Missionary Gas

It was an angry woman's voice on the phone which shouted at me: "I knew that you went there. I know it's you." Being a coward I put down the receiver. Embarrassingly, Olwen and another two lady missionaries overheard what she said. Wrong number phone calls are frequent and usually of the type, "Could I speak to Cesar". That one showed up something that's boosted a particular demand in the Catholic Church over Easter: the need for confession and peace. A friend who's served a prison sentence for murder and was released a few years ago, still tries to work through what he says is his debt to society. But much of missionary endeavour is spent in bettering the existence of the poor. It's intriguing that when they first saw Jesus they didn't say, "Behold the one who takes away poverty" but, "Behold the one who takes away the sin of the world". Guilt and personal sin are more destructive than wretched financial hardship. Thankfu

Now that the talk of war is over, conversation has drifted to the next major topic: the building of a supermarket at the bottom of the road. The work started 6 months ago and is due to finish today. Shopping in Medellín is not for those with fluttering hearts. Olwen either goes to the city centre which can feel like a crowded London underground after a bomb's gone off. She loves it, I find I need one hand on my wallet, one on my hat and one on her. Or we can go to a sumptuous suburban shopping mall which seems to have a strict dress code: only the fashionable may enter. There is also a chain of supermarkets throughout the city called, Éxito, literally "success". Here clothing, computers and cauliflowers are stacked high and we're told, sold low. It´s an Éxito that is being built locally at the corner of a major traffic-jam area. Everyone is delighted and sees it as part of the city's modernization. Few think of the pollution, the effect on local trading and the pr

Educated at University, he loved the opera, the theatre and communism. By the time Ivan Rios was 40 he was the most prominent of the younger FARC leaders. The area he commanded, not far from here, recently came under severe pressure from the Colombian forces, and his men weren't even allowed to light a fire to heat their food. Eventually some of his bodyguard surrendered to the Colombian army with his ID card, his laptop and his severed right hand. They'd murdered him and were claiming the 5 million pesos ransom. This was reported the same day the Colombian President hugged the Venezuelan and Ecuadorian Presidents in the Dominican Republic and ended the international war threat. If Olwen had been there she would have throttled the Venezuelan man instead. The following day at a major Colombian soccer match, the two managers fought at the pitch side, fans battled like gladiators and 80 people were injured. La Violencia is the term that is used for some of Colombia's recent hi

We've just registered with the British Embassy in Bogotá because of the threat of war. Our missionary colleagues in Latin Link have made contingency plans for leaving the country. Troops and tanks are threatening Colombia north and south. Silly songs about Ecuador and Venezuela play on the radio and a neighbour was out panic buying. It all started on Saturday morning when Raul Reyes, a bad rascal, was killed by Colombian forces He was the second in command of FARC, the main left-wing guerrilla movement in the country. There was widespread rejoicing. Even children's television was interrupted with the news. The trouble was that to kill him Colombian troops went across the border into Ecuador. By Sunday, Ecuador's allies Venezuela had threatened Colombia with war and sent 10 battalions to the northern border. On Monday Ecuador had troops facing Colombia in the south. And on Tuesday Colombia analysed the captured FARC computers and made an international cas