Mennonite World Conference 2009

What can be said about MWC? It was an amazing event to be part of.

We left Santa Cruz on Monday night, Jul.13, together with others from Bolivia...some fellow MCCers, some from the Mennonite church of Bolivia, a group from the Mennonite church of Argentina that had stopped in Santa Cruz for a visit. It was great to be on this long bus ride with familiar faces. We arrived in Asuncion the next evening. Since we were so many on the bus coming to the conference, we had the driver drop us off about one block away from the CFA building where the conference took place. This probably saved us at about 2 hours of travelling time. We had spent 23 hours on the bus.

We arrived at the center, and after some confusion about our registrations, finally managed to get our nametags. We were told that our bus would be leaving in 5 minutes to take us to our "campamento" where we would be staying for the week. Well, we were all very tired, and yes a little grumpy as well, we hadn't had a decent meal since the day before, and now it looked like we would not have time to eat supper. Thankfully, we met Lizette from MCC Bolivia who told us that the line-up for supper was done, so we would be able to head downstairs quickly, get our food and eat, and then we should still be able to make the bus. Well, we decided that we would take her advice so we quickly wolfed down the supper, basically ran the 3 blocks to where the buses were waiting, found the one going to Campamento Tuparenda, and got on, thinking that we just barely made it. Well, I think we sat on the bus for an hour and a half before we finally left. Were we glad we had taken time to eat first!:) Most of the people on the bus were quited tired, but you wouldn't have known it by the level of noise going on. Everyone was talking and many new friendships were formed during the "bus" time.

Basically, the schedule for the week consisted of 2 worships services every day, one in the morning and another late afternoon. In the afternoons, people could participate in one of the many great workshops going on, they could choose to go on one of the many interesting tours being offered, or they could just hang out, relax, listen to some amazing outdoor concerts, or visit the exhibition tents. Since we had cold weather for the whole week, many people also went to the Yerba booth and enjoyed the hot Mate' being offered there. Hans and I did go there as well, but only once. Lunch and supper were provided at the CFA center, and even though it seems an overwhelming task to serve 6000 people a meal, the volunteers who were in charge of this did exactly that, usually in about 1 hour. The dining hall seated 2000 people, so it took 3 shifts to get everyone fed. When everyone got through the line-up, the volunteers gave a loud cheer, as if to say "Yes, we managed to feed them once again!" The food was good. One thing that they did at the conference was spray people's hands regularly with antibacterial spray so as to lower the chance of people getting sick. After supper, everyone headed to their bus to be transported to their place of sleeping. We usually left our camp at 7:00 a.m., and returned in the evening around 10:00. It was always a long day, and we only slept and ate breakfast at our camp.

The kids had their own places of gathering for the week. Taylan was with the Teens, ages 13-17. They had their own worship services, bands, games, and sports. He met a lot of new people and had a great time. The girls were with kids their own age and also had a wonderful time. They were sad when the week ended since they wouldn't see their new friends again.

I took part in 3 workshops at the conference. One was on family violence, one on church conflict, and one on forgiveness. I learned a lot in the church conflict one. We had to analyze ourselves, how we deal with conflict, would it be perfect if everyone dealt with conflict the way I do (NO!), and talked about how we can respect, listen, and communicate when there is conflict. But I would say that the workshop on forgiveness was especially meaningful for me. The speaker, Herman Bontrager, was the spokesperson for the Amish Nickel Mines community when there school shootings took place there. He said that for the Amish, forgiveness is a natural part of life. How could one not forgive? One of the families who had lost a child in the shootings had said "we weren't thinking about forgiving, we were thinking about our child. we are glad that the community could offer forgiveness during this time." And then we talked about how it was a community type of forgiveness. Very interesting stuff. There's a good book about this shooting event called Amish Grace.

We got to see a lot of people from our home church which was awesome! We also saw others from home, people we know from Paraguay, some exMCCers, and also met many new people. I am definitely happy to be part of such a large, diverse group of people of faith.