Missionary Gas

They're big on special days here. There´s a Secretary's Day with a longer coffee break, a Pastor´s Day with extra meetings and a Teacher's Day when the souck-soucks try to improve their marks. On Sunday it was Father's Day. And it was hard luck if you happened to be male and were in our church that day. The pastor took one of Paul's strong denunciation passages and applied it unremittingly to fathers: liars, cheats, adulterers. At the end every male had to stand up, confess his sins to God, while the ladies remained seated and prayed for these weak specimens. I thought of remaining seated but didn't have the guts. Then we were all presented with a digital alarm clock. A really kind gesture but I couldn´t help thinking that it was to get us up earlier in the mornings. At least it wasn't like another church where the men were given aprons. I blame the Virgin Mary for it all. In popular Latin theology Jesus is either the bloodied and hopeless; or the helpless b...

Last night more flash floods came and this time the Seminary was caught in their flow. The previous week 28 had been killed in another part of the city as the waters swept down an illegal rubbish tip. As darkness fell at 7 o´clock there were repeated flashes of lightning close at hand and then the torrential rain, and an hour later the muddy waters, rocks and bits of trees rushed by the front gates of the seminary. In the morning came the news one local man had been killed. Medellín is in the Andes, not that far from the equator, and the thunder, lightning and rain can be like special effects in a Count Dracula film. Thankfully our flat is two stories up. My office, one storey up, is now drying out. How do people cope? On Saturday as rains hit an open air market and stallholders rushed to protect their livelihoods, Olwen sympathized with one lady. "Don`t worry", she said, "I´m dry and warm inside myself". It's a great thing always to be positive and the Christia...

There is a popular belief that deaths come in threes. As superstitions can be dismissed, so can that one. Now, in the past week there were some deaths connected with the Seminary - em... three of them. The first involved the revenge killing of a man who lived near the Seminary grounds. Most of us are treated to actors' presentations of being shot. But the sight of the real thing caused one of students, by no means a weakling, to be physically sick. The second death concerned the father of the Seminary bookshop manager. It was for similar reasons and he was found with bullet holes in the head. The third occurred yesterday, the wife of the Seminary chaplain. The phrase a "mother in Israel" comes to mind as students testified to her love for them. About 300 attended her funeral which is the more surprising because funerals are the same day as the death. Henry, her grieving husband was bodily supported as he came to the service and spoke of her as being the love of his life. ...