Iglesias Hermanos Menonitas de Colombia

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Asociación de Iglesias HErmanos Menonitas de Colombia
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Congregaciones	45
Número de Miembros	2.500
Directivo	Diego Martinez
Dirección	Apartado Aéreo 4172 Cali-Valle, COLOMBIA
Teléfono	(57) 2-513-23-19 (57) 2-513-07-67
E-mail-	dihmeno@telesat.com.co
Website- Página Web	Insert Website Here

La Asociación de Iglesias Hermanos Menonitas de Colombia es miembra del Congreso Mundial Menonita. Tiene 2.500 miembros y 45 congregaciones.

Historias

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Historia

En Abril de 1945 varios misioneros llegaron a Colombia para empezar un trabajo en la ciudad de Cali. Luego decidieron enfocarse en Istmina en la región del Chocó donde buscaron trabajar más cercanamente con la población general en el área de educación. En 1947, La Escuela de los Andes se fundó, pero problemas conel gobierno forzó a que la escuela se cerrara hasta 1950. La conferencia también trató de establecer escuelas de primaria pero también fueron opuestos por el gobierno.

Orígenes

Origins: From Russia to North America to Colombia

The Mennonite Brethren first emerged from the Anabaptist/Mennonite colonies in Russia as a Pietist renewal movement in the mid-19th century. They were extensively involved in mission work in Russia, a practice that they took with them when they emigrated from Russia, beginning in 1870, due to political turbulence. Though there may have been Russian Mennonite Brethren who settled in South America upon emigration from Russia, president of the Colombian Mennonite Brethren Church Diego Martínez says that there are no Russian Mennonite Brethren in Colombia today; thus it appears the presence of the Mennonite Brethren in Colombia is a mainly an outcome of the mission work that began mid-twentieth century.

The Mennonite Brethren did, however, settle in North America, where it established a significant global missions program, from which the Mennonite Brethren Church of Colombia would emerge.

In 1942, several Mennonite Brethren reported to North American Mission Board that they felt called to Colombia, upon which G.W. Peters was sent to survey the need for missionaries in northern South America; his report was affirmative. In 1945, the Mennonite Brethren Board of Missions sent Daniel A. Wirsche and his family to Palmira (in the northwestern province of Valle), Colombia to study the Spanish language and scope out a place for missions. In 1946, they counseled the board to purchase an unoccupied mission station at La Cumbre, in Valle, it’s first property in Colombia and the location of the first indigenous Mennonite Brethren church. The station stood under the name “Misión de Los Hermanos Menonitas de America” (Mission of the Mennonite Brethren of America). A total of three stations were established for medical, educational, evangelical, and linguistic work among the blacks of the Choco province, and later the indigenous populations: La Cumbre in the Valle province, and Istmina and Noanama in Choco.

In addition to establishing a church, La Cumbre also built an elementary school for Colombians and a school for missionary children based on the American eighth grade curriculum. The services of a nurse and dispensary also commenced in time.

But although La Cumbre was the headquarters for the Mennonite Brethren, the majority of the mission work was done in the Choco province, where they established an indigenous church as well as schools for the nationals. In Noanama, linguistic work with the Indian population (initially only with the Noanama tribe) occurred. In their mission work, particularly in La Cumbre, the Mennonite Brethren encountered Roman Catholics (being the official state religion), which provided difficulties as Catholic priests often reacted against the mission work of other denominations and thereby tried to keep their parishioners separate. The Indians presented a different challenge due to their “semi-pagan” religions. For this reason, evangelization in these three locations initially depended on deeds of kindness, visiting the sick, house visitations (particularly to women, who didn’t attend services as readily as the men and boys), “street meetings,” basic medical aid, and preaching in nearby villages.

A few details...

Who. Rev. Daniel and Elsie Wirsche (and their three children), from Saskatchewan, Canada, were the pioneers of the Mennonite Brethren mission in Colombia, arriving in Palmira, Valle, in April of 1945. The missionaries that soon joined them were: Lillian Schafer, Rev. David Wirsche, Annie E. Dyck, Rev. John and Mary Dyck (with two children), Kathryn Lentzner, Lydia Golbek, Mary I. Schroeder, Rev. Harry and Martha Bartel (with one child), and Rev. Jacob and Anne Loewen (with one child).

