Jim's Peacemaking

This will be my last report from Colombia. I will continue to write messages about peace, from my home. If you do not want to recieve them, reply with remove in the body of the letter, Thanks again for your interest. shalom, Jim Fitz Big waves in Opon 1/6/04 Hello, On Dec. 1st a small barge went up the Opon River filled up barrels and barge with fuel which they stole from the pipe line. The thieves were most likely Colombian gas Mafia Paramilitaries, both illegal groups. On their return they evidently got scared the Guerrillas might attack them so they took what they could and left the barge on the River. The river went down, which caused the barge to sink. Since then the fuel has been polluting the river, causing a real ecological disaster. This contaminates the water supply of the farmers that we accompany on the Opon. CPT discovered this on Dec. 2 and reported it to the authorities,but CPT was unable to get them to do something to stop the polluting. Now the amount of fuel being exp...

Greetings from CPT Colombia, A couple of days ago a disabled beggar was assassinated at noon in front of the restaurant where he has begged for years. His assailants were on bikes and without even any kind of masks. They got away on bicycles. The newspaper said all who saw it would not say who did it. It is supposed it was done out of the Nazi philosophy that those whom “the powers that be” think cannot contribute to society or who have the wrong philosophy should just be eliminated. This is known as social cleansing. This made me think that I need to watch that this kind of thinking does not take hold in me. Are there times when I think that way about others? How easily evil can sneak into our minds. Lord, help. Here are some interesting things about our life: Because this is mosquito season, when we go to the Opon we always take a swatter, a small towel or a shirt, with us. If the mosquitoes are bad we are continually swatting them while in conversation. It is just an acc...

Hello. Here's another light in the darkness . In a region called Micoahumado, the Paramilitaries and Guerillas have been fighting for control. The violence was so bad that people were considering displacing themselves (abandoning their farms and homes, like over 456,000 people did last year in Colombia). But they had a public meeting and a priest asked how many were willing to risk staying. 100 persons put up their hands. From this the Protestant and Catholic churches united with the community to begin to forge a space for peace. They formed a community organization for peace, life, and justice with a mission to look for a peaceful solution to this tense situation. They began by seeking out the leaders of the Paramilitaries and Guerrillas (even though it is against the law to meet with any of the illegal armed groups) and asking and telling them that they could no longer fight in the populated areas of Micoahumado. One of the Guerrilla leaders said in a newspaper interv...

Hello. Here are some things that have been exciting me in the development of a relationship between the Protestant Church and Christian Peacemaker Team. In a lot of ways I imagine developing church relationships is not as exciting to hear about as our encounters in the Opon. However, it seems to be something that I am being called to do, and I have come to see developing these relationships as an important part to building peace here. I hope you can appreciate it. The Team here has been trying to do this for over a year and a half now. So they have really emphasized to me that this is a great, important, and historic event in the life of CPT and the churches here. Peter Stucky, the President of the Colombian Mennonite Church , told me, ¨We have been waiting a long time for this; this is an historic event. ¨ November 21 and 22, 2003 I attended a protestant Ecumenical seminar on Biblical Peacemaking, which I mentioned in an earlier letter. We broke into small groups to ans...

Interesting Stories Greetings from Barranca , Colombia Here are some interesting stories from the recent past. A few months ago a Paramilitary Commander came to our house in Barranca. We were very hesitant to let him in, for we feared he might want to hurt us is some way. However, after some conversation in which he said that he had come to tells us thanks for our work in the Opon, we let him in. He than proceeded to take over an hour to tell us that our talking to him and his soldiers had convinced them to reconsider their being a part of the Paramilitaries. He and a number of his paramilitary soldiers quit the Paramilitaries several months ago and have joined a local Protestant church. He remarked that he was glad to replace his guns with his new weapons of a Bible and some books as a part of his mission for others to seek the way of Jesus. It sounded almost like a direct quote from Ephesians 6. He was very glad for their new life with the Lord, despite the danger they fa...

A "Day Off" Greetings, I had a refreshing day off in the mountains of Bucaramango. I stayed in a Catholic religious community, a very quiet place which overlooked some huge mountains. Just watching the mountains does something good for my soul it seems. Big clouds rolled in over the mountains which brought rain in the night. The many different kinds of beautiful flowers which are cultivated here just delighted my being. Quiet service is a central theme of this lay community, exemplified in this saying I saw there, “One who does not live to serve, does not have a life worth living.” The mountains, the flowers, and the quiet service atmosphere renewed my spirit. While I was still home, I came across some literature in Spanish by and about the Peace Pilgrim, a woman who had spend 30 years walking across the USA sharing about peace. The pamphlet gives suggestions about seeking inner peace and global peace and talks about how they are related. I had asked a Colombian Christian Pe...