Lay down your weapons

Dorothy Siebert

The phone rang in our home in Bogota, Colombia. I recognized the voice of Alberto, a church member, but why was he whispering? "I have a young cousin who has arrived in the city," he said. "Actually, she just defected from the guerrilla army and is staying secretly with us. Her name is Lilia. Would you tell her about Jesus? Can she come to visit you?"

My mind tumbled over itself. I'd never personally talked with a guerrilla soldier. I felt nervous, but excited too. "Of course," I said. "I would love to tell her about Jesus."

"Good! I'll bring her myself," he explained, "because she's never been in the city before and would get lost. She's been camping out on the mountainsides for the last nine years. I'll leave you alone with her and then pick her up after a couple of hours."

Replacing the phone, my mind raced. Guerrillas! They were the plague of tormented Colombia. Our road travels were severely restricted, and we prayed for safety, always on the alert for guerrilla roadblocks. Unpredictable bomb blasts had rocked the city for months at a time. A car bomb exploding in our neighbourhood had damaged our house and shattered my nerves. And I had seen much deeper pain in other families, when several missionaries I knew had been kidnapped by guerrillas.

I tried to imagine the other side--Lilia's life. Alberto told me she had joined the guerrillas at age 16. When they took over her village, she'd been enamoured with the camouflage uniforms and the AK17s. Once she had joined, there was no going back. She was an outlaw and could never return to her village. In nine years, she hadn't seen her parents or family. Now, only 25 years old, she was an experienced terrorist. While other Colombians went about their daily schedules in offices and factories, she had gone about hers, blowing up bridges and oil pipelines and massacring people in cold blood.

What could I tell her about Jesus? I paged through the New Testament. The story of Jesus as a good shepherd guarding the sheepfold against robbers caught my eye, and I prayed hard that my words would make an impact on her heart.

When she arrived, I saw a well toned young woman with a tanned face, a face whose features could have shone with beauty had they not been set in stone. Unlike other young people I have met, she showed no emotions. We sat at the table, with the Bible open. We ate cookies together and drank coffee. But all along, I felt I was talking to a statue. She kept staring at me as though she couldn't hear me. I spoke, but her eyes and facial expressions remained dazed and distant.

In my heart, I was calling to the Lord to give me the right words. Out loud, I patiently explained how different a leader Jesus was from the cruel leaders she'd been subject to. Like the thieves in the story, who steal the sheep, those leaders had robbed and killed. Their hearts were harsh and loveless. Jesus, in contrast, was gentle. He didn't lead by rough shouts and rude demands. Jesus loved her and wanted to kindly lead her.

But Lilia couldn't absorb much of what I said. She was in shock. Other than her cousin's house, she had not been inside a home for nine years, much less sat at a table drinking out of the china cup of an enemy <I>gringa<P>!

When she left, I felt deflated. I had been so eager for my words to have an impact, so determined to win her over.

Then a new insight cut across the grooves of my conventional thinking. In the doorway, looking down on the flowers of my front courtyard, I saw a fuchsia plant spilling its lavish burgundy blooms over the walkway. Shouldered up against them, a clay planter swelled with heavy geranium heads. Above them towered rose bushes a metre and a half high, bursting with fat, full-blown roses. "I am right here, Dorothy," I could hear the Lord say.

"Lord," I sighed, "I was so eager for her to meet You, for her to know the truth of Your love. It feels as though nothing happened."

How gently an answer came to me. I had thought it was my words that would penetrate, that would conquer her. "Lay down your weapons, Dorothy, your words. This is about love."

But we trained headhunters do not readily lay down our weapons.

"Truth and beauty," the thought persisted, "walk together to show My love. Truth strides with a heavy tread. But beauty steps lightly ahead and joyfully flings open the doors for truth to stride through. Lay down your weapons, Dorothy. Enjoy Me, and she will enjoy Me, too."

Lilia had laid down her guns and knives to come and meet God. With no idea what to expect, she had risked seeking God in the home of a foreigner. I had believed my words could show Him to her--my words, my weapons.

Next time, we would simply walk in the garden.

Dorothy Siebert, together with her husband Harold, worked as MBMS International missionaries in Latin America. They are now on study leave in Winnipeg, Man.

Return to the M.B. Herald Vol. 38, No. 2 Home Page