CALI, Colombia – For five decades, the South American country of Colombia has been at war with Marxist insurgents. Fighting can break out at any time in the scattered war zones, but that won’t stop the intrepid messenger of peace.
For years, missionary Russell Stendal distributed Christian literature to all sides of the conflict: guerrillas, paramilitaries, and government soldiers. He has made friends with all parties and his radio stations and solar receivers are paving the way.
Stendhal’s work was depicted in a film called “La Montana”, translated as “The Mountain”.
Stendal tries to reach areas where it is not possible to have church buildings or planned services and where it is not possible to do ordinary missionary or evangelistic work.
“And so we drop these radios on guerrilla camps by parachute. We distribute them to soldiers, we distribute them to paramilitary forces,” Stendal told CBN News.
Stendal gave away more than 120,000 solar-powered radios. Former journalist Dario Silva followed the conflict for years. He now pastors House on the Rock Church, one of the larger churches in Bogotá, and sends aid to suffering families in rural Colombia.
Mega disconnect
But Silva said there is a disconnect between Colombia’s megachurches and isolated and often persecuted believers.
“Churches, especially megachurches, tend to be very Laodicean,” Silva noted. “I have it all. I’m rich, aren’t I? But they are unaware of the problems our brothers are going through.”
Silva said hardship and persecution did not prevent the gospel from reaching the most remote corners of Colombia.
In fact, he remembers a guerrilla leader complaining, “Those Christians are the worst problem we have. Because we come to a remote part of the country with no electricity, no running water, no roads, no traffic, no parsonage or any political figure, and there’s always some nut with a black book under his arm preaching about Jesus!”
In the mountains and jungles of southwestern Colombia, guerrillas continue to destroy churches, drive out worshipers and kill pastors. Open Doors International reports that more pastors have been killed in Colombia than in any other democratic country in the world.
Commander Geronimo
The southwestern region of Colombia was home to Helmer, a FARC guerrilla commander known as Comandante Geronimo.
“When I became commander in the state of Cauca, I unleashed all this atheism against God’s people,” explained Helmer. “Firing pastors, closing churches, killing evangelicals because they didn’t pay attention to what we wanted them to do, denying Jesus Christ, denying God.”
But after years of persecuting Christians, Helmer realized he had failed.
“The more I chase them, the more they grow, they get stronger, they multiply. Then I said, ‘How come? If I’m trying to wipe them out and they grow more, they’re more fertile and they make a lot of progress… Then I start to doubt it,'” Helmer said.
These doubts led Helmer to a personal encounter with Jesus, whom he persecuted. Today his weapon is the Bible and he calls people to follow Christ instead of Karl Marx.
At the tipping point
Stendal believes that more than 100,000 fighters have become followers of Jesus and the conflict could reach a tipping point.
“Those who want to continue all this violence have a lot of problems now because there are enough Christians to really be salt and light,” Stendal said. “What used to be a spiritual black hole, we now consider at least 10 percent Christian in most areas.”
Indigenous Christians also spread the gospel. Alvaro Dagua from the Guambiano tribe manages two Christian radio stations.
He is very passionate about the power of radio, “because I was a product of radio,” he said.
“Radio evangelized me, radio taught me and radio inspired me,” Dagua told CBN News.
At a recent Christian media conference in Cali, Colombia, Daguy and other Guambianos spoke about reaching beyond their own tribe.
“If you walk into the virgin jungle for three days, you will find the Aguá tribe, which was not civilized,” Dagua said. “So we want to get there with our radio station, with the word of God, so that the Aguá tribe can inhabit the kingdom of heaven.”
Meanwhile, government negotiators are meeting with FARC guerrilla leaders in Havana, Cuba, and hopes are growing that a peace deal may soon end 50 years of Colombia’s internal violence.
But regardless of the outcome, evangelists use radio and literature to spread peace in the nation’s conflict zones, one life at a time.
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