Presbyterian Peace Fellowship - News of Colombia

Dear Friends of PPF Accompaniment -

This message comes from a small Presbyterian Peace Fellowship (PPF) team looking at the possibility of re-creating an accompaniment program at the request of the Presbyterian Church of Colombia. (Scroll down for more about the exploration that we are calling Accompaniment 2.0.)

Also at the request of la Iglesia Presbiteriana de Colombia (IPC), we write to ask you to join in prayer for Colombia on Pentecost, May 24, 2026. The Colombian national elections will take place the following Sunday, May 31. PPF is honored to be a sponsor of this Day of Prayer and Action for Peace in Colombia.

Partners in Colombia are preparing some accompanying resources, which we will share with you when they are made available.

Let us pray for Colombians who live with ongoing violence and fear that democracy is fragile.

In peace,

Linda Eastwood, Harry Eberts, Sarah Henken, Tricia Lloyd-Sidle

 

PPF Accompaniment History

The Colombia Accompaniment Program was initiated in 2004 when the Iglesia Presbiteriana de Colombia requested support due to severe threats to leaders and communities due to a decades-long armed conflict. It was a joint mission/peacemaking effort of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship (PPF) with the Iglesia Presbiteriana de Colombia (IPC).

In 2019, a group of community organizations in Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico, requested the presence of accompaniers due to threats of violence against leaders and community members serving at a migrant ministry/shelter.

All accompaniment personnel activity abruptly ended in March 2020 with the onset of the Covid pandemic. The tri-national leadership team continued meeting online for over a year, but eventually the Accompaniment Program officially ended.

As a result of conversations, prayers, and visits, we now find ourselves asking ourselves: 10 years into the Colombian peace process, what would an accompaniment program look like?

 

Next Steps

We acknowledge that creating a new accompaniment program is a huge challenge for many reasons, including the current context in the U.S., the current context in Colombia, the mechanics of any kind of program, and the funding.

 

We also know that the need is greater than ever; that the IPC’s request has worked through three presbyteries and the synod; that there are multiple PCUSA entities and partners with strong interest in Colombia (including several presbyteries that have partnerships with presbyteries in Colombia). 

 

Our PPF team is working with an IPC team. While no concrete plans have been made, there are general points of agreement about ways the Colombia Accompaniment Program 2.0 might differ from what our program looked like from 2004-2020. 

 

The original model involved pairs of accompaniers scheduled for month-long terms of service. For the first five years of the program this allowed for continuous protective community presence of accompaniers with IPC partners and allies who were threatened, based at the north coast presbytery offices in Barranquilla, which were under surveillance due to their work supporting human rights. Only one of the accompaniers needed to speak Spanish if they agreed to help their partner with key communication and general understanding of what was going on. At the five-year evaluation, it was determined that the context allowed for some relaxing of the continuous presence, and teams were sent as often as possible, still typically for a month at a time, and were based either in Barranquilla or in the Urabá presbytery. In rural Urabá, where around 80% of Presbyterian church members have been displaced or are direct victims of the armed conflict, accompaniers generally moved around the presbytery and spent several days at a time living as guests in particular church communities. 

 

Accompaniment 2.0 might look a bit more like the Urabá model, with a series of immersive visits to vulnerable communities. The accompaniers would need to have a higher degree of astuteness and strong language skills to support them in being able to move independently.

Your prayers are appreciated as we continue this exploration of a possible Accompaniment 2.0.