Accompaniment With PPF
Upcoming Colombia Delegation
February 2025
Are you discerning? Already devoted? Deciding what comes next?
Join us on a meaningful journey of connection, community, and solidarity as a delegation representing the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship heads to Colombia to celebrate 20 years of shared ministry and explore the future of this partnership.
When? Approximately 10 days in the last two weeks of February 2025, subject to the schedule of participants.
Where? Urabá and Barranquilla, Colombia
How do I know if this is right for me?
Are you eager to embrace siblings across cultures, to learn, and to offer your time and presence?
Are you physically able to travel under challenging circumstances?
Does your faith call you to nonviolence, and to be a witness and source of accompaniment to those living with frequent violence?
Can you commit to providing education for others upon your return?
Where can I find out more information? RSVP your interest, and we’ll be in touch!
Walking Together for Peace
The road to peace looks different in different parts of the world — but no matter where you are, it helps to walk the road together. Presbyterian Peace Fellowship has been invited to walk with community leaders in the Iglesia Presbiteriana de Colombia and the Centro de Atencion al Migrante “Exodus,” sending accompaniers to the U.S. Mexico border and to northern Colombia. Accompaniers listen, learn, and return home to share stories of peacebuilding.
Accompaniment begins with a long weekend of training and discernment in the U.S. At this three-day gathering, people who are interested in accompaniment gather to train in non-violence and anti-racism, engage with accompaniment principles, learn about the contexts in which we have been invited to practice accompaniment, and spend time in discernment and reflection. You organize your own travel to the Learn & Discern event; all costs are covered while you’re there (lodging and food).
“Being an acompañante is to engage in the ministry of presence.
It’s not about changing, fixing, or even helping. It’s not about analyzing or diagnosing, recommending or advising. It’s about being there as wholly and fully as possible, present to God’s movement within you and those you came to stand beside.”
— Susan Webb, accompanier in Barranquilla, Colombia in 2008
What is accompaniment?
As PPF uses the work, accompaniment means being physically present at the invitation of local partners in places where violence exists or has been threatened so that, by proximity to the power accompaniers represent, partners feel and are safer.
In 2019, PPF drafted these principles of accompaniment as we practice it.
There are three main accompaniment commitments:
✝️ Accompaniment is witness (or bearing witness):
As an accompanier, your presence has been requested because local partners believe it will increase their safety. Your presence says, “someone cares about what happens here.” Accompaniers spend one month with local partners, bearing witness to their experiences.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
📢 Accompaniment is amplification (or sharing stories):
Accompaniers serve as a megaphone, amplifying the voices of people who may be silenced or ignored by those in power. For many accompaniers, this means presenting on their accompaniment experiences at their places of worship, sharing with community groups, and writing to their representatives — making sure to center the voices and perspectives of those who are building peace in their own communities.
✊ Accompaniment is advocacy (or taking action):
Wherever you serve, a key part of your work will be engaging in advocacy after your return to the U.S. This may mean writing to legislators, signing letters and petitions, or other advocacy actions suggested by global partners to move the U.S. government away from participation in violence and toward peace and humanity.
Anyone who is interested in accompaniment is welcome to learn and discern in community with PPF!
Are you called to accompaniment service?
Locations
PPF accompaniers have been invited to be present in two contexts globally – Colombia and Agua Prieta, Sonora (Mexico).
COLOMBIA
In 2004 the Iglesia Presbiteriana de Colombia requested the presence of accompaniers from the U.S. to support church leaders working for peace in the midst of a decades-long civil war. PPF accompaniers have been a consistent presence since then, primarily in the Presbytery of Urabá and the Presbytery of the Coast in northern Colombia. Peace Accords were signed between the Colombian government and the FARC in 2016, but the need for accompaniment is ongoing — as our partners in the IPC say, “Peace signed is not peace realized.”
AGUA PRIETA
In 2019 a group of community organizations in Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico requested the presence of accompaniers at Centro de Atención al Migrante “Exodus” (CAME), a migrant shelter south of the U.S./Mexico border. The cartel which controls the Agua Prieta has a practice of extorting hundreds or thousands of dollars from asylum seekers waiting at the border, and threatening violence if people don’t pay. Because CAME freely offers travelers a safe place to stay, shelter staff and volunteers have received intimidation from the cartel. The visible presence of U.S. citizens increases the safety of CAME at low risk to accompaniers.