Missionary Gas

Last Wednesday I heard that our valiant Rector was seriously ill with the flu, as was Catalina, his daughter. Soon afterwards the Administrative Director and the Communications' Director were taken unwell. Receptionists appeared with face masks on, but illnesses continued and the Academic Secretary succumbed. It seemed to be just hitting important people. A compulsory meeting was called and a doctor explained about flu prevention. Recklessly I didn't go for I knew that if someone describes symptoms, within the hour I'll have the illness Unfortunately the person who called the meeting, the Vice-Rector, became genuinely unwell. As is Patty Reaño. Swine fever? Neah. The weather's changing: there's a coolness at night, rains are ferocious and the thunder would scare a vampire. Over 150 of us live or work on campus so a flu epidemic is possible. But the Great Physician is here too, and even has time for us hypochondri

It's been a Bank Holiday weekend to celebrate the Ascension of Mary. The local supermarket opened a beer tent and encouraged tango dancing in the forecourt. Otherwise it's been quiet enough: a gambling entrepreneur was assassinated and boys are flying kites. The Seminary was shut for the day. In Colombia there are 18 bank holidays, equivalent to nearly 4 weeks of work. They interfere with the ordinary rhythm of study and students get disorientated. On today's return to classes, I was in early, got set up and waited. The class eventually arrived in a bit of a confused state. At the end someone asked if we were always going to be in this room Only then did I realize I'd gone up one floor too many, and taught in the wrong place. One of the first things the Reformers did was to chuck out saints' days. Great, life's confusing enough without the bodily ascent of the Virgin Mary getting in the way. Photo: Latin America is a con

For more than a year I've been buying a newspaper from a small boy who occupies a traffic island at a busy intersection. Like many of Medellín's street youngsters he's emaciated and of indeterminate age with a wild look in his eyes. For the last two weeks he had disappeared. Today he was back and told me his story. He´d been in the city centre, was attacked and knifed. As a packed bus pulled up beside us, he zipped down his top and showed me the slash marks and stitches. The El Colombiano I bought said an extra 1300 police have been employed: Violence is escalating. Everyday my eyes are compulsively drawn upwards. The Andean cloud formations couldn't be repeated by special effects people: they wow your sensations, rejig your mind, and, oh my God - they´re always changing. It's been reported that 70 people have recently been murdered in our area of the city. Yet just above this scene "the heavens declare the glory of God&

On Friday night I attended the award ceremony for the Peace Prize of the World Methodist Council. I took my video camera along in case there was a fight. But the stage was filled with portly clerics who looked as if their copies of Wesley´s Journal were missing the bits on fasting. Jeannine Brabon, one of our lecturers, received the award for her 22 years of going into one of the world´s worst prisons. Medellín´s Bellavista prison holds 7000 violent men in a 1500 capacity institution and the inmates are in control. Jeannine is one of those naive Christians who believe that you should go into a lion´s den with prayer and a big, floppy Bible. Quite a few of her tamed lions were at the award ceremony. The criteria for the Prize are courage, creativity and dedication. Creativity is typical of missionary work and there's an opportunity just now. At our Seminary prayer meeting a pastor´s wife reported that in the last month 25 people had been mur