Our First Workshop

11 May 2015 - Monday

I'm standing outside listening to the persistent hum of cicadas in every surrounding tree. Down the street someone is celebrating, a large band playing – mostly in tune – as the laughs of revelers float between notes. The warm night is a relief after the hot, humid day, the air less suffocating. It's a good time to be in Colombia.

Yesterday I was able to go to church again. It's funny how the whole city feels more comfortable now that I've come back home to it from a short trip, and that includes church here. It was nice to see familiar faces, to trade a couple of jokes, to give the closing prayer in one meeting. It makes me miss having a nice routine, but I came here for different reasons.

After church it was off to the Alta Montaña for our first youth workshop. A week and a half of sporadic planning have brought us to an unusual plan – the workshop is based on a set of "Serious Legos" that SembrandoPaz obtained a few years ago. Youth build models of themselves and their communities, then work in groups to build a shared vision of the future. Through this "hands-on, minds-on" tactic we strive to help participants and facilitators gain new perspectives on the needs and capabilities of youth in each community. Our goal is to get representatives from each area who can later come together and share what they learned in the workshops to build an over-arching project proposal for the youth organizations in this rural zone. It's an ambitious plan, but our small start should at least give an idea of its viability.

Our road into the Alta Montaña.

First, before we even began the workshop, our motorcycle ride there was glorious. We followed a winding dirt road that climbed and then plunged through forest and thickets, revealing layer upon layer of jagged hills covered in lush greenery. And riding through that country on motorcycle was somehow so freeing – wind rushing by, insect noises everywhere, the thick tropical air filling lungs and heart alike. I have rarely felt so alive.

The workshop itself, despite the unusual heat of the day, went quite well. (Note: I don't actually notice when one day is hotter than another because they all feel so stifling to me, so I rely on accounts from others for comparison.) The youth in Alta Montaña have been organized for a while, so they have several solid group efforts going and some beautiful goals, educational and otherwise. What struck me the most, however, was their vision of the intergenerational character of the work. They wanted to build so that others after them could continue these youth organizations. They wanted to build so that their children and grandchildren could build on the foundation. And as I listened to them talk, I was struck by the intergenerational character of everything that we do. We build on what our parents have given us, we never build completely anew; our children and grandchildren are likewise blessed and cursed. Real cultural change takes generations, but that is no reason to ease up in our efforts to change the world – indeed, it should make us work harder. If we can merely help cultivate a kinder, wiser, nobler view of the world in younger generations, the world will slowly approach God. "Shall we not go on and so great a cause?"

A picture from the workshop, with the youth working on Lego models of
themselves and their communities.