A Visit to the Persecuted Church in Colombia
Earlier this year, Open Doors workers had the chance to visit the Church of La Palestina – the only visible church in the region of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia. There, they met the church, prayed together and heard some of the testimonies of this resilient church in the middle of a place where indigenous Christians are persecuted for their faith.
Pastor Abraham* said that it was the first time in more than 20 years that foreigners had been able to visit. More than 40 kilometers inland, this place is the only refuge Christians have in the middle of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta – a large area that stretches across the departments of Magdalena, Cesar and La Guajira – where Christians are not welcome.
Equipped with suitcases, cameras, and camping equipment on their shoulders, the Open Doors support team (they were not from Canada) embarked on a seven-day journey to visit the persecuted Church in the Sierra.
After an hour’s flight from Bogotá to Santa Marta, six hours by car to the middle of the mountains, and eight hours on mule, going even further up the mountains, passing rivers, cliffs and plains, the group arrived in the territory where the Church of La Palestina was waiting for them with joy. The church was celebrating its week-long annual meeting, where Christians from all over the Sierra and the surroundings came to celebrate Jesus and strengthen their faith.
Pastor Abraham said, “This meeting is one of our strategies to stand firm, because the challenges we face as a church are many”.
Around 80 people attended the meeting. Some came from other communities in the Sierra, four, five or even seven hours away, but the long journey was worth it because it was one of the few opportunities for communal worship.
The following days were filled with sermons, prayers, and worship from 5am to 10pm. Although many came with personal or family requests for health or provision, the common prayer was the same: for their families, their communities, and for Christians in other areas who cannot live their faith freely.
The journey to the Church of La Palestina included a one hour flight, six hours by car, and eight more on mules.
Persecuted for Jesus
During the trip, the team met several Christian families who came from one of the more traditional communities in the region, where Christianity is punishable by law.
Dozens of Christians have come from all over the Sierra, hidden from their communities or with a made-up excuse, to hear the Gospel. “Many have to say that they are going to work, to buy something or to visit a family member so that their communities do not get suspicious,” said Lucas, a Christian and indigenous missionary.
The risks that these underground Christians run when they go to these kinds of meetings are extremely high.
“In our communities, they want us to follow and believe only in our culture, and if we don’t, we will be persecuted. They scold us, punish us, lock us in the ‘house of reflection’, and then, if we continue, they say: ‘if you don’t give up, you have to leave the territory’,” says David, a Christian from the Sierra.
David has lost contact with some members of his family because of Christianity. “I’m not close to my brother, nor to my sister, and I’m estranged from my brother-in-law. Because you preach the Gospel, you are no longer considered part of the family. And because you preach, you also lose the right to work in the community. I no longer have the right to work because, as a Christian, I have lost their trust,” he adds.
However, David maintains his faith in Jesus. “I came here because I have hope. Now it is very difficult to be a Christian here, and sometimes we have to follow what the mamos (religious authorities) say to avoid problems and persecution. But I know that God answers. And I am still waiting for that,” he adds.
"Because you preach the Gospel, you are no longer considered part of the family. And because you preach, you also lose the right to work in the community...but I know that God answers."
His story is not an isolated one. Many other Christians who came to the meeting shared similar stories of being rejected by their families and communities because of their faith in Jesus.
Martha is a Christian woman who was abandoned and beaten by her husband for not renouncing the Gospel: “He told me that he did not like the fact that I was a Christian and that he was going to leave me, but I said, ‘the Lord will decide what to do with me. I will seek Him; I want to be His friend'” she says.
“I ask you to pray for our families so that they come to know the Lord and for our churches, because the mamos are working against the church so that we stop following the Lord. They are working for that.”
A persecution that never ends
Back in 2001, the mamos forcibly expelled Christians from their community, with the help of illegal armed groups who supported their cause in exchange for indigenous youth to join their ranks.
Abraham recalls this. “The guerrillas came to the community and told us that we had to leave the same day. ‘There is enough land here to bury people’, they told us. This scared us so much that we had to leave that place.”
For more than five years the Palestina church remained displaced until 2006, when the agreement between the guerrillas and the mamos was broken and the guerrillas stopped pressuring the church. In 2014, the pastor and his family returned to the region to take over the leadership of the church, which was gradually rebuilding itself.
“Now they no longer attack the Church as they did before. Now they are attacking us spiritually, with witchcraft… that is why there is a lot of disorder and poverty in the Church, and some Churches are finished because the attacks have succeeded. Some people may not be turning away from God, but they are falling into sin and the church is spiritually defeated.”
Colombian Christians were able to spend time in worship, along with prayer times and preaching.
Dreaming for the future
Despite the persecution, the Church of La Palestina is not giving up on evangelizing. “The development of the church has been through prayer, fasting, vigilance, walking to pray for the region, praying for protection for our families and our crops, and tithing. We have seen that this works, because if you had come 10 or 15 years ago, the situation would have been different,” says Pastor Abraham.
The visit by the Open Doors team set a historic precedent for La Palestina church. “Many brothers and sisters have come and told me, ‘This is very good, the Lord is speaking a lot to us,’ and we have many projects to carry out to continue fulfilling the Christ’s mission here in the Sierra” says Abraham.
In the future, the Church wants to carry out an evangelization project specifically, in the nearby traditional regions that are more hostile to Chrisitanity. It will be based on strategic visits and spaces to strengthen the brothers and sisters who live in the community.
“In the Church we have said: if we have help, we will do evangelization, but if we don’t, we will do it anyway, because at the end of the day, it is our commitment to God. We are going to do it, whatever the costs, because Christ is coming soon and there are so many people who are dying without knowing the Gospel. But of course, sometimes it is better to give a little push to get things done,” adds Pastor Abraham.
Pray
Abraham asks for prayer. “Pray for us that we will remain in the faith, that the Lord will sustain us and give us the strength and wisdom to continue sharing the Gospel and that many more indigenous people will come to know Jesus.”
*all names in this story have been changed for security reasons.
