After being expelled from China, some of the Bethlehem missionaries found a new area of work in Colombia. It was the first foreign mission of the Bethlehem Mission Society in South America – and later the first country with team assignments.
The first area of engagement of the Bethlehem Missionaries in Latin America was in the northernmost land of South America. The extensive fruitful land areas have long been in the hands of a few land owners. This increasingly forced landless Campesinos into impassable, undeveloped, mountain areas in the southern Cordillera where they take possession of, or acquire, a piece of land and gradually build villages. These people who are baptised and raised as Catholics, lack adequate political, legal and spiritual services.
As a result of the invitation and pressure of the Archbishop of Popayan in the 1950s, the Mission Society Bethlehem sent the missionaries who had been expelled from communist China to the south-west Cordilleras between Popayan and Pasto. The priests who were no longer young lived there in the midst of the people – without streets, electricity, running water – without any living comfort. They visited the people in remote hamlets, gathered them for instructions and church services, und encouraged them to live together in solidarity with mutual respect and dignity.
The Second Vatican Council and the General Chapter of 1967 of the Mission Society that followed gave the impulse that the area in Colombia in the care of the former Chinese missionaries should no longer only be understood as Church in Need, but as Church – and society – in the process of development, consequently a true mission area.
Mobile teams together with laypersons
In the 1960s a project developed with group engagements. Teams set together with people from different professions. (nurses, social workers/family helpers, priests, agronomists) had as their goal the integral development of communities. The assistance of the teams was to reactivate the enfeebled strength of the population from the economic, social and church points of view so that they could continue out of their own initiative to build up their communities and thereby integrate the awakened Christian community.
Mobile mixed teams were now also working in communities which were formerly in the care of only one missionary and with their community living played a part in encouraging a positive change in the communities. They helped in the training of specialist and leadership personnel in handwork (carpenter), nutrition (housekeeping, horticulture), health (nurses) and catechetics.
The work in Colombia today
Today two members are working in the field if indigenous and human rights pastoral work in an area where violence and terror reign as it is a mineral-rich area A further member escorts indigenous groups on the Pacific coast and a fourth missionary works in the colonial city of Popayan in the management of the regional seat of the Mission Society.
Examples of team assignments in Colombia
In the summer of 1970, the four members of the newly formed team met in Bogota: the nurse from her assignment in Haiti, the social worker from Brazil, the priest from his assignment in Munich and the agronomist from Immensee.
They got to know each other better while studying the language and learning about the situation and conditions in Colombia. The young team, guided by a social psychologist, jointly agreed on the working method of the Brazilian Paulo Freire.
In the village of Leiva, in the Western Cordillera, where the Bethlehem missionary Fridolin Höin had been working for two years, the team began visiting the people in the villages and hamlets. This helped them get an idea of the reality in which the people lived. It also created an initial relationship of trust with the people with whom they wanted to set out on their journey and with whom they were prepared to share their lives.
Dialogue as a basic attitude
Meanwhile, the members of the team orientated themselves according to the professions they had brought with them: the nurse had the previously unoccupied infirmary full of patients after just a few days, the priest was called into the extensive parish.
The social worker and the agronomist were the only ones the campesinos could not fit in, nor did they see what they could be used for. With patience, they sought contact with the people and gradually created groups interested in their proposals. There was not much left of Freire’s systematic, strict working method – raising awareness with the aim of bringing about change.
Nevertheless, all members of the team tried to maintain the habit of talking to the people, dialogue as a basic attitude, respect for the opinions of others and the desire to learn from them. Over the years, the nurse was able to train a handful of girls as nurses, and the social worker left behind a group of women who were well motivated to make improvements.
Change in society
Together as a group, the members of the SMB team organised a leadership course for men and women. After some time, the women gave positive feedback: their men had become different, more responsible, more willing to talk, less violent and open to change.
Also as a joint effort and under the construction management of Brother Carlos, a centre was built to accommodate rural children and enable them to attend the village school.
With the decision of the SMB General Chapter in 1967 to carry out targeted missionary and community-building work in Colombia, a new challenge arose for the older former China missionaries. To meet this challenge, the SMB leadership in Popayan, Colombia, with Luis Alfonso Wolfisberg as its regional superior, set up a mobile team to assist them in their pastoral work.
Marius Andrey and Rosmarie Gisler, who had already gained many years of experience in pastoral work with the campesino population in the parish of Argelia/Cauca, were tasked with forming the team.
Hope through self-efficacy
In several parishes, a fruitful collaboration developed between the local priest and the team. The local priest, with his contacts to the people, selected the candidates for further education and training, while the “Equipo”, as the team was known in the local language, developed didactic materials and organised the courses.
Over time, each community had well-motivated and trained leaders who took responsibility for their residential and church communities and helped people to improve the quality of their lives through techniques in home economics, nutrition and health. People’s lives, including those of the missionaries on their lonely posts, changed: hope appeared where people had felt forgotten and abandoned.
Under the initiative and leadership of Rosmarie Gisler, the activities of the “Movil” team gave rise to the “La Josefina” centre for the training of female promotoras (animators), who then made themselves available to the rural parishes for the training of women. At the same centre, Brother missionary Alois Arnold trained carpenters, whose work made the homes of the campesinos habitable, making life in remote mountain areas acceptable.