Manuel: Pastor, Mediator, Taxi Driver

When you embark on a Learning Tour, like this one, you can expect to visit supporting congregations, partner agencies and various tourist sites.  The idea is that you will worship with your brothers and sisters in that part of the world, hear about and be inspired by the work they are doing in the name of Christ, and experience the beauty of God's creation and admire in handiwork of humanity in that country.  All of those things we have done in abundance already in these two days we've been here.  We will have those stories to tell soon as well.

It is also important, however, to be open to what will happen in between those scripted moments.  Sunday morning I was fortunate enough to have one of those unscripted moments.


After breakfast and a brief introduction to some of the staff we would be connecting with during our time here, we all hopped in taxis to get a ride to church.  There were eight Albertans and 3 MCC staff people in our group that morning.  Two other pastors and I shared the back seat while an MCC staff person, our interpreter, sat in the front.  The driver and our guide discussed where the church was, and we were on our way.  One of the other pastors was collecting his thoughts for the sermon he had been invited to share. The other pastor and I were admiring the scenery that we hadn't been able to see the night before since it was dark when our plane landed.

I thought it was odd that the driver was dressed better than I was, and I was on my way to church, but I had been told that Colombians like to dress well.  I also thought it was interesting that he had two bibles on the dashboard.

When he asked who we were and what we were doing in Columbia, our guide explained that we were pastors and told him about the Learning Tour.  He was happy to hear that, and explained that he too is an evangelist.  I wondered if maybe he was a pastor in Bogota as well, but he went on to tell us that he was an evangelist to the guerrillas.  One of the Bibles on the dashboard was his own personal one.  The other was one designed specifically for guerrilla soldiers.  He described his mission as visiting with guerrilla groups all over the place, and giving them these Bibles.  He said that they had never refused to take a Bible.  He also talked about a meeting with a high ranking guerrilla officer who took one of the Bibles he brought and ripped some pages out to use as toilet paper.  This evangelist wasn't offended by this, instead he said, "That is just paper, but the truth of God that those pages contain cannot be defaced, no matter what you do."

Only a few weeks ago, when he was driving his taxi, he was attacked by a group of young men. They demanded his money and put a knife to his throat.  He told them that the spirit of robbery and violence had no power of him, and that Jesus had won the victory over evil forces like that.  The would-be bandits left without any money and without harming the driver.

Since then we've already heard from amazing people doing peace and justice work in this country that so badly needs it.  Hearing their stories was a big reason why we came.  But this taxi driver was not Mennonite, he was not connected to any civil justice agency and probably wouldn't claim an overarching pacifist theology as his own, but he was demonstrating love for his enemies as an expression of the gospel.

When we got out of the taxi at the church, I said to the pastor who was about to preach that morning's sermon, "That guy just raised the bar for you. I've already heard a pretty good sermon today."