Last Saturday, November 18th, we
held the year’s final workshop at the House of Reconciliation and Peace Education, a ministry of the Emmaus Lutheran Church, in the city of Medellin. This workshop
was the final gathering of a yearlong certificate process called “Conflict,
Justice, and Reconciliation”, in which the Emmaus Lutheran Church in Medellin
organized trainings on a number of issues regarding peace-building efforts in
the city and in Colombia in general.
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| The workshop group after lunch. Photo by Pastor John Hernandez. |
This was the first year of the House of
Reconciliation and Peace Education and the certificate training course was the
first project. We focused this final workshop on exploring the relationship
between four main components of reconciliation which they have been focusing on
in the certificate course: justice, truth, forgiveness, and love.
We explored how these four can interact in order to strengthen peace-building initiatives,
and how they relate to the current process of Colombia regarding transitional
justice mechanisms, truth seeking processes which will hopefully lead to
forgiveness, and how love holds it all together.
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| The personification of truth, justice, love and forgiveness in a group interview about peace-building in Colombia. Photo by Pastor Jairo Suarez. |
As we finished the workshop, 15 excited
members of the House of Reconciliation received their diplomas. This left a lot
of excitement for future plans of working towards implementing in practice all
that they have been studying this year.
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| Everyone with their diplomas at the end of the day. Photo by a member of the House of Reconciliation. |
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| Adi Martinez, member of the House of Reconciliation and student of Theology, after receiving her diploma. Photo by Pastor Jairo Suarez. |
