For the Healing of the World

"Columbia - Pilgrims in Their Own Land"

Bogota, Colombia:

"Get out; there's going to be trouble and we will not be answerable," warned a guerrilla command that arrived in the area at midday. "We respect your lives, but grab your things and leave," ordered several paramilitaries a couple of hours later.

And Abel Buitrago, all too familiar with the consequences of such orders complied, as did 40 neighboring families, abandoning their homes and animals. From a distance they heard what was probably an exchange of fire between two groups. They learned later that two boys had been killed. It was not clear how many combatants had gone down in the fray because such bodies normally are dumped in a muddy marsh, then gradually dragged toward the river until picked up by fishermen. They are then catalogued as NN (no name) in what has now become routine practice in the history of a half-century of Colombian war.

Buitrago, a carpenter, is one of nearly 3,000,000 people compelled to leave their homes since forced displacement began in Colombia in 1985. Displacement is no longer just a collateral effect of the country's decades -old conflict, - revolving around narcotic trade, the peasant's struggle for land reform and political control - but it is one of the central strategies of those who are sponsoring , leading and profiting from the confrontation.

It is now three years since Buitrago, his wife and three children came to Nueva Colombia, a settlement some 14 kilometers from their first place of refuge. Nueva Colombia is a community of shacks on the foothills of a mountain that rises from Guatiguara Valley, a landscape of sugarcane and tobacco crops, and luxurious high-society clubs. Electricity is pirated from the valley below, and water comes from springs high up in the mountain. There is no sewage system.

The Buitragos received assistance toward shelter construction, food and other basic needs from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Colombia, which has been carryout out development programs for 20 years. Support to the church comes through the Lutheran World Federation Department for World Service and the global network of churches and their related agencies, Action by Churches together (ACT) International. Other NGOs are also active in the area.

The church's work among displaced people is limited, as funds are not always available to target all the people in need. Other church projects in Nueva Colombia include a multi-purpose hall used as a church, children's dining hall, drug store, nursing post, radio station, school, theater and meeting room. The church's philosophy is perhaps best portrayed in this building: to accompany the community in issues of health, safe drinking water, energy, risk management, tree planting and education, with the aim to achieve self sufficiency and progress. 85% of Colombia's displaced households include children and adolescents with little or no formal education.

Working atop one of the walls of the tank that will provide water to nearly 300 families, Abel Buitrago takes pride in having experienced change in his neighborhood thanks to the church's work. "It was our job to change the thinking of many hardened people," he says. "Today there is community. We never imagined there would be so many people helping with the tasks of the water tank, women carrying materials on their shoulders, and men breaking rocks."

(Story from LWI, October 2003.)