In the early morning of Jan. 3, I couldn’t sleep. Against my better judgment, I turned on my phone and saw the news that the U.S. military had carried out an operation to apprehend acting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and remove him from the country. I did not fall back asleep. 

My family and I lived in Bogotá, Colombia, and worked with Mennonite Central Committee as Venezuela’s crisis accelerated in the late 2010s. As inflation skyrocketed, Venezuelan migrants began to settle across the region, traveling as far as Chile and Brazil to find political refuge or economic stability. 

Anabaptist churches in Colombia and Ecuador responded with ministries that provided humanitarian aid and helped families enroll children in school, access health care and understand shifting processes to obtain legal status. At the same time, Anabaptist churches in Venezuela kept in touch with sister churches throughout the Andean region, sharing ministry updates and prayer concerns.

In other words, South American Anabaptists were intimately aware of Venezuela’s challenges and the damage wrought by the Maduro regime. Yet when the U.S. military removed Maduro and his wife from the country, many reacted with alarm. They knew the high cost Venezuelans had paid under Maduro but were also acutely aware of the history and fallout of U.S. intervention in the region.

Within just a few days, Anabaptist churches in Argentina, Colombia and Guatemala had published comunicados on social media in response to the situation. Public statements, or comunicados, are common in Latin America, a way to speak into current events as a faith community. 

A primary theme in these messages was solidarity, expressed first through prayer and followed by action. Mennonite theologian John Driver, himself deeply shaped by Latin American Anabaptism, understood solidarity as central to Christian spirituality, a pathway for joining in Christ’s joy, suffering and resurrection alongside others. Such spirituality was apparent in the comunicados. 

Casa Horeb, a Mennonite church in Guatemala City, committed itself to pray “for the resilient Venezuelan people.” We call “out to God for true peace and for a justice that affirms the dignity of life of the Venezuelan people,” wrote the Iglesia Cristiana Menonita de Colombia. The Iglesia Anabautista Menonita de Buenos Aires encouraged communities of faith to “deepen their prayers for peace and justice.”

In addition to prayer, they urged their communities to act. The Buenos Aires church called people of faith “to be active in defending life and human dignity.” From Guatemala, Casa Horeb committed itself to walk alongside those who “suffer the consequences of instability and violence” in their own communities. Through their close connections with Venezuelans on both sides of the Colombia-Venezuela border, the Colombian Mennonite Church promised to continue accompanying the Venezuelan community in “this moment of uncertainty.” 

The clarity of witness in these comunicados struck me. I wondered what acts of solidarity the church in the U.S. could engage in response. It was our country, after all, that had removed Venezuela’s president. The ­comunicados reminded me that solidarity in Christ leads not just to a deeper spiritual relationship with one another but also calls us to face geopolitical, social and economic forces. 

Our vision statement at the Institute for the Study of Global Anabaptism at Goshen College is “to enrich Anabaptist scholarship and communities through global connection and storytelling.” We support and share Anabaptist scholarship, with particular attention to histories originating beyond European-descendant Anabaptist communities. 

This work is spiritual for me as director of the ISGA. Stories are a form of witness, an opportunity for the Spirit to convict and affirm, as well as an invitation to relationship. I have been challenged through the stories we encounter. I hope to share some of them with you in this column. 

The moral clarity of the calls to prayer and action that came through in the comunicados challenged me to be bolder, more connected and more deeply rooted in prayer from my own location in Goshen, Ind. Their invitation is extended to all of you, as well. In the words of the Iglesia Cristiana Menonita de Colombia: “May the love of Christ be our bridge, our hope and our pathway to reconciliation.” 

Through this column, I look forward to exploring the ways that our shared stories can reveal the power of Christ’s love to build bridges among our many communities and to sustain our collective hope.