - July 1, 2000

If you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance...will arise from another place. And who knows but that you have come to this position for such a time as this? (Esther 4:14)

My dear Brothers and Sisters, the gospel invites us to know how to "interpret the signs of the times" (Matt. 16:3). For this reason, I dare to write to you in this moment of confusion and pain that the Colombian people are suffering, in search of solidarity and fraternal discernment.

During the last 50 years, Colombians have been living through an armed conflict that: leaves a disastrous annual count of 30,000 violent deaths, close to 2 million displaced people, a destroyed economic infrastructure in the country, an illegitimate government, a fragmented and desperate civil society and millions of common people's life-dreams frustrated.

Just as lighter fluid among flames produces more fire, more arms produce more war in the middle of social conflict. This military "aid" will not put an end to the war nor eradicate drug-trafficking. It will only increase the number of deaths and the suffering of the Colombian people.

Just like all other people, Colombians dream and seek a better future, largely guided and illuminated by simple churches that sprout up in the midst of the conflict and violence as a seed of hope that announces and lives out the "abundant life" which comes from the Prince of Peace.

We are asking you, just as Mordecai desperately pleaded with Esther, to not remain quiet at this time, but to unite your voices with ours to denounce the perverse nature of this kind of "aid." We plead with you, just as Esther did, to call together all believers and to fast and pray for the Holy Spirit to change the minds of your governors, and to give strength and wisdom to the members of Colombian churches so that we might console, offer hope and continue to take a message of life and peace from our Lord Jesus Christ to this people and this suffering church.

We ask you for support to transform this vicious cycle of death and destruction that military aid produces, into a virtuous cycle of abundant life and peace. In this way our people can receive an alternative message from the people of the north, sent by the churches there. This message would show that life, respect and solidarity can also come from the north.

Perhaps, brothers and sisters, it is precisely in order to support the Colombian churches in turning the governmental message of death from the North into life that God has placed you there in the nations of the North at this time, just as God did with Esther.

May God bless you and may God's peace stir you.

RICARDO ESQUIVIA BALLESTAS, Member of the Colombian Mennonite Church, Director of the Peace Commission of the Evangelical Council of Colombia (CEDECOL) and Director of Justapaz

PETER STUCKY, President of the Colombian Mennonite Church