Purpose. The objective of the Mennonite Brethren’s mission in Colombia was “to evangelize the lost and to establish the church on the Mennonite Brethren field in Colombia.” In the original Mennonite Brethren missionary newsletter report, The Colombian News and Views, E.A. Janzen wrote:

“The greatest treasure of Colombia…lies in the soul of its people. These, too, have been purchased on Calvary by the atoning death of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The heart of God yarns for their salvation. Because of this, our missionaries are pioneering by going into the inland areas which can be reached only with great difficulty, by river, by burro, or on foot to seek the lost.”

As a sidenote. In 1945 the General Conference Mennonite Church also began doing mission work in Colombia, running a boarding school for underprivileged children (many of them with leprosy backgrounds) on a farm in Cachipay, Cundinamarca.

Origins: Suppression of Mission Work – the move to Panama

Complications arose in the mission field when the Colombian government curbed the work of the Mennonite Brethren mission. In January of 1953 the government signed a new 25-year concordat with the Vatican, giving the Catholic Church authority over much of Colombia—including the locations of the Mennonite Brethren stations—for mission fields. This stripped other denominational churches of their legal rights to do mission work in these areas, unless given consent by the state church.

The Mennonite Brethren Board of Missions responded by pulling out of Colombia, but several missionaries, including the Loewens, returned independent of the church to continue their study of the Indian dialects. By 1957 not even language research was permissible, though, so the Board of Missions considered the Indian mission field in Colombia closed. But because the Wirsches and Loewens continued to have concerns for the Choco Indian tribe, they requested permission from the Board of Missions to work with the Panama Choco Indians, in hopes that the Indians would then carry the gospel across the border. The mission eventually found a niche there, though the nature of the Mennonite Brethren was transformed in unforeseen ways due to their loss of a mission field of their own.

Origins: In the meantime…

Though the Mennonite Brethren Board of Missions had pulled out of Colombia, political changes within the Colombian government occurred in 1958 resulting in greater openness to missionaries outside of Roman Catholicism; upon this event, the Mennonite Brethren of Colombia officially organized as a national conference. (I’m assuming that a significant number of Mennonite Brethren—indigenous and North American—had remained in Colombia independent of the Board of Missions.)

Vida Contemporánea

A glimpse of the current Mennonite Brethren Church of Colombia

The ICOMB website lists four Mennonite Brethren institutions: Centro de Desarrollo Minsterial (Center of Ministerial Development), Misión Juvenil de Colombia (Youth Mission of Colombia), Oficina de Paz (Peace Office), and Colegio Americas Unidas (United Americas School). The president of the Mennonite Brethren Church of Colombia is Diego Martínez.

2009 Statistics for Membership of Mennonite Brethren of Colombia
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Iglesia Cristiana Menonita de Colombia	1,200 members / 24 congregations
Iglesia Hermandad en Cristo	131 members / 5 congregations
Iglesias Hermanos Menonitas de Colombia	1,700 members / 44 congregations
'Totals'	3,031 members / 73 congregations

Mission Centered

Mission is the nucleus of the Mennonite Brethren tradition and expression of faith. The Mennonite Brethren of Colombia work in conjunction with the Mennonite World Conference, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), and Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), as well as Mennonite Brethren Mission. Under the wing of the MCC and MEDA, the Iglesia Evangélica Menonita de Colombia and the Asociación de las Iglesias de los Hermanos Menonitas (the ICOMB Colombian conference) collaborate in the social service agency MENCOLDES (Fundación Menonita Colombiana para el Desarrollo, or Colombian Mennonite Foundation for Development, 1977), assisting people displaced by the violence. CLARA (Centro Latinoamericano de Recursos Anabautistas) is another organization with whom they collaborate. At this point, they have four missionary couples abroad, in Mexico, Panama, Peru, although much of their financial support comes from North America.

Challenges the Mennonite Church of Colombia faces

One of the largest difficulties the Mennonite Brethren of Colombia is currently facing is financial, though this may mainly be a reflection of the country’s current economy and struggle with unemployment. Leadership is also a big concern, for reasons of church politics. Despite the struggles with leadership, the leaders that they do have are committed, and there are many youth and women that are ready to serve, and do so with enthusiasm. Another challenge the current Mennonite Brethren Church of Colombia faces is that of theological education. Despite the emphasis of education in the early missionary years, the Mennonite Brethren have been relying on other denominational institutions for higher theological education, not yet having established it’s own resource; the lack of the Anabaptist core in those institutions is a concern.

Personas importantes en la vida de la iglesia

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Recursos Electrónicos

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Bibliografía anotada

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