WINNIPEG Norman Brown’s goal: to distribute the Plautdietsch (Low German) Bible free of charge to every home in Bolivia. Since Kindred Productions released De Bibel in 2003, the Winnipegger has…
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Bolivia
Four-year-old Oscar Yoadel loves the playground at his daycare, Guarderia Samuelito. He runs endlessly back and forth across the brightly-painted suspension bridge. And with a big grin descends the metal slide after his father, Oscar Pinto, climbed with him to the top.
Cochabamba, Bolivia The children come running out of the prison gates with their backpacks on, saying goodbye to the guards, ready to begin their day at Casa de la Amistad,…
“My heart was crumbling to the ground, hearing what had happened to mothers and girls about what they now have to deal with in their lives,” says Helen Funk about the Old Colony Mennonite women in Bolivia. But the Family Life Network radio host also has good news from the region.
As criminal investigation continues into gang rape allegations on some Mennonite colonies in Bolivia, local congregations see a need to reach out to people dealing with addictions, sexual abuse, and violence against women.
Susanna, 15, “felt presences” at night and prayed for God to help her because “the devil had been there.”
The story of Mennonite men drugging and raping women on Old Colony Mennonite settlements in Bolivia hit the news summer 2009, from local Spanish papers to The Guardian Weekly in the UK. Meanwhile, English-language Mennonite media has given it scant reportage as Mennonites from conservative to evangelical struggle to respond appropriately – if at all.
Mennonite Central Committee is urging people not to judge the Old Order Mennonite colony that grabbed international headlines in July with shocking stories of mass rape.